Chinese Southern Oceanic Transport History [Penglai]

Author: Feng Chengjun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: The term "Nanyang" as used today encompasses both the Western and Eastern Oceans during the Ming Dynasty. The name "Western and Eastern Oceans" is said to have first appeared in The Brief Account of the Islands of the Barbarians, and it became popular during the Ming Dynasty. Generally speaking, the area west of the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra was considered the Western Ocean, while the area east of it was the Eastern Ocean. The ancient Muslims also used these two regions as the boundary between India and China. However, before the Yuan Dynasty, they were generally referred to as the South Sea or the Southwestern Sea.
Mr. Feng Chengjun, styled Zichen, was from Hankou, Hubei. During the late Qing Dynasty, he studied in Europe. Initially, he attended high school in Belgium before entering the University of Paris, where he specialized in law. In the early years of the Republic of China, he returned to China and served in the Ministry of Education. He also taught at Peking University for a time. His academic interests in France extended to languages, scripts, and the ancient history and geography of the Western Regions and the South Seas, leading him to collect numerous dictionaries and works. During his time in Paris, he attempted to create a comparative table of ancient and modern place names in Annam (now Vietnam), using Chinese characters and modern Romanization, for the study of Annam's historical geography. However, when he consulted Annam students studying in France, he failed to obtain the necessary guidance. Later, upon returning to China due to financial difficulties, he was forced to sell all the dictionaries and books he had collected to the Beijing Library, and as a result, the comparative table of Annam's ancient and modern place names was never completed. Whenever he mentioned this later, Mr. Feng would sigh deeply in regret.
Mr. Feng not only translated many works by French sinologists on the ancient history and geography of the South Seas but also incorporated the research of his predecessors in China and added many of his own insights. Works such as Zhao Ruitai's Chronicles of the Vassal States, Ma Huan's The Marvelous Records of the Voyages to the Western Oceans, Fei Xin's Journey Along the Star-Ribbed Boat, Huang Shengzeng's Records of Tributary Missions to the Western Oceans, and Yang Bingnan's Seas Records are all important sources for studying the ancient history and geography of the South Seas after the 13th century. Mr. Feng synthesized the research of various scholars, made selections, and compared and collated different editions based on the materials he could access, paving the way for future studies on the ancient history and geography of the South Seas.