Historic Alleys

The importance of the pepper trade in China

We spent considerable time and space studying Zheng He's voyages, the Ming tributary system, Ma Huan's accounts, the Selden map, and Arab traders' reactions when a couple of Chinese treasure ships ventured as far as Jeddah in the Red Sea. This post will cover the importance of pepper not only as a spice but also as currency in China, and it will also discuss the ousting of the Chinese from Calicut and Zheng He's death.

Between 1405 and 1421, six voyages of the famed treasure ships boosted trade and strengthened relations between Calicut and the Ming. But in China, conditions were not rosy. With the Mongol threat on its borders and the high cost of the defenses, conditions worsened. Floods, famines, and plague further exacerbated the situation; the state's coffers began to run dry, and Zhu Di quickly introduced a series of austerity measures. Around 1421, all sea voyages were curtailed; luxury imports were halted, as were purchases of horses and teak wood. To compound it all, the royal sponsor and Emperor Zhu Di (Chu Ti) died in 1424. The naval fleet was grounded, the crew was drafted into the army, and Zheng He and his teams were tasked with repairing the Nanking palaces after the new emperor took over. He was eventually deified as Sanbao - the prince of Three Jewels ("Three Jewels" refers to the Buddha, the Dharma (teachings), and the Sangha (community)).

Nevertheless, a final voyage set out in 1431 to attract new envoys and returned after three years, this time also touching new shores in Africa, the Middle East, and Jeddah. Zheng He, as it appears, died at Calicut during this last voyage of 1433. The Chinese economy continued to deteriorate; troubles in Annam worsened. Up North, the Chinese lost to the Mongols, and the Ming king was taken prisoner. And with that, Ming China shuttered its gates, ports, and shores, effectively walling itself off from the outside world. That said, let us go back and check some details.

Pepper Hu Chiao as Spice and currency 

T'ien Ju-kang’s paper offers valuable insight into this aspect. Calicut's status as the leading pepper exporter on the Malabar Coast was likely the main reason for this Chinese interest in the port.

Though pepper is mentioned only briefly in Chinese history before the 15th century, we read about the Ta Li regime in the 8th century, when they executed the Prime Minister for bribery. His property included some 800 Tan (piculs) of black pepper (roughly 48 metric tons)! So much so that the expression 800 piculs of pepper became synonymous with riches and luxury in poems and literature. From early Ming times, foreign trade, including pepper and sapan wood, became an Imperial monopoly, closely guarded to ensure all profits went to the emperor. Consumption was limited, and later, as spice stocks increased, pepper became a sort of currency.

In the 14th century, shipbuilders received pepper bonuses: a pound per worker. This increased to as much as 4 pounds in the 15th century. Servicemen were paid in pepper instead of winter clothing. Nevertheless, only the wealthy and servicemen could consume pepper, not commoners. Many other measures kept pepper prices high within China. As time went by and pepper stocks grew and entered the market, rewards increased during Zhu Di’s time. The price was generally maintained at 1 catty of pepper equaling one tael of silver.

China had long been the biggest market for pepper in the East. In Marco Polo's time, "for one shipload of pepper that goes to Alexandria or elsewhere, destined for Christendom, there comes a hundred, aye or more, to this haven of Zayton, for it is one of the two greatest havens in the world of commerce". Polo also observed that "the quantity of pepper introduced daily for consumption into the city of Kinsay amounted to 43 loads, each load being equal to 223 lb”. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the average annual total amount of pepper purchased by the Chinese was estimated at 50,000 bags, or two million catties, close to a million kilograms!

Interestingly, during the decades of the voyages, paper money in China lost value, and almost all salaries were paid in pepper imported from Calicut, making Calicut the most important destination! Many scholars have overlooked the importance of the pepper trade in China, but strong demand for pepper eventually led to the development of pepper plantations in Java and Sumatra. With the arrival of the Portuguese, most of the pepper went westward to Europe, while China depended on Southeast Asian producers and smaller supplies from Malabar.

Potential reasons for the Chinese leaving Calicut

To analyze the reasons for the Chinese departure, we should also look at Mameluke-Calicut trade relations. In 1432, two Chinese junks from Cheng Ho’s fleet, after docking at Calicut, sailed with Calicut representatives to Jeddah, bypassing Aden.

The exact report is as follows: Shawwal 22 [21 June A.D. 1432]. A report came from Mecca the Honored that a number of junks had come from China to the seaports of India, and two of them had anchored in the port of Aden, but their goods, chinaware, silk, musk, and the like, were not disposed of there because of the disorder of the state of Yemen. The captains of these two junks wrote to the Sharif Barakat ibn Hasan ibn 'Ajlan, emir of Mecca, and to Sa'd al-Din Ibrahim ibn al-Marra, controller of Judda, asking permission to come to Judda. The two wrote to the Sultan about this and made him eager for the large amount that would result if they came. The Sultan wrote to them to let them come to Judda, and to show them honor…

Whether this was planned or whether the Chinese coerced the Nakhudas of Calicut into taking them to Jeddah is not known, but what we do know is that the two Chinese ships at Jeddah hastened back to Calicut and thence to China upon hearing of the untimely demise of Zheng He at Calicut (Zheng’s ships had meanwhile left Calicut without waiting for the Mecca ships) after he passed away. In fact, the Chinese were planning to go farther to the Levant and the Mediterranean and touch Florence. Perhaps the attack on the Chinese settlement was the traders' revenge when they realized the Chinese were ready to usurp the Jeddah trade route. Compounding the fear that the Chinese ships were large and could prove even more competitive (large capacity, lower transport and handling costs), another fear the Arab traders in Aden and Calicut had was that all the Chinese sailors and admirals were mostly Muslim, so they might establish a good rapport with the Jeddah traders. It may have been a preemptive act of revenge by the Arab traders of Calicut, who thought the Chinese were preparing to usurp the profitable Jeddah trade route.

It seems the Chinese became entangled in the Cochin-Calicut rivalry. China was interested in Cochin mainly because pepper prices there were lower, and second, because of their competition and rivalry with the Arabs at Calicut, who were perpetually middlemen in the business. Tansen Sen states: Thus, perhaps in order to secure the supply of pepper and establish a base on the Malabar Coast for further exploration of the Indian Ocean, the Ming court decided to intervene in the confrontation that was brewing between Calicut and Cochin and, in 1416, conferred a special status on the Cochin ruler. I discussed this in more detail in my article on the Coronation Stone (see link). The Zamorin of Calicut objected to this decision. Calicut's diplomatic missions to China declined after 1417. Only three embassies, in 1421, 1423, and 1433, seem to have been sent to the Chinese court by Calicut after the imperial seal was conferred upon the ruler of Cochin. During the 5th and 6th voyages, they spent less time, as Sen notes. It appears things came to a head in 1433, and Zheng He passed away.

Departure from Calicut

The next time we hear of the Chinese in Calicut is from the Malayali priest Joseph, a.k.a. Joseph the Indian, who went to Lisbon around 1501 in Alvarez Cabral’s Portuguese fleet. At 40, he was of sound mind, and his interlocutors considered him very honest. His accounts (though his interlocutors modified them here and there) were published around 1510-1520. Joseph stated that the Chinese, possessing remarkable energy, conducted a first-rate trade in Calicut. He also says the trade flourished when White Chinese with long hair, a fez, and head ornaments were present in Calicut, adding that during 1410-1420 the Chinese had a factory in Calicut.

What he tells us next is quite dramatic – having been outraged by the King of Calicut, they rebelled and gathering a large army came to the city of Calicut and destroyed it. From that time and upto the present day they have never come to trade in the said place and they go to a city of a King Naisindo which is called Mailapet.  

According to Joseph, the Chinese left Calicut after this slaughter and moved their base to Mailapet on India’s eastern shores (Nagapatinam?), leaving behind a small colony of half-caste (Chini Bachagan, as referred to in Logan’s Malabar Manual and Abdu Razzak’s memoirs). Nevertheless, I don’t agree with Ray’s translation of the term as boatmen.

Zheng He's death

Zheng He died mid-expedition, in 1433. His body was apparently returned to China for burial in Nanjing. But the tomb in Nanjing contains no body (mentions suggest it had only his clothes) and is quite ceremonial. We read elsewhere that he was actually buried either at Calicut or at sea, the latter being more probable.

Although Zheng He did not go to Mecca, the other writers such as Fei Hsin and Ma Huan reported visiting the Kaaba Mosque in Mecca. A very religious man, Zheng He did not accompany the voyage to Jeddah and the travel to Mecca. Why so? This suggests he was too ill to travel, or he would not have missed it. Aged over 62 (Was he 62 or 80 as some claim?) by then, he must have been a tired man after all this exertion.

After the ships returned, Wang Cheng was appointed to Zheng He’s post as chief supervisor of the department of ceremonials. But the question is: how did Zheng He die in Calicut- was it illness, during a battle with the Pardesi Arabs, or just old age? One speculation is that he was involved in a battle between the Calicut and Cochin forces in 1433; another is that the Pardesi Arabs ousted him and perhaps killed him; and a third is that he died of illness. Some say infectious disease, which was the reason for disposing of the body at sea rather than a local burial. Sea burial is not favored unless the circumstances are extraordinary. If he was gravely injured (or ill) and died at sea, then a sea burial is allowed. Alternatively, a quick sea burial may have been necessary because the Chinese fleet had to flee in a hurry, and according to Muslim tradition, the body disposal had to be carried out within a day.

An article written in 1457, titled “Feihuan An Xianghuo Shenxiang Ji” [Records of the Idolatry Images in the Temple of No illusion] and appended to The Romances Sanbao Grand Eunuch’s Western Ocean Journeys, states that Zheng He died in 1433 in Calicut. Zheng Yijun’s research also concludes that Zheng He died in 1433 in Guli (now Calicut) in India. Interestingly, when the Xuan Emperor ordered Zheng He to make his seventh voyage to the west, Zheng He felt it would be his last trip, and he engraved his navigation history on two stone steles before departing. One stele was set up at the Liujia Harbor in Jiangsu province, and the other at the Wuhu Gate in Fujian province. Zheng Yijun argues that in April 1433, Zheng He’s fleet traveled from East Africa to Guli, where he died of a chronic illness at age 62. The weather was scorching, and because the trip back to China would have taken 3 months, he would have been buried in Calicut or perhaps Semarang in Indonesia. But no burials or stones testifying to it have been located thus far.

According to recent studies by Cheng I-chun and Chuang Wei-chi, Zheng He also passed away in Calicut. A burial may have taken place in Semarang, while the alleged grave in Nanking perhaps contained only some of Cheng Ho's personal belongings. Although this theory has some vague textual evidence, we still lack definitive proof.

Shang-yuan Chiang-ning liang hsien-chih (Gazetteers of Shang-yuan and Nanking), compiled during the T'ung-chih period (1862-1874), Asian Library Collection, University of Washington. Chng says - It was only a few years ago, while preparing a biography of Cheng Ho for the Ming Biographical History Project, that this author came across a reference in a local gazetteer to the effect that he passed away at Calicut during the last of the seven voyages.

Although we can conclude that his body was neither returned to China nor buried outside Nanking, we understand that he had adopted a son, Cheng Hao, who inherited his property.

Ambassadors return to Malabar 1436

Some ambassadors from Calicut accompanied the last Ming fleet, so it is unlikely the Zamorin was connected to Zheng He’s death, or his ambassadors would have hesitated traveling to China. A natural death is therefore indicated. The documentary evidence notes that, as usual, envoys from various countries arrived in the wake of the returning fleet. According to the MSL entry of 14 Sept 1433 (Jun pa-yueh-hsin-hai), King Pi-li-ma (Vikraman) of Calicut sent his ambassador Ko-Pu-man-tu-lu-ya and others to the Chinese court. They are listed second in a group of foreign envoys, mainly from Southern India and the Near East.

On Sept. 19, they were given a formal reception, and on Oct. 3, they received gifts. They stayed in China until 1436, when the Cheng-t’ung emperor Hsuan-te’s successor ascended the throne. The envoys were then sent back on Aug. 11, 1436, with the ships (Javan tribute ships) as needed. After this last voyage, trade shifted to private entrepreneurs and traders. Ray affirms that after 1439, we do not hear of any Indian envoy visiting the Chinese Court nor of any Chinese ship coming to the shores of Bengal or Kozhikode.

Trade did not stop after the treasure voyages

After Cheng Ho's voyages, foreigners brought pepper to China as tribute, and independent Chinese merchants did as well. The Imperial court still maintained strict control over this profitable trade, and imported pepper always had to be sorted by quality. "Some was assigned for imperial consumption, and some stored for soldiers' pay and provisions." The small merchants and vendors benefited too, for "with as little capital as a single coin a man could make his fortune through buying and selling pepper everywhere." But dealing in bulk remained an imperial monopoly. Even in the later years of the Ming dynasty, the punishment for trading in more than a thousand catties of sapan wood or pepper was penal servitude in a distant military station and confiscation of the goods.

Ban on future treasure ship voyages

Haraprasad Ray, in his paper, notes that the cessation of voyages was not only due to a royal decree but also to Japanese piracy on the seas, military failures, a peasant uprising, problems at Quanzhou, the move of port operations to Fuzhou, malaise and bureaucracy, a sharp fall in the value of Chinese paper currency, the rule that seamen had to contribute to shipbuilding instead of receiving a stipend to sail, and finally a ban on private trade. These factors are often cited as stemming from anger at the corrupt eunuch caucus, a view repeated by many writers. One curious account also suggests that Zheng He may have kept his technical knowledge (such as maps) secret and shared it only with the Emperor, Zhu Di.

The Chinese colony in Calicut

In a 19th-century Mackenzie collection of interviews, the Sahabandar Koya states that his ancestors were from Sini Kupola, suggesting a possible Chinese connection (according to Taylor & Mackenzie), and that he helped the Zamorin defeat the Valluvanad-Arangottu Swaroopam chief. When Abdulrazak visited Calicut in 1442, he did not see any Chinese ships (he saw them at Ormuz) but did see Chini Bachagan (in Farsi, Chinese infants) at Calicut, suggesting that some private trade continued even after the cessation of royal trade in 1436.

There is, of course, Joseph the Indian’s testimony – These people of Cathay are men of remarkable energy and formerly conducted a first-rate trade in the city of Calicut. But the King of Calicut having treated them badly, they quitted that city and, returning shortly after, inflicted no small slaughter on the people of Calicut, and after that returned no more. After that, they began to frequent Mailapetam, a city subject to the king of Narsingha; a region toward the East, … and there they now conduct their trade.

Ray says that after this fiasco (around 1440, presumably), Chinese junks occasionally visited the port of Negapatam under the Vijayanagara kingdom and Ormuz, as testified by Abdurazzak. The ouster of Chinese traders from Kozhikode seems closely linked to the ban on voyages and the consequent end of imperial interest in overseas trade. This is because the Chinese merchants who traded at foreign ports in defiance of the imperial will were left without diplomatic protection or arms. Chinese junk-owners and inhabitants of Batavia and Manila were either harshly treated or even massacred in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, like their compatriots in Kozhikode during the fifteenth century.

Abbas Panakkal reports that three mosques in Calicut have Chinese names, along with a protected shrine (Cheenedathu Maqam) adjacent to the Puthiyangadi mosque. He also mentions Shafique's family, a bank officer, who have Mongoloid features and claim to be the progeny of Chinese traders. Panakkal says the shrine is for Sheik Seeni (Chinese Sheik), attached to the Chinese mosque (Cheenedath palli), and that, at his request, they allowed him to conduct detailed research after uncovering the tomb. According to Shafeeq, Parapalli – the mosque and the Puthupanam Cheenam Veedu – are said to be located in the erstwhile Chinese colony. It is also mentioned that Vadakara or Vadakke Kara was the northern limit of the old Chinese colony.

Raghava Varier concludes that the Chinese contact has left behind a few field names in the coastal areas of Malabar, especially in and around Calicut. At Calicut proper, near the 'Silk Street,' there is an area called Cinakotta, meaning Chinese fort. This association of a Chinese fort with the Silk Street is suggestive, even though silk is not traded here at present. At Kappad, the famous spot believed to be Vasco da Gama's landing place, there is a vast compound named Cinacceri, meaning a Chinese settlement. At Pantalayini Kollam (Fandarina of the Arabs and Fan-ta-la-yi-na of the Chinese) and at Quilandi, there are old mosques. This suggests that the Chinese traders were followers of Islam. In the trial diggings at Pantalayini Kollam, Chinese sherds were obtained at different levels. On examination by some Japanese experts of Chinese porcelain, it was found that the Chinese ceramics obtained are mainly the products of the kilns of Longguan and Jingdexhen in Southern China. These sherds are tentatively attributed to a period from the 13th to the 18th century. Rich collections of earlier and finer varieties were made at Quilon in the south and Pantalayini Kollam in the north.

All said, much more remains to be investigated, researched, and concluded about the Chinese presence in Malabar over two decades.

References

Ray, Haraprasad, 'An Enquiry into the Presence of the Chinese in South and Southeast Asia after the Voyages of Zheng He in Early Fifteenth Century - Mariners, Merchants and Oceans, Studies in Maritime History, ed. K. S. Mathew

Zheng He’s Military Interventions in South Asia, 1405–1433 - Tansen Sen

The Eighth Voyage of the Dragon that Never was: An Enquiry into the Causes of Cessation of Voyages during Early Ming Dynasty - Haraprasad Ray

Trade Relations between Kerala and China 1200-1500 AD - M. R. Raghava Varier

The Formation of Chinese Maritime Networks to Southern Asia, 1200-1450 - Tansen Sen

The impact of Zheng He's expeditions on Indian Ocean interactions - Tansen Sen

Cheng Ho's voyages and the distribution of  pepper in china =  T'ien Ju-kang

Pepper Trade in East Asia - Ts'Ao Yung-Ho

Transformation of Admiral to the Sainthood and Sacred Stories of Chinese Sanctum Sanctorum from Malabar Coast – Abbas Panakkal (Sacred Sites and Sacred Stories Across Cultures, Transmission of Oral Tradition, Myth, and Religiosity - David W. Kim)

A note on Ibn Taghri's description of Chinese ships in Aden and Jedda - K. N. Chaudhuri