Tianqi Lu-Boats in QingMingShangHeTu
Boats in QingMingShangHETu
Chinese shipbuilding industry has a long history. In the Neolithic Age, the Chinese had a canoe. During the Three Kingdoms period, the shipbuilding industry became more and more mature, and the northern forces and the southern forces engaged in a fierce maritime confrontation in Chibi (the Yangtze River Basin). Shipbuilding technology in China was the most advanced in the Song Dynasty. Because traffic was blocked on the roads due to ethnic minorities occupying the north in the Song Dynasty, the government opened a large number of sea routes to expand trade. Many types of ships were invented in the Song Dynasty. In the last Ming and Qing dynasties, the shipbuilding industry tended to be stable, and the strong shipbuilding background also enabled Zheng He of the Ming Dynasty to carry out seven ocean-going movements. We can see the variety of ancient Chinese ships in the Qingming Shanghe Picture in the Qing Dynasty version.
Firstly, there are several little passenger boats. We can see two small sailing boats with few people on the most right side of the picture. The size of the ship is so small and it only has two sails. I believe that this little passenger boat is used for two or three friends hiking or hurrying on to other places because it can move very quickly based on its size.
Secondly, There are plenty of junks with two sails appearing in the picture. Junk is a type of Chinese sailing ship with fully battened sails. The sail of Chinese junks is an adoption of the Malay junk sail, which used vegetable matting attached to bamboo battens, a practice oriented from Indonesia. (Johnstone 1980 page 191-192) Classic were built of softwoods with the outside shape built first. Then multiple internal compartment/bulkheads accessed by separate hatches and ladders, reminiscent of the interior structure of bamboo, were built in. Traditionally, the hull has a horseshoe-shaped stern supporting a high poop deck. (The masts, hull and standing rigging section of “ The Chinese sail by Brian Platt” (https://web.archive.org/web/20081201125515/http://www.friend.ly.net/users/dadadata/junk/platt/platt_chinese_sail.html) In the picture, we can see a group of people standing in the middle of the ship unloading the sails. It can be seen that they are preparing to stop on the shore.At the same time, there are many people standing around the boat and using skulls to fix the boat. We can see more clearly when we see another same type of boat. People started drying clothes on the boat after they put the sails away.
Last but not least, the most famous type of boat in QingMingShangHeTu is a cargo boat. It lies in the middle of the painting right below the bridge. We can see that it is the largest ship in the scroll. However, with the Qing government's contempt for navigation, the size of the ships of the Qing Dynasty became smaller and smaller than that of the Ming Dynasty. But it still borrows the similar structure of the Ming Dynasty treasure ship. The treasure ship is one of the best ships in the Ming Dynasty navigator Zheng He's voyage fleet. The scattered sources from the Ming period indicate that there were two sizes of treasure ships, namely large and medium ones. Each of the large ships measured 44.4 zhang 丈 (148 meters) in length and 18 zhang (60 meters) in width, and each had a displacement of about 800 tons. It is claimed that lifting of its anchor could require the collective strength of more than two hundred sailors. With four decks, nine masts, and 12 sails, and could carry up to 1,000 men. The medium size treasure ships were normally 37 zhang (123 meters) long by 15 zhang (50 meters) wide.(Fang Jun, 2019 page 2 to page 3) This kind of cargo ship has a large sail used for travel to distant places and the ship has a large area used to carry a lot of cargo. To be more specific, we can see interesting scenes through the painting: Workers are carrying goods up and down. And A row of trackers in the distance was pulling the boat to the shore. When a cargo ship was about to cross the bridge, the people under the bridge took the people on the skull to adjust the direction so as not to hit the bridge.
As the Qing Dynasty slowly entered the mid-term, the Qing government gradually began to implement a policy of shutting down the country and banning a series of sailing activities. The gradual decline of the navigation industry has also caused the shipbuilding industry to lose its former glory. With the development of western steam technology, the wooden boats that have been used in China for thousands of years are gradually eliminated by steam boats.
Citation
Citation
- Johnstone, Paul (1980). The Seacraft of Prehistory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press page 191-192
- Brian Platt (1960) “ The Chinese sail by Brian Platt” (https://web.archive.org/web/20081201125515/http://www.friend.ly.net/users/dadadata/junk/platt/platt_chinese_sail.html) The masts, hull and standing rigging section
- Fang Jun,(2019)The Beginnings of the ZhengHe Voyages: Nanjing and the Indian Ocean World, 1405-1433 page 2 to page 3