Paper on Parade: Hizen Porcelain and Global Trade in the era of Koxinga

Hizen porcelain finds and galleon wreck sites. In addition to giving a taste of the size of the trade, this chart also shows that under no circumstances do you want to be traveling in a galleon named Concepcion.

Today's paper, On Hizen porcelain and the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade (Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association Bulletin 26), by Takenori Nogami, looks at the trade in Hizen porcelain, which is not a Chinese but a Japanese porcelain exported from what was Hizen province in Kyushu until it was split between the Saga and Nagasaki prefectures after the Meiji Restoration. Porcelain making got its start there after Hideyoshi Toyotomi attacked Korea in the 1590s and brought back Korean pottery experts, who settled in Hizen province. There they discovered the materials for making porcelain, and gradually a thriving industry grew.

Taiwan enters the picture in the 17th century with the advent of the Manchus. The fighting in China cut off shipments of Chinese porcelain, and Hizen porcelain soon came to dominate not only the Japanese domestic market but also overseas markets that had formerly been controlled by the Chinese. The Dutch exported enormous quantites stamped with VOC (Dutch East India Company) between 1650 and 1750. As Nogami notes:

"The Qing administration restricted maritime access to China between 1656 and 1684 to reduce the power of Zheng Chenggong (Coxinga), who resisted the Qing forces because sea trade supported his power. After the export of Chinese porcelain almost stopped, Zheng began to deal in Hizen porcelain because he could not get access to Chinese porcelain. Thus, he became the most important merchant for the exportation of Hizen porcelain. As a result of the reduction of the quantity of Chinese porcelain for export, the number of kilns in Hizen producing export wares suddenly increased, and Hizen wares spread in the overseas market, many pieces being found in sites in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia.(p125)"

In Taiwan history we often view Zheng Cheng-gong (Koxinga) in purely local terms, as the man who booted the Dutch out and set up his own little kingdom here, but seldom do we explore what the Zheng state meant in terms of the local political and economic structure of the East Asian littoral. It's sort of the historiagraphical version of the Taiwan identity, which appears to mean not so much being Taiwanese as it is being oblivious to everything that happens outside the island. But the Zheng state was a trading state interested in getting a share of the booming trade of the 17th century in the region.

Nogami then goes on to discuss his finds of shards of Hizen porcelain in Manila and elsewhere in the Spanish Philippines. The problem of Hizen porcelain is simple: who brought it to Manila. Only the Dutch and Chinese were allowed to trade with Japan until the 19th century, and the Dutch could not have approached Manila because the were Protestants, while Spain was Catholic. Therefore the porcelain must have traveled on Chinese bottoms, and Nogami hypothesizes that some of the cities in Taiwan must have functioned as way-stations for the Hizen porcelain trade. Zheng was "the most important merchant" dealing in Hizen porcelain of the time, and his ships plied back and forth between Japan, the Fukien coast which he controlled into the late 1650s, carrying porcelain, though no Hizen porcelain has been found there (it is known from Macao). Nogami says:

"[The Zhengs] engaged in China – Taiwan - Manila or Japan – Taiwan - Manila trade between 1662 and 1683. Therefore, Tainan was one of the most important relay-ports of Hizen porcelain trade. Fang Zhen-zhen (2003) has researched the records of customs in Manila and discusses the relationship between Manila and Taiwan in the second half of the 17th century. She notes that fifty-one ships sailed from Taiwan to Manila between 1664 and 1684. She notes the cargoes of these ships included “Japanese dishes” (Fang 2003: 82).(p128)"

Sure enough, the Zheng capital of Tainan has yielded both types of Hizen porcelain -- wares designed for local use, along with a few shards of a type specifically intended for export to European markets.

The Hizen pottery that transshipped through Tainan left Manila on the tortuous galleon routes bound for Mexico, where they returned with Mexican silver, in the form of silver dollars widely acceptance as currency in China. As Nogami describes at the end of his piece, a few shards of identifiably Hizen pottery have been found in Mexico, unearthed in a subway dig, and in Guatemala. In both cases they were identified by the finders as Chinese, but Nogami believes that they are actually Hizen, of the type exported to Manila.

Thus, through the humble prism of Hizen porcelain, we can get a glimpse of how the Zheng state and Taiwan participated in the first great era of globalized trade that connected Madrid, Manila, and Mexico city in a vast network of exchange.
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The English Factory in Taiwan, 1670-1685

I was walking around the library at NCKU today and stumbled across an 800 page volume entitled The English Factory in Taiwan 1670-1685, compiling the records of a historical fact about Taiwan that I had not known: that from 1670-1685, the English maintained a trading post in Taiwan.

As the incoming Manchus overwhelmed the Ming, Cheng Chung-kong’s (Koxinga) father, Chen Chih-lung, who at first operated under loose Dutch control, later attacked the Dutch (in 1633) and permanently ejected them from the China trade, even as the Shogunate in Japan made them the sole Europeans able to trade with Japan. In 1641 he commenced directly trading with Japan, becoming both the strongest competitor and best supplier to the Dutch. Later Cheng Chih-lung would surrender to the Qing, and out of the remains of his organization, Cheng Cheng-kung would fashion a centralized state in Amoy (Fukien). Cheng ships controlled the trade between Taiwan and China.

As is well known, after a failed assault on Nanjing, Cheng Cheng-kung invaded Taiwan and drove out the Dutch, but died in 1662 before he could seize Luzon as well. The Dutch and Qing formed an alliance against the Cheng. In November of 1664 the allies levered the Chengs out of Amoy and Quemoy, forcing a full retreat to Taiwan. The Cheng regime then built a trading empire that stretched from Japan to Cambodia.

Enter the English. The English East India Company was established in 1600, but for the next few decades it would fail to make much impact on the European competition for the riches of the East. In 1670 the English factory (trading post) in Java received a letter from Koxinga's son Cheng Ching asking foreigners to set up factories in Taiwan. In June the English arrived and negotiations concluded satisfactorily with the ‘King of Tywan’ in September of that same year. The agreement contained twenty clauses that exempted English ships from Cheng attacks, permitted the English to take out gold and silver, to trade what they wanted and to use local sailors when their own men died. Because of the Chinese reverence for cattle as draught animals, the English were only permitted to kill one cow/buffalo per week, a concession to their strange habit of eating beef (even today many older Taiwanese will not eat beef). The English moved into Fort Zeelandia, which they rented for 500 Rs annually.

The factory on Taiwan carried on a voluminous correspondence with the factory in Amoy, the factory in Bantam, and the home office. These letters are collected in the volume, offering fascinating glimpses of the mundane…

“Our sandalwood we have consigned to you for sale, there being great quantities of it in towne, & therefore you judge it may yeild a more considerable prise at Tywan.”

…the cultural…

“You may please to note that they call all the Chinese Tartars that have cutt their haire and observed the Tartars’ religion as the Doage of the Chynees did about the yeare 1635 but are now generally returned to their old religion and againe weare long haire.”

…of travels…

“November the 19th in the morning we sett saile, Mr Peter Cooke (who went on the Experiment to Tywan for recovery of his health) being on board us to retorn for Bantam, but in a dying condicion, being quite worn out with a consumpcion. The 21th we were off the Bay of Maco & the 23 at night we fell with Aynam, when it pleased God to take Mr Peter Cooke out of this troublesome world.”

..and of military conflict and anarchy…

“Wee had not long remained here before were againe disturbed with terrors of another revolt by the mutinous inclinations of the soldiers, whome by their dayly threatening of the inhabitants & exhorbitance acted amongst them for want of pay to give them a due support had brought the affaires of a whole kingdome into such a tottering and unsettled condition that for some time it was dubious whether they could be reduced into order without unhinging the whole frame of government, but at length, by great summes drawnes from the commonalty, to apperance at present better sattisfied.”

In the end, the English were unable to establish a prosperous trading station, since the Cheng monopolized the Taiwan trade. From their trade with the Chengs, they shipped Chinese items such as tea, porcelain, and silks, and were in negotiations with the Qing to establish factories along the China coast when events outran them. First, in 1682 the Dutch took the English base at Bantam, forcing a withdrawal to India. In 1683 the Cheng in Taiwan fell, and it was from India that the English China trade to Macao, Amoy, and Canton was operated. Efforts to maintain the station on Taiwan proved fruitless. The Qing refused to grant the Dutch factories on the China coast, but threw open China to trade in 1684. The Dutch then came to rely on Chinese traffic to Batavia in Java, meaning that they were effectively out of the China trade, leaving it to the English to take it over in the 18th century.

[Taiwan]