Instruments of Maritime Supremacy

|The discovery of new sea routes and of the new world led to a contest for control of maritime supremacy. The ship replaced the horse as the primary tool for achieving hegemony. Accordingly, nautical sophistication was a determining factor in the struggle for power.

|Although Ming China saw the construction of huge treasure ships for the massive expeditions of Cheng Ho (?剖?), subsequent policies restricting seafaring led to the decline of the ship-building industry. Vessels grew smaller, and quality fell. This trend was precisely the opposite of what occurred in Europe, where competition for maritime control fostered the development of ship-building technologies.

The vessels used by the Chinese during the 17th century are what were known in western sources as "junks," or Chinese sailboats. The word "junk," which was written as "jyanku sen (?��???" in Japanese sources, probably derives from the Chinese pronunciation for "boat" in the vernacular of South Fukien. There were two types of junk: those having a single-mast and those with double-mast. Any boat with over two masts fits into the second category, and journey conducted on the open ocean would require a double-mast boat.

Prior to the 17th century, Japanese sailing vessels were similar to those of the Chinese. However, during the reign of Ieyasu Tokugawa, the Englishman William Adams, who served as a foreign advisor to the Shogun, introduced European ship-building that led to the advancement in the Japanese shipwright craft.

The vessels used by the Portuguese and the Dutch during the 17th century were referred to as "kapal" by Malaysians, meaning "large boat," which Chinese of the Fukien province interpreted as "chia-pan (憭暹��)" boat. These ships had a large hold capacity, many decks, a deep draught, and at least two rows of cannons lining each side. The largest vessel of the Dutch East India Company (the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC) carried as many as eighty cannons.

|The "Wai-kuo-chuan (憭��??? or Foreign States)" section of the Ming Shih (?���� or Official History of the Ming Dynasty) records the impressive scale and destructive power of the Dutch ships. It states that they measured over 30 chang (銝? in length and 6 in width, with five masts and three-storied aft decks. Their portholes were covered in bronze, and below their masts were iron-made cannons of 2 chang in length. The text goes on to state that a single cannonade from one of these juggernauts could level a stone wall, with a thunderous sound that retorted for over tens of li (??. These cannons were known to the Chinese as hung-yi-p'ao (蝝�憭�??.

While such sources suggest that the Chinese were overwhelmed by the mighty warships of the Dutch, other records reveal that the ships were not all that powerful. Records of the naval battles between the Chinese and the Dutch relate that the Chinese had succeeded at destroying these vessels by ramming them with burning ships or by enlisting swimmers to hurl pots of gunpowder onto their decks. It is written that Cheng Chih-lung (?剛?樴? had once used explosives to defeat Dutch warships at the mouth of the Chang-chou (瞍喳?) River.

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Western Europeans came to seize territories, and defended their acquisitions with forts and castles. Cannons were used for both defense and attack, and muskets and pistols for foot soldiers did make the difference between winning and losing a battle. In addition, maps, nautical charts, and other navigation instruments were all indispensable tools in their quest for maritime supremacy.

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| The ultimate goal of such quest was, of course, monopoly over trade profits; thus the capacity and security of cargoes, the physical integrity of vessels, and the protection of merchandise from humidity were vitally important factors. Here, the Europeans obviously held a distinct advantage over their Chinese contenders.