In the Pei-wen-yun-fu these
characters Kien-ki are frequently met in combination, meaning a silk
texture, such as brocade or tapestry.
Curtains made of this texture are
mentioned in Chinese books, as early as the commencement of the Christian
era." - H.C.]
Rashiduddin, in enumerating the Sings or great provincial governments of
the empire, has the following: "7th FUCHU. - This is a city of Manzi. The
Sing was formerly located at ZAITUN, but afterwards established here,
where it still remains. Zaitun is a great shipping-port, and the
commandant there is Bohauddin Kandari." Pauthier's Chinese extracts show
us that the seat of the Sing was, in 1281, at T'swan-chau, but was then
transferred to Fu-chau. In 1282 it was removed back to T'swan-chau, and in
1283 recalled to Fu-chau. That is to say, what the Persian writer tells us
of Fuju and Zayton, the Chinese Annalists tell us of Fu-chau and
T'swan-chau. Therefore Fuju and Zayton were respectively Fu-chau and
T'swan-chau.
[In the Yuen-shi (ch. 94), Shi po, Maritime trade regulations, it "is
stated, among other things, that in 1277, a superintendency of foreign
trade was established in Ts'uaen-chou. Another superintendency was
established for the three ports of K'ing-yuean (the present Ning-po),
Shang-hai, and Gan-p'u. These three ports depended on the province of
Fu-kien, the capital of which was Ts'uean-chou. Farther on, the ports of
Hang-chou and Fu-chou are also mentioned in connection with foreign trade.
Chang-chou (in Fu-kien, near Amoy) is only once spoken of there. We meet
further the names of Wen-chou and Kuang-chou as seaports for foreign trade
in the Mongol time. But Ts'uean-chou in this article on the sea-trade seems
to be considered as the most important of the seaports, and it is
repeatedly referred to. I have, therefore, no doubt that the port of Zayton
of Western mediaeval travellers can only be identified with Ts'uaen-chou,
not with Chang-chou.... There are many other reasons found in Chinese works
in favour of this view. Gan-p'u of the Yuen-shi is the seaport Ganfu of
Marco Polo." (Bretschneider, Med. Res. I. pp. 186-187.)
In his paper on Changchow, the Capital of Fuhkien in Mongol Times,
printed in the Jour. China B.R.A. Soc. 1888, pp. 22-30, Mr. Geo.
Phillips from Chinese works has shown that the Port of Chang-chau did, in
Mongol times, alternate with Chinchew and Fu-chau as the capital of
Fuh-kien. - H.C.]
Further, Zayton was, as we see from this chapter, and from the 2nd and 5th
of Bk. III., in that age the great focus and harbour of communication with
India and the Islands. From Zayton sailed Kublai's ill-fated expedition
against Japan. From Zayton Marco Polo seems to have sailed on his return
to the West, as did John Marignolli some half century later. At Zayton Ibn
Batuta first landed in China, and from it he sailed on his return.
All that we find quoted from Chinese records regarding T'swan-chau
corresponds to these Western statements regarding Zayton. For centuries
T'swan-chau was the seat of the Customs Department of Fo-kien, nor was
this finally removed till 1473. In all the historical notices of the
arrival of ships and missions from India and the Indian Islands during the
reign of Kublai, T'swan-chau, and T'swan-chau almost alone, is the port of
debarkation; in the notices of Indian regions in the annals of the same
reign it is from T'swan-chau that the distances are estimated; it was from
T'swan-chau that the expeditions against Japan and Java were mainly fitted
out. (See quotations by Pauthier, pp. 559, 570, 604, 653, 603, 643;
Gaubil, 205, 217; Deguignes, III. 169, 175, 180, 187; Chinese
Recorder (Foochow), 1870, pp. 45 seqq.)
When the Portuguese, in the 16th century, recovered China to European
knowledge, Zayton was no longer the great haven of foreign trade; but yet
the old name was not extinct among the mariners of Western Asia. Giovanni
d'Empoli, in 1515, writing about China from Cochin, says: "Ships carry
spices thither from these parts. Every year there go thither from Sumatra
60,000 cantars of pepper, and 15,000 or 20,000 from Cochin and Malabar,
worth 15 to 20 ducats a cantar; besides ginger (?), mace, nutmegs,
incense, aloes, velvet, European goldwire, coral, woollens, etc. The Grand
Can is the King of China, and he dwells at ZEITON." Giovanni hoped to get
to Zeiton before he died.[2]
The port of T'swan-chau is generally called in our modern charts
Chinchew. Now Chincheo is the name given by the old Portuguese
navigators to the coast of Fo-kien, as well as to the port which they
frequented there, and till recently I supposed this to be T'swan-chau. But
Mr. Phillips, in his paper alluded to at p. 232, asserted that by
Chincheo modern Spaniards and Portuguese designated (not T'swan-chau
but) Chang-chau, a great city 60 miles W.S.W. of T'swan-chau, on a river
entering Amoy Harbour. On turning, with this hint, to the old maps of the
17th century, I found that their Chincheo is really Chang-chau. But Mr.
Phillips also maintains that Chang-chau, or rather its port, a place
formerly called Gehkong and now Haiteng, is Zayton. Mr. Phillips does
not adduce any precise evidence to show that this place was known as a
port in Mongol times, far less that it was known as the most famous haven
in the world; nor was I able to attach great weight to the arguments which
he adduced. But his thesis, or a modification of it, has been taken up and
maintained with more force, as already intimated, by the Rev. Dr. Douglas.
The latter makes a strong point in the magnificent character of Amoy
Harbour, which really is one of the grandest havens in the world, and thus
answers better to the emphatic language of Polo, and of Ibn Batuta, than
the river of T'swan-chau.
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