英文摘要 |
This article investigates how the island of Putuoshan simultaneously acted as a Buddhist monastic centre and a maritime shipping hub from the Qing dynasty's legalisation of overseas trade in 1684 until the 1720s. It argues that because overseas trade during the Kangxi era was inconsistently regulated, a mutually beneficial relationship developed between Putuoshan's Buddhist mon- asteries, the merchants who sailed between China and Japan, and the regional naval commanders on Zhoushan. Instead of forcing merchant vessels to enter ports with customs offices, the naval commanders allowed merchants to use Putuoshan's harbour, which lay beyond the empire's trade administration system. The monasteries enjoyed the patronage of the merchants, and so rewarded the naval commanders by publicly honouring them. However, a reorganisation of the empire's customs system in the mid–1720s shifted the power over trade to Zhejiang's governor general, who brought an end to Putuoshan's special status outside the administration around 1728. |