Shipwreck in Ancient China Reveals Insights into Smuggling and Government Apathy in Song Dynasty

The main revelation of the shipwreck is that it was weighed down by a large amount of metal cargo, indicating that the Nanhai No.1 was likely involved in a major smuggling operation, which the team of scientists from Guangzhou University said was extremely common at the time.

“Despite repeated government bans, smuggling of metal products continued throughout the Song dynasty, with no significant reduction in the scale of the metal trade… highlighting the inadequacy of government control over illegal smuggling activities,” the authors write.

A major contradiction is that while the laws are clear about bans on metal exports – and some penalties are extreme – the research team believes the government has deployed a strategy of deliberately ignoring smuggling operations, or even encouraging them.

Smuggling was a major element of the golden age of maritime trade during the Song Dynasty. For the first time in Chinese history, foreign trade surpassed land trade. To better manage this booming industry, the government launched the Guangnan Shibosi in Guangzhou, the first maritime trade administration at the time.

The Shibosi was responsible for administering taxes and politics, and he implemented strict rules for merchants and prescribed penalties for smuggling.

Typically, merchants had to register their ships, identify the crew, disclose the goods on board, and inform bureaucrats of their destination. They then received a gong pingan official document that became their only way to legally enter the port.

During the Song dynasty, the government had hostile relations with the Liao and Jin dynasties to the north, so the Shibosi were largely responsible for enforcing trade embargoes to prevent cooperation with their antagonists. They also imposed similar trade bans on the empires of Korea and Vietnam.

When the Nanhai No.1 Metals and their raw materials were highly prized commodities, as China had made advances in smelting technology to produce higher quality metals than those produced in South and Southeast Asia.

This means that Chinese metals were sought after during the Song Dynasty, but were rarely allowed to leave China. If merchants were caught violating trade embargoes, their cargo was confiscated and they were imprisoned.

“Iron was an essential material for military weapons at the time, and its export was prohibited by the (Song government). Therefore, the 300 kg of silver and 124 tons of iron transported by Nanhai No.1 “These were undoubtedly goods intended for export and therefore contraband,” the authors write.

Gold, silver, and copper coins were also particularly valuable. The rise of maritime trade during the Song Dynasty made coins a common medium of exchange, similar to the current status of the U.S. dollar.

The Song government imposed a rule that merchants could not carry more than 500 coins out of the country, and the punishment for violating this rule was death.

“To date, approximately 30,000 copper coins have been found on Nanhai No.1enough to condemn 30 people to death,” the authors write.

The sheer volume of metals and coins on board the ship suggests that much of the cargo was illegitimate and indicates that, while Song-era embargo rules may have been severe, they were not strictly enforced.

The ship could have been part of a tribute trade caravan, which was a route for prohibited goods to enter and exit China, but the authors found this unlikely.

So, assuming that Nanhai No.1 If it had been an ordinary merchant ship, researchers argued, it would have been almost impossible for it to have escaped inspection, indicating that authorities knew what was on board the ship and allowed it to continue its voyage.

Researchers believe there were two reasons why ships like the Nanhai No.1 were allowed to smuggle without even a slap on the wrist.

The Song government initially pursued a policy of privatizing maritime trade. It eased bureaucratic control over trade, which allowed the sector to flourish. As officials and merchants became richer, they sought to make higher profits, which led to the proliferation of corruption and facilitated smuggling.

Second, “corruption” was seen by the government as a characteristic, not a flaw, because it increased tax revenue. Wars with the Liao and Jin dynasties drained the coffers, and the Song rulers were constantly looking for ways to generate revenue.

The authors wrote that the money generated in two seaports – Guangzhou and Quanzhou in southeastern China’s Fujian province – accounted for a fifth of the country’s total annual income.

“As a result, historical records show that the government deliberately ignored and even encouraged the illegal smuggling activities of traders in order to increase tax revenues,” the authors write.

Part of what makes the Nanhai No.1 The site is of such value that it is a ship intended for the open sea that sank close to the coast. This provided a rare opportunity to access a ship that would have been almost impossible to find in deeper waters, providing a rare insight into large-scale maritime trade.