How did the British Magalny Mission evaluate the navigation situation at that time in Qing Dynasty?

The vicious and ignorant rule of the Manchu Dynasty over China was an important reason for China's social and economic retrogression. Wang Hongbin, the author of Coastal Defence in the Early Qing Dynasty: Thoughts and Systems, made such a comparison. "In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the titles of China's envoys in Ryukyu were as follows: Wang Shangqing was sealed at 1533, captain 17, width 3. 16, depth10.33, and shipbuilding measurement was about 537. 1633, Wang Shangfeng was named. The ship is 20 feet long, 6 feet wide and 5 feet deep, and the shipbuilding size is 1200 units. This kind of ship was similar to the general merchant ships in Europe at that time, at the same level. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Wang Shangzhi was appointed as 1663, and the captain of Zhang Xueli was named 18 Zhang, with a width of 2.2 Zhang and a depth of 2.3 Zhang.

1684, length 15, width 2.6.

17 19, 10, 2.8, and 1.5.

1756, length 1 1.5, width 2.75 and depth 1.4.

In 1800, it was only 7 feet long, 2.75 feet wide and 1.3 feet deep.

Zhao asked why it was so small. "The rich army is in Fujian, but there are such boats." This shows that China's civilian ship manufacturing technology was in the process of continuous retrogression during the reign of the Qing Dynasty. "

Why is this happening? This paper compares Wang Hongbin's coastal defense thoughts in Ming and Qing Dynasties. The idea of coastal defense in the Ming Dynasty was that the enemy came from overseas and wanted to intercept and destroy it at sea, while the Manchu rulers thought that the hostile forces at sea (anti-Qing armed forces) came from home, so they had to strictly restrict going to sea and cut off aid. Therefore, coastal defense is mainly targeted at the local area, with coastal defense as the focus and water defense as the auxiliary. "Restricting the manufacturing scale, technology and navigation capacity of civilian ships" is regarded as emigrating overseas.

Obviously, the rulers of Manchu always regarded overseas Han Chinese as a big threat to them, so Manchu under Kangxi always thought that "many Han Chinese gathered in overseas ports such as Luzon and Graba are pirates", so it demanded that the trade in Nanyang be banned and fishing boats and merchant ships be controlled. Yongzheng, who took over, was not inferior to his father. These Manchu rulers' fear of the ocean and the Han people has reached an absurd level. Even fishing boats are uneasy. They think that Guangdong's "towing fishing boats are large in scale and can break the wind and waves, and they are afraid of cunning. It is recommended to dismantle them all. " Some people object that fishing boats are too small to fish in the ocean. Upon hearing this, Yongzheng resolutely rejected his opposition. Therefore, the result of the discussion is that "the beam head of Guangdong fishing boats shall not exceed five feet, and the helmsman shall not exceed five feet", and Yongzheng's order is "No sailing, no meddling. You and other government officials should not leave another day of harm because of short-term interests. " However, such restrictions still could not satisfy the rulers of the Qing court. "I don't know that although the beam head is five feet and the belly is very big, it can still ride the wind and waves." "Please agree with its awning and don't add skirts to it. If the canopy is too high and too wide, it will be punished. " In addition, it is necessary to limit the carrying of fresh water. Ironically, Manchu rulers even regarded ballast stones as a threat to their rule. 1756, under the rule of Qianlong, it was stipulated that "fishing boats and merchant ships used ballast as an excuse and used stones and stones as tools for resisting arrest and robbery. After that, adobe and clods are allowed to be used for ballast. If there is any non-compliance, take strict measures to correct it. "

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Netherlands lost to the Ming Dynasty many times in military and trade, but after the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains, the Netherlands changed this decline, because the powerful maritime military power and maritime trade capacity of the Ming Dynasty disappeared with the demise of the Qing Dynasty, and the rulers of the Qing Dynasty repeatedly regarded overseas Chinese as their great threat, so in 1740, Dutch colonists slaughtered tens of thousands of overseas Chinese in Batavia, and the river was red with blood. History calls it the "Red River Incident". Gan Long was very happy when he heard the news and felt that the Dutch had helped him. He said, "Those who refused to listen to the recall in the Mainland and were willing to stay for a long time should have been punished in China long ago. Gan Long means that he wants to kill these people, but he can't kill them because they are beyond his power. Now the Dutch helped him kill them, and he felt very happy, so he called him "deserved it." "This is the psychology of the Qing emperor beast. If the Ming navy is still there, if the Ming-Zheng fleet is still there, would the beaten Dutch dare to buy a Ming flag in order not to be looted?

On 1793, the British Magalny mission visited the Qing dynasty. At this time, it has been nearly 400 years since Zheng He's treasure ship went to sea (1405-1433). In the past 400 years, the Ming navy dispatched 500 large surface ships, such as Fufu, one of the largest ships in the world at that time, and annihilated the Japanese navy in the exposed beam naval battle. The Ming navy defeated the Dutch sea coachman five times and established all the maritime control rights in East Asia from Japan to the South China Sea, which has been 154 years. China's navigation technology has declined to the point where people look down on it and laugh at it ... At that time, the British mission was "surprised to find that the sailboats in China were very fragile and could not resist the attack of strong winds because of their shallow draft", and they came to the conclusion that "the structure of China ships was not suitable for navigation at all". Magalny once lamented: "It has been 250 years since China first saw European ships. They made no secret of their admiration for our sailing skills, but they never imitated our shipbuilding skills or sailing skills. They stubbornly followed the clumsy methods of their ignorant ancestors. Because no country in the world needs navigation technology more than China, the inertia of China people is even more incredible. " . (The above quotation comes from peyrefitte's "Stagnant Empire-Collision of Two Worlds". It can be seen from the narration of the British envoys that the glory and glory of the Ming Empire, once a maritime military and trade power, has been ruined by this group of barbaric and ignorant Manchu Tatars ~!