Wang Dayuan's monograph "Island Yizhiluo"
Bronze statue of Wang Dayuan in Qingyunpu District, Nanchang City
◎ Qin Zhilong
In Chinese history, he was a great and mysterious traveler before Xu Xiake.
He is known to Western scholars as the "Marco Polo of the East", but people know nothing about him before the age of 19 and after the age of 30.
Let us just omit his name and list here a series of his world-recognized innovations -
◎ He is the first person to comprehensively and detail the customs and customs of coastal countries and regions such as the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea as a witness. In his clothed body, he traveled on the waves and truly showed the world a vast chart of the world.
◎ He is the most extensive Chinese among civilians, traveling all over the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the east coast of Africa, etc., almost half the world.
Wu Jian, editor-in-chief of the Quanzhou Chronicle of the Yuan Dynasty, said in the preface to his book: "Less negative qi, for Sima Zi's long journey, footprints are almost half of the world." Gu Yi's overseas terroir and national history have not exhausted their connotations, because they are attached to those who float on the sea for several years and then return. The Ci Hai asserts: "As far as the Chinese navigators whose names were known before the middle of the Qing Dynasty, their travels were wide and far away, and the Wang clan was in the forefront." ”
◎ He was the most direct pioneer of Zheng He's voyage to the West, and had a great influence on Zheng He's navigation. Ma Huan, an important member of Zheng He's team, had the highest evaluation of all the nautical works.
As a non-governmental observer, he objectively presented the history of the Chinese nation's peaceful exchanges with foreign countries. He said: Indonesians look forward to Chinese merchant ships going to their places every year; Filipinos say that after Chinese negotiating a price, they will always keep their promises and never break their promises; Brunei people love Chinese, and when they meet a drunken Chinese businessman, they will help him back, and so on. Although there are only a few words, from the perspective of ordinary people, we can see the international image of Chinese as a kind and friendly country.
◎ He truly recorded that Taiwan and Penghu were sacred territories in China, and at that time Taiwan belonged to Penghu and Penghu belonged to Quanzhou Jinjiang County, and salt taxes and taxes belonged to Jinjiang County. This is the most detailed historical record of the island of Taiwan in China before the 17th century.
◎ He clearly recorded that Singapore is located at the throat of the Strait of Malacca, which has been a settlement of overseas Chinese since ancient times, which is an important historical record about Singapore.
◎ He recorded the terroir and products of Australia in detail, and is the earliest written record of Australia. At that time, it was widely believed that Australia was the last island on the earth, calling it the "island of extinction". Nearly 200 years after he arrived in Australia, Europeans knew that there was still this continent in the world.
◎ For the first time, he classified the climatic characteristics of foreign countries according to cold, warm, hot, cool and warm, and recorded the seasons, rainfall, soil, trees, crops, and technological technologies in various places, of which 25 species of plants, 21 species of animals, and 27 kinds of commodities were recorded, which became rare and valuable historical data.
He was the first to propose the concept of the "continental shelf" with modern rights to the law of the sea. At that time, in his monograph "Island Yizhiluo", he used the concept of "earth vein", "overseas land, connected with the Central Plains". The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea provides that the continental shelf of a coastal State includes all natural extensions of land territory, the scope of which extends to the seabed area on the edge of the continent.
……
Today, in Wang Dayuan Square in the Qingyunpu District of Nanchang City, stands the bronze statue of Wang Dayuan, a great traveler of the Yuan Dynasty, whose eyes are like a torch, looking into the distance, once again bringing us into history. Nanchang Wang Jialang's majestic and rough, stirring platoon trumpet "Nanchang City South Palm Old" echoed in people's ears:
"Nanchang City South Palm Old, General Ferry Bo Lianbo, hey!
The scenery on the source of elephant lake is good, ho! Shi Jiayao went to go dragon boat paddling, hey!
Wang Lao Cheng came to greet yo, ho! Xiangfu Qianjin sits in the flower building, hey!
Wang Jialang stopped the navigator yo, ho! Cross the ocean to Yizhou, hey! ”
dream
Less negative and strange, his vision surpassed Sima Qian
Wang Dayuan, the word Huanzhang, this "word" comes from the Analects: "Huan Qi has an article". It can be seen that Wang Dayuan's parents have great expectations for their son.
The intelligent and studious Wang Dayuan clarified his life direction when he was a teenager, "less negative and strange, for Sima Zi's long journey". In particular, after he read Zhou Zhifei's "Answer to the Lingwai Dynasty" and Zhao Rushi's "Zhu Fan Zhi", he was particularly obsessed with these two geographical works that recorded foreign customs and customs.
"Because the two seniors have official positions, they cannot travel in person, but they can collect and compile such masterpieces through interviews during their term of office, and I stay out of the matter and have no worries, so why not personally visit overseas countries and write a work that I have personally experienced and heard?" Wang Dayuan asked himself in his heart. "Besides, Sima Qian and Xuanzang are mainly traveling on land, and no one has yet stepped on the waves and floating sea to travel around the world. Okay, so let's start with me! ”
As a result, the seeds of stepping out of the sea and traveling to the world were deeply rooted in the heart of this teenager, and the dream was born.
It's human nature to love to play. Wang Dayuan's play is more special, in addition to loving reading, he especially likes to travel. At that time, the place he most wanted to go to was Quanzhou - "shijing shizhou people, rising sea sound in the sound of the world merchants", this place known as the world's largest port always attracted this young man.
Finally, one day, Wang Dayuan bid farewell to his family and traveled up the Ganjiang River to Quanzhou, his long-desired destination.
It was a whole new world, with crowds of people from all over the world rubbing shoulders and speaking a variety of languages, and Chinese and foreign goods were dazzling and piled up. The harbor is a spectacular berth of large and small ships from all over the world. As a result, Quanzhou became a turning point in Wang Dayuan's change of fate, a starting point for him to enter the blue sea, from which he would set off to travel far and wide.
Sea
The "Poet of the Sea" traveled to 220 countries and regions over the past eight years
Because he could read and write, Wang Dayuan soon found a job in a fleet. The owner of the ship was mainly engaged in the silk and porcelain resale business, he learned that Wang Dayuan not only liked to travel far, but also wrote poetry, and happily said that his fleet had a "poet of the sea", so he specially arranged for Wang Dayuan to do the work of counting goods and registering records, which was a special care for him.
The exciting moment arrived, one day in 1330, Quanzhou Port was still busy and prosperous, and the blue sea in the distance was peaceful and quiet. Wang Dayuan, who is only 20 years old, is about to go to sea!
For this trip to sea, he has completed all the preparations ahead of schedule. As the first rays of morning light swept across the sea, he was already standing on the deck of the great ship, welcoming the rising sun. He looked very calm, like the sea in front of him, but his heart was already churning with huge waves, like the depths of the sea.
We set off, with a vision of a long journey.
That's five years.
For five years, Wang Dayuan followed the fleet through Hainan Island, Champa City, Malacca, Java, Sumatra, Myanmar, India, Persia, Arabia, Egypt, then crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Morocco in northwest Africa, then returned to Egypt, out of the Red Sea to Somalia, turned south to Mozambique, then crossed the Indian Ocean back to Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Java, to Australia, and then from Australia to Kalimantan Island, through the Philippine Islands, and finally returned to Quanzhou.
More than a year later, Wang Dayuan and his fleet were ready for goods and goods and set off from Quanzhou again. This time they traveled to the South Sea Archipelago, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Mozambique Strait and australia in the western Indian Ocean. He returned to Quanzhou two years later.
On two trips to the sea for eight years, he traveled to 220 countries and regions across Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, and comprehensively examined the commercial and social situation there. What a vast range of travel, and how much hardship and risk he endured!
Some scholars have drawn a map of shipwrecks in the South China Sea since the Tang and Song dynasties, and the study found that there are more than 2,000 shipwrecks in the South China Sea alone. There are more than 2,000 ships, and how many people are buried at the bottom of the sea? That's a number I don't dare think deeply about. In the "Nanhai No. 1" shipwreck, 180,000 cultural relics were unearthed...
Recording
The World of the East by Marco Polo of the East
Since my parents named me "Huan Zhang", let's write about it, and write the "Wang Yang Dayuan" that I have traveled to "Huan Li's Article".
From the moment he went to sea, Wang Dayuan had a plan in his mind: like the ancient sages, he wrote down his travels and experiences. Now that man has returned, that is the most important thing at the moment. Therefore, Wang Dayuan began to write the monograph "Island Yizhi".
At that time, the Quanzhou government was also studying local history, and Wu Jian, the person in charge of majoring in Fang Zhi, took into account that Quanzhou had the functions of customs, shipping, and foreign trade, and in accordance with the principle of "all the spokes and spokes, cannot be unremembered", he included the "Island Yizhi" in the "Quanzhou Road Qingyuan Continuation" as an appendix.
Later, Wang Dayuan returned to his hometown of Nanchang and recorded an excerpt of "Island Yizhi" into "Island Yizhi" and printed it in Nanchang.
Later, because of the war, most of the books "Island Yizhi" were lost, and finally lost after the Ming Dynasty, only the remaining version of "Island Yizhiluo" was circulated, which became the only direct historical material about Wang Dayuan himself today. Therefore, Wang Dayuan has also become a mysterious figure.
What happened to him before he turned 19? I don't know! What happened to his life after the age of 30? I don't know! Even the information between the ages of 19 and 30 is only derived from the few words in his writings, and it is also a blind spot.
Needless to say, on two eight-year trips, the special crew member of the merchant ship succeeded in portraying himself as a preeminent observer of social geography and one of the world's travelers.
Wang Dayuan is first and foremost a hard-working man. Judging from the existing "Island Yizhiluo" of more than 10,000 words and 100 chapters, Wang Dayuan must have been diligent and self-disciplined during the long journey. Whenever he went to a place, in addition to completing his work, he would write down in detail the lives, cultures, and properties of the people at that time. As many as 220 country names and place names in the book, more than 90 countries of mountains and rivers, territory, local objects and customs, including South Asia, West Asia, Southeast Asia and even East Africa, as well as famous and surnamed overseas Chinese, if there is no timely note, relying on memory, how can it be completed?
Because of diligence and timeliness, it is more realistic.
Wang Dayuan said: "Everyone is wandering in the body, and the eyes and ears are seen, but the things of legend are not carried away." This is the fundamental principle of writing for all chinese and foreign travelers in ancient and modern times on their own texts, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta, and Xu Xiake.
At that time, Zhang Yi, a magistrate in Quanzhou and a famous poet in the poetry circle, said: "Wang Junhuanzhang was a crown year, tasted two annexes to the east and west, and recorded the strangeness of his mountains, terroirs, and products, the goodness of his living room, diet, and clothes, and the appropriate places for trade with his husband. ”
There is another important figure who also proves that Wang Dayuan's travels were personally experienced, that is, Ma Huan, a navigator who went to the West with Zheng He in the Ming Dynasty. Ma Huan said in the preface to "Yingya Shengguan": "Yu Xiguan 'Island Yizhi', the difference between the time and the weather, the difference in geography and characters, sighed with emotion: What is the difference under the whole world? Yu Yi translated the book, Tim was sent to the end, and as he went, the whale wave was vast, and he did not know how many tens of millions of miles. He has been involved in various states, his weather, climate, geography, and people, and he has witnessed them; and then he knows that the author of "Island Yizhi" is not false. ”
Due to the age and incomplete information, Wang Dayuan and his "Island Yizhiluo" have not received the attention they deserve. However, it is gold that always shines. "Island Yi Zhiluo" is not only a rare work in the Yuan Dynasty, enough to rank among the world's geographical masterpieces at that time, even today, it is also regarded by scholars as an important travelogue work, with unique historical value: "Island Yi Zhiluo" is not only rated by modern people as one of the 100 books that influenced China, but also attracted the attention of Western scholars very early. Since 1867, the book has been translated into many languages and circulated around the world, and is recognized as a great contribution to world history and geography. Wang Dayuan himself was therefore called "Marco Polo of the East" by Western scholars.
hero
Young travelers opened the "poetry and far away"
In each era, several great figures who went hand in hand appeared at the same time, becoming a spectacular spectacle and a very interesting phenomenon in human society. But it will take much longer to really get to know these heroes.
More than 700 years ago, Marco Polo, a traveler who had lived in China for 17 years, set sail from Quanzhou to prepare to return to Italy — he came to China for four years, and although the return was faster, it still took three years.
One day, 38 years after Marco Polo left China, 19-year-old Wang Dayuan set out from Quanzhou Port to embark on his first five-year journey to the world.
Eight years after Wang Dayuan's return from his second expedition, the great Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta came ashore from Quanzhou and entered China.
It's a very interesting time, travel has a worldwide significance, and all have a wonderful connection with China, and it can even be said that China is the destination of these great travelers. At that time, the dream-chasing journey was basically young people - Marco Polo set out from Italy at the age of 17 to pursue his dream of China, Ibn Battutai was 22 years old at the time, Wang Dayuan was only 19 years old, and later Xu Xiake was 22 years old.
Just as the so-called "coming and going is not rude", an open China also needs someone to travel far away. Wang Dayuan came into being, and he used his own efforts and persistence to connect with history and dock with the world, so that later generations would be proud that China also had young travelers like Wang Dayuan when looking back on history.
For everyone who has a dream, Wang Dayuan also told future generations that if a person wants to live up to this life, he must firmly grasp the youth before old age and the life before death. Wang Dayuan has written many poems, in fact, he is a sea bard. He said: "In the places he passed, he often wrote poems to remember his mountains, customs, landscapes, and products. Seeing precious corals in Sri Lanka, he was so excited that he "composed a hundred rhymes in ancient chinese poems the next day to remember the facts." It can be seen that writing poetry is an important part of his travel life and a way for him to collect information. On the blue sea, a young poet expresses his extravagant and romantic style with rhyming poetry, crushing all the unhappiness of the journey. Unfortunately, none of his poetic works have survived.
This is a shortcoming of history, but history also compensates. About 270 years later, the great traveler Xu Xiake came out of nowhere, leaving not only 600,000 words of travelogues, but also more than 30 poems. It can be said that during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, There were Xu Xiake in China and Wang Dayuan outside, which became the two peaks in the history of Chinese tourism, and still stands in front of the world, waiting for people to climb and surpass.