中國現存的漂海記錄及其特徵

Abstract

With the intensification of maritime activities after the mid-16th century, records on shipwrecks in East Asia increased. Different from sea travelogues, shipwreck records are usually more detailed, for they involve a variety of issues, such as illegal voyage, smuggling, and diplomatic negotiation. Government officials typically conducted investigation and kept detailed accounts of the size of ship, the names and the number of the crew, cargo on board, routes, location and the cause of the shipwreck, process of salvage and monetary support rendered. If the wreck involved a foreign ship, there was also the issue of repatriation. However, Chinese accounts in this regard prior to the Qing dynasty, such as in the Twenty Four Dynastic Histories, are mostly sketchy. In addition, the accounts in the Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty are also scattered and incomplete. Moreover, prior to the Qing, the salvage of shipwrecks had not been institutionalized, hence it is difficult to grasp the entire picture. Entering the Qing, due to the perfect memorial system at the local and metropolitan levels, plus the preservation of relevant archives(especially after the Qianlong reign 1736~1795), the issue can be explored further. In recent years, due to the fact that historical materials are made public and published, research on East Asian shipwreck and drifting on the sea is increasingly flourishing. However, relevant sources are mostly scattered and not systematic, and the current research focuses mostly on the records in Japan and Ryukyu, hence systematic collection of sources in China and Korea has not been ndertaken. This author has devoted to the collection and research of historical materials on shipwrecks in East Asia in recent years and so far published a Catalogue of Shipwreck Records in the Qing Archives:Materials on Foreign Ships, which contains nearly 3,000 pieces of official Chinese documents. These documents allow us to understand the evolution of shipwreck salvage system of the Qing government and the measures taken toward foreign shipwrecks. Also, they will facilitate the research on the history of shipwrecks in East Asia. Besides introducing the extant Chinese official accounts of shipwrecks and drifting on the sea, this article also discusses several unofficial accounts of drifting on the sea, with the hope of comparing them with foreign accounts and facilitating collaborative research in the future.