Under the great support and
direct participation of the First Historical Archives of China, our department, by making
use of the historical archives, documents and data concerned of the early stage of foreign
trade, set up the Center of Archives, Documents and Data of Shisanhang in Guangzhou to
serve various fields of the society.
Guangzhou city in ancient times was a port of foreign trade in China
and also the starting point of the Silk Road at sea. The merchant ships of various
countries, after arriving at Guangzhou, first berthed at Macau or Huangpu and than
measured the goods and paid the tariffs. Later they got their licenses, employed
interpreters and ship-pilots. Finally they entered the inland river of Guangzhou to do
business. At that time the trading house area of foreign trade lay in the western part
outside the old Guangzhou city, that is, it was located in the place to Renji Road in the
east, Shanmulan Road in the west, the back of the Pearl River in the South, and the
Shisanhang Road area in the north. This part was the site of the trading houses of foreign
trade in Qing dynasty. As at the early time there were thirteen foreign trading houses in
this area, people called this area Shisanhang (meaning the thirteen trading houses).
Once in Qing dynasty the government carried out a closed-door policy.
Each time when the envoys from foreign countries presented their tributes to the emperor,
besides those tributes to the emperor, they also brought large amounts of goods. After the
tribute ships reached Guangzhou, the envoys went to the capital to present their tributes,
the other goods were sold, then they “returned to their own countries with favorite sea
tide”. In 1685 (the 24th year of Emperor Kangxi) the central government
ordered that Guangzhou, Zhangzhou, Ningbo and Yuntaishan were trading ports. But under the
influence of the idea that China is the center so it should be self-important, the foreign
trade in China was greatly limited. As emperor Qianlong said: “We have a territory of
tens of thousands li and have large amounts of products of every Kind. We do not depend on
foreign goods. Those foreign goods are only used for pleasure, and they are not necessary.
China need not exchange goods with the western countries. We open Guangzhou as a trading
area because the emperor of Qing wants to bestow favors to other countries. We don’t
want to be too stern to the foreigners and only give them a livelihood.” Just being
subjected by such idea, when more and more foreign merchant ships got together in Ningbo,
which made it possible for Ningbo become another Macao, this caused the disturbance of the
Qing government. They considered that Jiangsu and Zhejiang was a civilized area of the
Chinese culture and there were lots of products produced there. If the foreign influences
took advantage to that place it would do harm to their rule. Consequently in November 1755
( the 22nd year of Emperor Qianlong) the Qing govermment declared that the
three customhouses in Fujian, Zhejiang an Jiangsu should be closed down and only reserved
Guangzhou as the port of foreign trade. From then on Guangzhou became the only port of
foreign trade. Guangzhou could manage all the import and export goods trading. This status
lasted until the First Opium War, when Sino-Brititish Nanjing Treaty was signed.
During the time when Guangzhou was the only port of foreign trade the
Qing dynasty set up a system of official merchants in foreign trade. That is, the official
authorities appointed some merchants as brokers in foreign trade to control all the
foreign trading business, and guaranteed to pay tariffs for the foreign ships and goods
and to be in charge of all the negotiations and communications between the authorities and
the foreign merchants. After the foreign merchants reached Guangzhou their business could
only be made by the professional merchants appointed by the Qing government, even their
daily life should be under the guidance of those merchants. In Guangzhou they could only
stay in the trading houses built by the professional merchants. Their activities were
strictly limited, for example no arms could be brought to the trading house and no foreign
women could be taken to Guangzhou. They were not allowed to enter the city proper, not to travel by boat on the river,
and not to employ a sedan or go out sightseeing. They could only be allowed to visit the
Haichuang Temple and Huadi on the opposite bank of the river taken by the professional
merchants in a fixed time and should be back to their trading house before sunset. Besides
no foreigner was allowed to stay in the trading house during wintertime. Those who could
not leave China for their business should only stay in Macao in winter and returm to
Shisanhang in the following year when their ships arrived.
Although the Qing government imposed many restrictions in the foreign
trade of Guangzhou, yet as it was the only port for foreign trade, it still had quite a
lot of influences in producing economic effect and cultural exchange between China and
other countries. It is an important source material for studying the early relationship of
the Qing government with other countries of the world, studying the history of China’s
reform and opening-up, its foreign trade and also how the capitalist countries opened step
by step the gate of the closed-door country.
As for the existing archives, documents and data of Shisanhang at
present, those collected and stored up in China’s First Historical Archives, which
belong to the archives of the Qing Palace are more concentrated and the most valuable. The
main contents of these include (1) the setting-up of Shisanhang (the thirteen trading
houses), its administration and the historical changes of its structure; (2) the Qing
government carried out a closed-door policy to the outside world, and it only opened
Guangzhou as a port for foreign trade; (3) the port trading conditions in Guangzhou, Macao
and Hongkong and the disputes between China and other countries; (4) the corruption of the
Guangdong customhouse and the investigation s and prosecutions of various kinds of cases;
(5) the tax revenue conditions and import and export conditions of the Guangdong
customhouse. Among these archives quite a part is those ministers reports with
instructions by various emperors of the Qing dynasty in red characters. Besides there are
a lot of orders from the royal central government the official communications and so on.
Besides the above mentioned historical archives there are exhibited the paintings for sale
to the foreigners which the then Shisanhang sold and documents and data for the study of
Shisanhang by the scholars both at home and abroad in recent hundreds of years.
We
welcome various fields of the society to study and make use of those archives. |