In this mornings’ presentation, Dr. Eugenio Menegon gave us a description of the daily life of a Jesuit at the Imperial court in Beijing during the reigns of Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong. He referred to the endless labors that the Jesuits endured and reflected on their artistic and scientific work as points of pride in the face of great difficulty and often, outright hostility.

I’ve been asked to give an extremely brief description of some of the scientific and technical skills that the Jesuits mentioned by Dr. Menegon practiced in China. The physical evidence of these skills is suggested by several of the items on exhibit here at the Oakland Museum. Items such as the compass, star-chart, telescope, and calculating engine, are but an indicator of the technical and scientific expertise that existed during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties with the introduction of European theories and methods, which were themselves undergoing rapid changes.

The title of this talk derives from the dual meaning of the term “mechanics,” which in one sense implies the mechanical, physical workings of nature and the universe, and also as a reference to the Jesuits and their Chinese associates, who, in an important way, regarded themselves as “mechanics,” or technicians who used the exploration of the natural world as a focal point of understanding and confirmation of an underlying universal design. A similarly dual meaning suffuses the term Tianxue or Celestial Studies mentioned by Dr. Menegon, which may be read as the study of astronomy/astrology (“the heavens”) or as a euphemism for Christianity (‘Heaven”). During late Ming and early Qing China it was the Jesuits who were the primary agents of this Sino-European interchange.

The study of the history of science, particularly as it applies to China, has gained new relevance both because of renewed appreciation for historical Chinese technological development and because some of the most important and interesting cultural interchanges between China and the West took place in the area of the physical and mathematical sciences. Notwithstanding the difficulty of the Jesuit position in China, the historical background in which this exchange took place, with the help, encouragement, and skill of Chinese scholars, friends, and craftsmen documented at this exhibition shows that the tools used by the “Mechanics of Heaven” have a rare mix of function and craftsmanship that make them especially interesting.

Ships and Maritime Technology

The focal point of Sino-European exchange was the port of Macau, ceded by the Ming government to Portugal. When looking at the distances from Portugal to Macau a fundamental question becomes, how did they get there? Unlike the Silk Road tradition of caravans traversing the expanse of Central Asia and the Tibetan Plateau, or the route traveled by Marco Polo and the Franciscans during the Yuan era, by 1513 travel from Europe to Asia took place exclusively by sea, a result of the steady development of Iberian shipbuilding and maritime technology. On the European side, the Portuguese had developed a variety of practical maritime navigational tools such as the nautical compass, accurate charts, rutters and route maps with marine topography, and combined them with improvements in ship construction. The ships of this time had their origins in the larger type of trading vessels of northern and southern Europe of the 14th-17th centuries, and developed as a compromise between the typical square rig of the northern European nations and the lateen rig of the Mediterranean. This type, known as a caraval, had very high fore- and after-castles, and a cargo capacity of as much as 1,500 tons. A later, larger version was the carrack, forerunner of the larger three-masted ships which dominated naval architecture until the mid-19th century. Still, seafaring was dangerous, and shipwreck was extremely common. Records indicate that in the one hundred years from 1540-1640, almost one-third of the ships, passengers and crew (including Jesuits) traveling between Europe and China were lost en route. Nonetheless, in the 16th and early 17th centuries, almost all the Spanish and Portuguese trading voyages to the Indies and China sailed in carracks. (Columbus’ flagship Santa Maria was probably a carrack.) With these improvements caravals and carracks became like WWII-era Liberty Ships or DC-3’s: economical, reliable, and practical. (Upstairs in the California Museum are models of Spanish carracks that sailed from Spain to Mexico and California, and often across the Pacific to the Philippines and China.)

[SLIDE 1]Chinese ships were renowned for their watertight compartments, large cargo capacities, and overall ruggedness. With some important exceptions, Chinese ships were built for specific tasks and largely confined to coastal or riverine traffic, such as grain transport along the Grand Canal, merchant traffic, and general transportation. Oars played a relatively smaller role in Chinese shipping theory, although military ships were another matter. Along navigable rivers and manmade waterways ships could be either be sailed or towed, pulled by laborers called “trackers,” or poled (“punted”). Illustrated records from as early as the Song Dynasty depict even quite large craft being maneuvered with human power.

While Chinese shipbuilding was geared to practical, smaller scale transport commerce, Chinese shipwrights were capable of constructing much larger, ocean-going craft. The most illustrious example of this took place in the early Ming Dynasty with the seven voyages of the celebrated Admiral Zheng He.[SLIDE 2] Rather like the European voyages of a century later, the Ming voyages combined exploration with diplomatic contacts, inspected trade prospects and established tributary relationships with the kingdoms of the Southeast Asian trade routes, the Malacca, in present day Indonesia and Malaysia, extending as far as the African coast. By European standards they were mammoth undertakings. For example, during the First Voyage (1405-1406) Zheng He commanded a fleet of 317 ships with nearly 28,000 men, their arms and supplies. The fleet included several massive “treasure ships,” approximately 400 feet long and 160 feet wide. Ports visited include Champa, in central Vietnam; Majapahit on Java; Semudra and Deli on the northern coast of Sumatra, continuing to Sri Lanka and then to Calcutta. Traveling through the Straits of Malacca on its return, the Chinese fleet defeated a local pirate chief who had been threatening merchant shipping in the Straits. During the Third Voyage (1409-1411) the expedition visited Malacca, a port on the Malay Peninsula that was gaining importance. There Chinese officials recognized Paramesawara as the legitimate ruler of Malacca and gave him a tablet officially declaring that the city was a vassal state of China. Increasing Malacca's power, the Chinese court believed, would establish a balance of power among rivals in Thailand, Java and Malacca and insure Chinese trading rights through the Straits. After stopping at Semudra, the fleet went to Sri Lanka where they became involved in a local power struggle among its Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslim populations. Luring the Sinhalese troops out of the city, Zheng He and his troops took the capital, captured the ruler and installed a ruler of their own choice in his place. After this voyage many ambassadors from the countries the treasure fleet had visited brought tribute to the Ming court. By the time the seventh and last voyage was concluded in 1433, Chinese fleets had reached Hormuz, Yemen, and the African cities of Mogadishu, Brawa, Malinda, and Mombasa. Among the treasures returned to the Court: two giraffes, considered an animal nearly comparable to the qilin or unicorn, a symbol of righteousness for the Ming.