Scrap whatever you learned about Marco Polo, because
whatever he did pales in comparison to these men. Some of the greatest
explorers in the world were not soldiers or fortune seekers, but Christian
missionaries. The Jesuits went on dangerous and uncharted journeys to spread
Christianity, but they ended up becoming the great adventurers, introducing unknown
lands to the Europeans.
Matteo Ricci can be credited with being the first European
to explore China. Portuguese sailors knew it was there, but Ricci took efforts
to learn the language, explore the land, learn the customs, translate the
books, and bring all this knowledge back to Europe. He translated the works of
Greek mathematicians into Chinese, and brought back translations of Kun Fu Tsu,
known in Europe as Confuscius. Based on his work, Italian mapmakers returned 44
years later and created Novus Atlas Sinensis, the first map of China.
The maps are remarkable, not just for the details, but for
how extensive they are. The maps show the entire coastline, including Japan,
Korea, and Formosa, with accuracy. Next come the rivers and the mountains,
which would have been no easy feat for the Italians. These mapmakers were in a
land they knew nothing about, cut off from anyone they knew, dependent on their
guides, exposed to the elements, and god help them if they got caught near the
Yangtzee river when it flooded. Even with the emperor’s men guarding them, they
would still have been in danger of attack by bandits.
According to this book, the Italian and German Jesuits were
well received in China. There’s a funny story about Johan Adam Schall, the
Jesuit mathematician in charge of the mission’s astronomy department. The
emperor Shunzhi had lost his father, and saw the white-bearded patriarch as a
surrogate parent. The Jesuit’s astronomy skills were in big demand, because
accurate calendars were needed, perhaps for the crop planting times. I bet they
needed to predict the seasons as well, because rainy seasons would’ve brought
China’s infamous floods.
The book touches on the issue of Christian rivalry as well.
Ricci began his mission at a time when Catholic and Protestant kings were at
war over Europe, and the Jesuit mission to China may have been a way of
expanding the influence of Catholic nations, like Portugal and Spain. There is,
however, an economic reason for the expedition; the missionaries made the trip
on Portuguese boats, and this might have been a way for them to gain a foothold
on trade in Asia. By ferrying men and goods to and from China, they could
establish a rapport with the empire, gain a monopoly, and outdo their
competitors. They could outdo Britain, with her West Indian sugar, and Spain,
with her gold from Latin America.
The maps are beautifully reproduced, the writing and
research are excellent. Han Qi, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Science,
writes how the Kangxi emperor made trips to the west of China, and brought
along Jesuit astronomers who taught him how to measure distance. It reminds me
of an earlier book I reviewed, titled “How The West Won,” in that it shows how
much China learned from Europe. I don’t know how the emperor’s army and tax
collectors found their way around, given that all the best mapmakers were
Italian. Did they navigate visually? If a road was washed out, how would they
identify the landmarks?
I suspect that China’s unique terrain, with its famous
mountains, would have had more landmarks with which to navigate. The Italian
mapmakers plied their craft for sea captains, who had absolutely no landmarks
to tell them where they were. By the time Matteo Ricci came to China, Europe’s Age of Discovery was already 200
years old, and that was plenty of time for the Italians to become experts in
maps and navigation. China, however, had no such industry. Their kings weren’t
like Henry the Navigator, who used his royal money to finance exploration. The
last great Chinese explorer, Zhang He, was long dead and his ships burned. A
great opportunity had been wasted, and China would be isolated.
Perhaps this book is really a way to explain why European’s
were so successful at colonizing other lands? When “enlightened” rulers make an
effort to learn all that is learnable, they can dominate those that do not.
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