Sailing to the West and defeating Japanese pirates, how powerful was the Millennium Fuchuan?

In the early 15th century, Zheng He, a famous Chinese navigator, made seven voyages to the West, sailing through Asia to Africa, an unprecedented feat in human maritime history. However, you may not know that Zheng He's maritime feat was inseparable from the blessing of a "treasure", which was the world's best long-distance sailing ship at that time - the Fu ship .

A model of a Song and Yuan Dynasty Fu ship has been restored in the National Museum of Marine Life. It is located in the marine culture theme space. It has a total length of 27.8 meters, a beam of 8.6 meters, a depth of 3.4 meters, and a designed draft of 2.36 meters. It reproduces the traditional techniques and structural forms of watertight bulkheads, multiple plates and fish-scale joints. It not only vividly restores the situation of the Fu ship in the past, but also reflects a good display and viewing effect.

Fujian has a long history of shipbuilding. Fujian is called "Min in the sea" in the Classic of Mountains and Seas. Later generations of the Minyue people "were accustomed to fighting on water and were good at using boats" (Book of Han, Biography of Yan Zhu). A large number of iron products such as axes, adzes, and chisels were found in the ruins of the ancient city of the Minyue Kingdom in Chengcun, Wuyi Mountain. The use of advanced hand tools undoubtedly promoted the development of the shipbuilding industry at that time. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, "the seven counties of the old Jiaozhi contributed to the transportation, all from Dongye, across the sea... So the Yi people were connected, and it has become a common route to this day." At this time, Fuzhou had become an important maritime transportation hub.

The Fuchuan, named after the Fujian coast, is a pointed-bottom wooden sailing ship, which is one of the three ancient Chinese ships along with the Guangchuan and Shachuan. As an ocean wooden sailing ship that mainly sails in the seas of southern Zhejiang, Fujian and eastern Guangdong, it is "flat on top like a balance and sharp on the bottom like a blade", with a pointed bottom, wide top, a raised head and a high tail, and is designed with multiple bottom plates and watertight compartments.

How should we distinguish Fuchuan?

They need to be identified by their "eyes". The big eyes of the Fujian ship are called "dragon eyes". Their size and shape are quite particular. For every ten feet long of the keel, the dragon eyes are four inches long. The eyes of the fishing boat look down to find fish, and the eyes of the merchant ship look forward to find the way.

As early as the Song Dynasty, Fujian ships were famous for being "the best seagoing ships from Fujian". According to historical records, the deck of the Fujian ship was flat, the side of the ship was cut like a knife edge, the cross-section of the ship was V-shaped, and a keel running through the bow and stern was set under the ship to support the hull, making the ship stronger and with a deeper draft.

In simple terms, the watertight bulkheads in the Fuzhou ship are made by using wooden boards to divide the entire cabin horizontally into small, closed and unconnected spaces. The advantages of this are that, firstly, once the ship hits a reef or other accidents, the cabin will not be flooded and sink. Secondly, the cargo can be stored in categories. Finally, the installed bulkheads can also play a role in strengthening the hull. It can be said that it kills three birds with one stone and is a wise creation. The bottom is pointed and the top is wide, the keel is thick, there are many watertight bulkheads, the bow is pointed and the tail is wide, and the two ends are warped. This structure greatly improves the Fuzhou ship's ability to resist wind and waves and its safety performance in long-distance voyages.

(Cross-section of the watertight compartments of the Fu ship at the National Maritime Museum)

In the fifth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1372), "Yang Zai, the messenger, was ordered to announce his accession to the throne and the founding of the new era. Among them, King San Satto sent his brother Taiki and others to the court with Zai to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty" (Ming History, Ryukyu Biography). Later, the North Mountain King and the South Mountain King also paid tribute to the Ming Dynasty, and the Ryukyu countries and the Ming Dynasty formally established a tributary relationship. Every time the envoys visited, they had to recruit civilian merchant ships in Fujian to temporarily serve as the enthronement boats. The enthronement boats were built on Nantai Island in the Minjiang River in Fuzhou. At that time and later, most of the enthronement boats were converted from Fuzhou ships. The enthronement boats generally had two to three-story stern buildings, with officials living on the upper floor and the middle floor dedicated to the goddess of heaven to protect the smooth sailing.

(National Museum of Marine Science, Chapter 2 of Chinese Maritime Civilization: Sealed Boat Model)

Zheng He's fleet sailed through the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and even deep waters such as the Persian Gulf and the coast of East Africa, and he also requisitioned Fujian ships. The "Ming Shilu" records that in May of the first year of Yongle, "the Fujian Dusi was ordered to build 137 seagoing ships", and in January of the second year of Yongle, "he was about to send envoys to Western countries and ordered Fujian to build five ships." Fujian ships became the heroes behind Zheng He's seven voyages to the West, and also wrote a glorious chapter in the history of Chinese shipbuilding.

During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, Japanese invaders harassed my country's southeastern coastal areas. Fuzhou ships were consciously transformed into warships, and the overall ship shape also developed in the direction of being thinner, narrower and lighter. Qi Jiguang, a famous general who fought against the Japanese invaders, once commented that "Fuzhou ships are as tall as a city, and cannot be driven by human power, but rely on the wind; Japanese ships are short and small, like our small Cang ships, so Fuzhou ships are pushed down by the wind, like a car crushing a praying mantis, fighting against the power of the ship instead of human power, so they always win."

(Qi Jiguang's evaluation of Fuchuan in Jixiao Xinshu·Fuchuan Shuo)

As the best wooden ocean-going ship in China's history, the Fujian ship is not only a carrier of Chinese maritime civilization, but also a shining pearl in the world's maritime history. It shows us superb shipbuilding skills and is the crystallization of the extraordinary wisdom of the ancient working people, especially the ancestors of Fujian coastal areas. I hope you and I will not forget the glorious years and let this lead us to move forward.

References:

Classic of Mountains and Seas[M], Beijing. Zhonghua Book Company, 2011

Ban Gu: Book of Han[M], Beijing. Zhonghua Book Company, 2007

Zhang Tingyu et al.: History of Ming Dynasty[M], Beijing. Zhonghua Book Company, 1977

Xi Longfei: History of Shipbuilding in Ancient China[M], Wuhan. Wuhan University Press, 2015

Liu Yijie. Research on the Origin of Fujian Ships[J]. Studies on Maritime History, 2016, (Issue 2).