Yang Liyi, a native of Chongming Chengqiao Town, retired senior middle school teacher, member of Chongming Literature and History Research Association, author of the educational anthology "Farming Yu Collection", has edited more than ten kinds of local textbooks such as "Hainong Culture" and "Chongming Navigation Culture", and written many biographies of Chongming education celebrities. © This article is published after authorization, please contact the editor of this public account for authorization (WeChat: anxinlu).
Chongming maritime culture
Since ancient times, punting ships and shipping, crossing the rivers and seas is one of the main ways of survival of Chongming people. The sand boat invented by Chongming's ancestors is one of the four major ship types in China's ancient tradition, and has played a major role in Chongming's foreign shipping and the opening of Shanghai in history. Since the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, there have been many pioneers who have pioneered China's navigation cause, and in modern times, a group of Chongming navigators who have influenced China's maritime history have emerged - this is a legend of Chongming Island and an important representation of Chongming culture. Chongming's maritime culture is very thick, from navigation practice, navigation technology, navigation theory, to the management of modern shipping enterprises, the cultivation of shipping talents and other aspects have made significant contributions to the country, and even in the creation of marine literature has made remarkable achievements... The Chongming Navigation Culture Series I have compiled is intended to be described in six aspects:
First, invent sand boats to break through the rivers and seas
Second, legendary figures are famous in history
Third, a hundred years of waves, the navigation elite
Fourth, the popular figures also look at the present dynasty
V. Marine Literature is splendid
Sixth, embrace the ocean and go to the world
As the saying goes: rely on the mountain to eat the mountain, rely on the water to draft water. The unique location and environment of Chongming Island determine that Chongming people must deal with the rivers and seas and cultivate the courage and wisdom to fight against the wind and waves. The so-called "reclamation and expansion of homes on the shore, going to the sea to get thousands of miles of boats", Chongming people in order to survive and develop, many people have been engaged in punting shipping for generations. They are familiar with water, have courage and insight, and since ancient times have produced many shippers who have broken into the rivers and seas, the most outstanding of which are Zhu Qing, Yin Mingluo, and Shen Tingyang. Their achievements in navigation and their contributions to the country are not only famous in the history of Chongming, but also have an important position in the history of China's navigation.
1. Zhu Qing, the first shipping company
"At the beginning of the country, the sea was shipped from Zhu Zhang, and millions of building ships crossed the ocean." Speaking of foreign shipping in the history of Chongming Island, we cannot fail to mention a legendary figure, that is, Zhu Qing (1263-1303) - this person is also a pioneering figure in the history of China's shipping. Zhu Qing, Zi Cheng uncle, Chongming Xisha people, lived in the late Song dynasty and early Yuan, from childhood to follow their fathers to sell reed firewood, punch boats to fish for a living, brave and fierce, once a slave in the local Yang family, because of the killing of yang clan was hunted by the government and fled to become a pirate, and then engaged in smuggling salt often in and out of the sea, familiar with the North and South Sea Routes. Around the thirteenth year of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Qing did a great thing, accepting the dispatch of the newly established Yuan Court and leading a fleet of ships to transport a number of important cultural relics left in Lin'an (present-day Hangzhou) after the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty Court to the Beijing Division by sea, and received commendations from the Yuan Court. In the 19th year of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Qing and zhang Xuan of Jiading (that is, the "Zhu Zhang" in the opening verse, both pirates) were sent by the imperial court to formally build a large number of ships, created a shipping line, and opened a Beiyang route from Liujiagang in Taicang, through the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea, into bohai Bay, and to Zhigu (today's Tianjin), (at that time, referring to the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Sea waters north of the Yangtze River as the Beiyang Sea), transported 46,000 stones of grain to the north, thus opening up the North and South Seas. This is recorded in Ming Jiajing's Taicang Zhou Zhi: "Zhu Qing, Zi Chengshu, Chongming Yao (Liu) Sharen ... Boyan (Yuan Dynasty Minister) Ping Song, zhi two (referring to Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan) learned the sea, sent song ku to collect map books, and entered the Yanhui (referring to Dadu) from the sea. Yi Yuandao, (Zhu Qing) Zhongshu Province, Chen Yan Shipping. Boyan Great Good, introduced to see, granted gold to thousands of households. In the beginning, 40,000 stones were transported annually, and then more than 1.6 million stones were transported..." In the following decades, the number of grain transported each year continued to increase, reaching a maximum of 3 million stones. It opened up maritime shipping routes for the Yuan Dynasty government and made important contributions to the development of China's ancient maritime transportation industry. In the fourth year of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Qing was promoted by the imperial court to the post of Zuo Cheng (行省 was a large administrative region established by the Yuan Dynasty Court, and Zuo Cheng was the deputy governor of xing province) for his merits in shipping. Later, Zhu Qing moved his family to Taicang, and directed the dredging of the waterway into the Yangtze River from Liujiagang (present-day Liuhe), opening up China's maritime trade routes with Japan, Goryeo and Ryukyu, and opening up the sea route from Liujiagang to Zhigu (present-day Tianjin Port). At that time, merchant ships from Taicang Liujiagang were gathered, and merchant ships from Japan, Ryukyu (the Yuan Dynasty called Taiwan and its affiliated islands Ryukyu), Goryeo and other countries entered the port for trade, and Liujiagang was known as the "Six Kingdoms Wharf". At that time, the Yuan court set up a thousand household mansions in Taicang Prefecture, where grain was stored on the south bank of the Yangtze River, and a thousand household mansions in Chongming and other places, specifically managing grain transportation. Zhu Qingquan was on one side, rich and prominent as the crown of Jiangnan, and his family, clans, and household slaves were sealed into hundreds of households, thousands of households, and tens of thousands of households.
(Zhu Qingxiang)
Perhaps it was a great trick of the tree, in the sixth year of Yuan Dade (1302), Zhu Qing was framed for "Ten Illegal Things" and was arrested and imprisoned, and he committed suicide by hitting his head with a stone in anger. It was not until the third year of the Yuan Dynasty (1310) that the injustice was revealed, and like many meritorious men in history, the outcome was tragic. Such complex figures as murderers, pirates, sea merchants, navigators, heroes, and finally imperial court criminals are difficult to evaluate today, but Zhu Qing's contribution to the opening up of shipping routes is indispensable. In the history of world navigation, pirates are often the earliest navigators in various seas. The earliest navigators of the Mediterranean were often both sailors and pirates. In fact, pirates, sailors, merchants, navigators... It is often concentrated on one person – and this is no exception in Chongming. It is no accident that Zhu Qing became the founder of Chinese shipping from a pirate on the sea of delinquency and participated in the maritime expedition against Japan and Vietnam, because under the conditions at that time, only such an outlaw could desperately go to the end of the world and be the most familiar with the sea.
2. The strategy of opening up new shipping routes
This sea route opened up by Zhu Qing and others has endured many hardships and dangers. "The tide rises and falls", starting from Liujiagang to Zhigu, a coastal route, need to bypass countless shoal reefs, the journey is long, it takes nearly two months. Such a long road has inevitably suffered terrible waves, ship overturning and death, and food losses. After Zhu Qing, many people engaged in shipping boldly explored new shipping routes, among which a Chongming maritime person named Yin Mingluo (called Yin Ming in some history books) opened up a new shipping route after Zhu Qing. By the 30th year of the Yuan Dynasty, (1293), Yin Ming, who was shipping thousands of households, was entrusted by the imperial court to "lead the fleet to open the ocean from Liujiagang and release the ocean from Chongming Sansha." Look east into the black water ocean and take the mountain. Turn west to Liujia Island... To Shamen Island in Dengzhou, the ocean of Laizhou enters the boundary river." The new route explored by Yin Mingluo is a great step forward compared with the route opened by Zhu Qing. First of all, after the ship leaves the mouth of the Yangtze River, that is, the east sails the black water ocean, (now the Yellow Sea sea, the ancients called the sea area with different colors as the yellow water ocean, the black water ocean, the green water ocean, the yellow water ocean refers to the yangtze river estuary area, and the black water ocean is into the deep water area far from the mainland) and directly into the mountain (the easternmost part of the jiaodong peninsula today), the entire route is sailing in the yellow sea waters far from the coast, avoiding the shallow sand reefs near the shore, greatly improving the safety of the ship, the occurrence of accidents in shipping and the loss of food are greatly reduced. Second, the channel left the shoal-high offshore waters and took advantage of the Kuroshio current in the western Pacific ocean from south to north, which was extremely beneficial to increasing the speed of the ship. According to history, at this time, the caoyun fleet set off from Liujiagang to Zhigu, "as smooth as the way, but only on the tenth day", which greatly shortened the sailing time.
The successful opening of Yin Mingluo's new route was a major change in zhu Qing's opening of the route in the early Yuan Dynasty, marking the maturity of the Beiyang Caoyun route at that time. It not only increased the Beiyang shipping in the Yuan Dynasty from the original one-year-old to one-year-old and two-year-old transportation, but also laid the basic trend for China's Beiyang route in the future, which is still used until now. The opening of this route also reflects that China's Yuan Dynasty navigators have been able to master the knowledge and skills of meteorology, hydrology, tides, and boat art when carrying out navigation activities in the Yangtze River estuary, east China Sea and Yellow Sea areas. Regrettably, such an important seafarer as Yin Mingluo, there are very few records of him in the main history, and even his name, age of existence and identity are not very certain. This is because the ancient rulers have always emphasized military government and light agricultural commerce. Yin Mingluo is a person, in the History of the Yuan, there is no way to verify, only in the 1984 edition of the "Chongming County Chronicle" of the character history, a brief record of a seafaring life named Yin Ming, and Zhu Qing is listed in the Chongming Character Table, affirming that he was the person who opened up a new route in the Beiyang Caoyun of the Yuan Dynasty. According to experts, it should be the same person.
3. Shen Tingyang, an outstanding maritime transporter
About 300 years after the Zhu Qing Dynasty, Chongming produced another outstanding maritime figure, he was Shen Tingyang (1594-1647) at the end of the Ming Dynasty. Shen Tingyang, also spelled Jiming, was born into a maritime family in Changsha, Chongming. The history books say that he "grew up on the seashore, learned from childhood, taught by his father and brother, and was familiar with the seaway." His father engaged in maritime trade for many years to get rich, and his family had thousands of hectares of shatin, many sand boats, and a rich party. His father was patriotic and sent sand boats to fight in the imperial court against the Wukou and Qing forces. Shen Tingyang has been intellectual, studious since childhood, generous and bold, likes to do real things, and hates empty talk on paper. In his 20s, he recruited workers to build more than ten sand boats, sailed with his cousin to Shandong, Tianjin, Lushun and other places to engage in maritime trade, made a lot of profits, was familiar with the sea route, and enhanced his courage. Through extensive travel, he also understood the internal and external troubles faced by the country, determined to seek strategies to serve the country, and personally drew the "Sea Route Map" according to his own navigation experience.
In August of the twelfth year of Ming Chongzhen (1639), Shen Tingyang went to Beijing to take the exam successfully, and was awarded the cabinet Wu Yingdian Zhongshu Sheren, a civilian official with an idle post. In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the Northern Qing Army invaded, the war was continuous, the peasant rebel army in the south surged and occupied the Shandong area, the Water Transport of Jianghuai was blocked, and the supply of grain and food for the Northern Army was difficult. Shen Tingyang was so anxious to hear the news that he submitted several times to the imperial court the "Maritime Book" and the "Sea Journey Map", proposing to restore the maritime transport initiated by Zhu Qing. He recounted the history of shipping in the Yuan Dynasty, suggesting that starting from the Liuhe Port in Taicang and turning into mountains through the Black Water Ocean to Tianjin, shipping would not only save costs compared with inland shipping, but also traveled closely. Because Shen Tingyang was humble and light-hearted at that time, the Hubu did not take his advice. However, he was not discouraged, and once again submitted to the imperial court "Please Advocate a Small Test of Shipping Thinning", in which he said: He grew up on the seashore, was a child, his father and brother taught him, during the Wanli Dynasty, the imperial court dispatched sand boat sailors to support Korea, he had been conscripted to participate in the war, and the sand ship had arrived in Busan and then transferred to Liaoning, so he knew the sea route very well and was willing to personally sail and test transport. The patriotic heart of fist and fist finally impressed the emperor. The emperor appointed Shen Tingyang as the head of the household department, and (a Liupin official) allowed him to lead six ships to sea trials. Shen Tingyang led a fleet of ships carrying thousands of stones of rice, and it took less than half a month to sail thousands of miles to transport grain to the northern port. This incident alarmed the government and the public, and the imperial court saw that shipping worked, and promoted Shen Tingyang to the position of foreign minister (Wupin official) to supervise shipping affairs. The Chongzhen Emperor was very happy, and gave instructions on the fold: "If the officials are as good as Shen Tingyang, why is it difficult to govern the world?" In 1643, Shi Kefa, the governor of Caoyun, sponsored Shen Tingyang to be the shaoqing of Guanglu Temple.
(Shen Tingyang statue)
In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, when the imperial court was worried about internal and external troubles, and the beacon fire was approaching the city of Beijing, the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself when Li Zicheng's rebel army invaded, at this time Shen Tingyang was preparing for grain transportation in Jiangsu, and he was devastated to hear the news. However, as a loyal vassal of the imperial court, he still wrote to the Southern Ming regime that was surviving in Nanjing, and was willing to coexist and die with the imperial court with his own life. He said in the song: "The subject has been shipping for hundreds of boats over the years, all of which are tall and intact, (each) can accommodate two hundred soldiers, and the sailors are familiar with the waterways, convenient and good at fighting, and can act as sailors." Now that the shipping has stopped, if the water division is recruited to practice water warfare, and the subjects are willing to unify it, then 20,000 people will be enough to form an army, which can be used for the Northern Expedition of the Sea Route and the Guardian of the Yangtze River. "——I am willing to be a pioneer in the anti-Qing dynasty and the restoration of the Ming Dynasty. He returned to his hometown to scatter his family wealth, purchased hundreds of ships, recruited anti-Qing soldiers, personally trained the water army, and prepared for the Northern Expedition. However, at this time, the Ming Dynasty was already dying day by day, and even if there were loyal subjects like Shi Kefa and Shen Tingyang, they had no power to return to heaven. Shen Tingyang later led the Ming army to be captured in a fierce battle with the Qing army, refused to surrender, heroically and righteously, buried in Suzhou Tiger Hill, is a national hero, revered by generations of Chongming people.
Key References:
1. The Chongming County CPPCC Committee compiles literary and historical materials
2. Historical pictures of Chongming Museum
3. Wu Changrong, ed. "A Hundred Years of TaoSheng"
4. Chongming County Chronicle
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