Hǎi yǔ 海語
Words of the Sea by 黃衷 (Huáng Zhōng, 1474–1553) — zhuàn 撰; with supplementary notes by 黃學準 (Huáng Xuézhǔn) — zēngzhù 增注
About the work
A 3-juan mid-Míng fēngtǔ monograph on the South China Sea and the Indian-Ocean foreign world, composed by Huáng Zhōng 黃衷 (zì Zǐhé 子和, biéhào Tiěqiáo bìngsǒu 鐵橋病叟; native of Shànghǎi but registered at Nánhǎi in Guǎngzhōu — Sìkù tíyào “Shànghǎirén” is a transcription error for Nánhǎi; Hóngzhì 9 / 1496 jìnshì; rose to Bīngbù yòu shìláng) in retirement at Guǎngzhōu in the late 1530s, on the basis of interviews with returning sailors and ships’ captains. Divided into 4 categories: fēngsú (customs, 2 entries); wùchǎn (products, 29 entries); wèitú (treacherous routes, 5 entries); wùguài (marvels of nature, 8 entries). The Guǎngdōng tōngzhì records the work as 1 juan; the present text is 3 juan. The work is the principal early-sixteenth-century Chinese-language documentary monograph on the South China Sea and Southeast-Asian world after the cessation of the Zhèng Hé voyages (1433) and before the Portuguese arrival was fully assimilated. Of particular importance: the entry on Mǎnlàjiā (Malacca) records that the Fúlángjī (Portuguese, Frangistan) destroyed the Sultanate’s king but the king then fled to Pōdīlǐ (the Bidor / Bertam), regrouped, and after the Portuguese departed (with their fleet) “the king then recovered” — a substantially different account from the Míngshǐ Mǎnlàjiā zhuàn (which says simply that the kingdom was destroyed). The Sìkù tíyào commends the Hǎi yǔ version as more reliable, deriving from contemporary maritime testimony. The book also includes supplementary annotations by Huáng Zhōng’s clan-nephew Huáng Xuézhǔn 黃學準. Each entry is followed by an authorial lùnduàn (judgement) of gāo jiǎn register, sometimes carrying moral instruction.
Tiyao
We respectfully note: the Hǎi yǔ in three juan is by Huáng Zhōng of Míng. Zhōng, zì Zǐhé, native of Shànghǎi (recte Nánhǎi); Hóngzhì bǐngchén jìnshì (1496); rose to Bīngbù yòu shìláng. This work was composed when, late in life, having retired from office, he was at home in Guǎngzhōu, and from the foreign ships’ [crews] inquired in detail about the mountains-rivers and customs, and gathered them into this compilation. The autograph preface calls him “Tiěqiáo bìngsǒu” — that is his biéhào. The Guǎngdōng tōngzhì records this work as one juan; this text is in fact three juan, divided into four categories: fēngsú (2 items), wùchǎn (29 items), wèitú (5 items), wùguài (8 items).
What is described — the maritime sea’s wild and strange marvels — is described in extreme detail; yet all are taken from what the boatmen and helmsmen personally saw, not like the Shānhǎijīng and Shényì jīng etc. — pure fabrications and absurdities. Beneath each entry there are sometimes appended judgements; the diction is dignified-and-spare; sometimes it conveys instruction-and-warning; rather worth viewing.
In the book there are also supplementary notes — these are increases-additions by his clan-nephew Xuézhǔn on the original text — now also preserved.
Examining: the Míngshǐ Mǎnlàjiā zhuàn says: in ZhèngJiā (Zhèngdé / Jiājìng) period [Malacca] was destroyed by the Fúlángjī. But this work says: the Fúlángjī defeated its kingdom’s king; [the king] retreated and depended on Pōdīlǐ; the Fúlángjī assembled their forces and departed; the king then recovered. What is said differs slightly from the Míngshǐ. This work was completed in early Jiājìng (1530s); what the maritime merchants transmitted is closer in time and similar — should not have lost its actual fact. This is more useful for verifying the Míngshǐ discrepancy — not just for bówù. Respectfully proof-read in the twelfth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781).
Abstract
The Hǎi yǔ is the principal mid-Míng documentary monograph on the South China Sea and the Indian-Ocean trading world, by Huáng Zhōng 黃衷 (1474–1553; CBDB has multiple homonyms — none with confident identification), the senior Hóng-zhì-Zhèng-dé-Jiā-jìng-era Cantonese official (Hóngzhì 9 / 1496 jìnshì; Bīngbù yòu shìláng; native of Nánhǎi 南海 in Guǎngzhōu — the catalog meta and Sìkù tíyào “Shànghǎi” 上海 is an obvious error). Composed in retirement at his Guǎngzhōu Tiěqiáo (Iron-Bridge) residence in the late 1530s, on the basis of interviews with returning Cantonese sailors. Annotations supplemented by his clan-nephew Huáng Xuézhǔn 黃學準.
The work is divided into 4 categories with 44 zé (entries) total: 2 on customs (Mǎnlàjiā / Malacca; Sānfúqí / Palembang); 29 on products (incenses, dyes, spices, marine creatures including detailed entries on the hǎishā shark and the hǎiqiū whale); 5 on treacherous routes (the major South China Sea / Strait of Malacca shipping hazards); 8 on marvels of nature.
The work is principally important for: (i) the supplementary account of the Portuguese (Fúlángjī) destruction of the Malacca Sultanate (1511), preserving Cantonese-merchant testimony that contradicts the Míngshǐ in detail; (ii) the detailed marine-biological descriptions of South-China-Sea cetaceans and sharks (later cited and partially superseded by Tú Běnjùn’s Mǐnzhōng hǎicuò shū KR2k0125); (iii) the early sixteenth-century evidence for the active Cantonese maritime trade with Sumatra, Java, the Spice Islands, and the Indian-Ocean ports.
The work is preserved in Wényuāngé Sìkù quánshū (vol. 594.6).
Translations and research
No comprehensive English translation. See John Wills, China and Maritime Europe, 1500–1800: Trade, Settlement, Diplomacy, and Missions (Cambridge, 2010), comparative; Chang Pin-tsun 張彬村, Chinese Maritime Trade: The Case of Sixteenth-Century Fukien (PhD dissertation, Princeton, 1983); Roderich Ptak, China and the Asian Seas (Aldershot, 1998). Critical Chinese editions: Yáng Wǔ-quán 楊武泉 ed., Hǎi yǔ jiào-zhù (Beijing, 1980s).
Other points of interest
Together with Mǐnzhōng hǎicuò shū KR2k0125 and Dōngxī yáng kǎo KR2k0145, the Hǎi yǔ is one of the three core mid-to-late Míng monographs on the South China Sea, providing the principal documentary basis for the post-1433-pre-Zhèng-Chénggōng era of Cantonese-and-Fújianese maritime trade.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet linked
- Yáng Wǔquán, Hǎi yǔ jiàozhù (Zhōnghuá / commercial)