Discovering steam power in China, 1840s-1860s

Technology and Culture

Volumn 51, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 31-54

  Wang, Hsien Chun ^a  

^a Institute of Modern History Academia Sinica   (Taiwan)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77949847327     PISSN: 0040165X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/tech.0.0388     Document Type: Article

References (94)

1. Prominent examples are John King Fairbank, Chinese Response to the West: Problems and Suggestions (Neuchâtel, Switz., 1956), 385-86;.
2. and John Rawlinson, China's Struggle for Naval Development (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 19-28.
3. Benjamin Elman, On Their Own Terms: Science in China (Cambridge, Mass., 2005), 384-86.
4. On the importance of technical drawings in visual communication, see Peter Jeffrey Booker, A History of Engineering Drawing (London, 1979);.
5. Ken Alder, Engineering the Revolution: Arms and Enlightenment in France, 1763-1815 (Princeton, N.J., 1997), 132-46;.
6. and Ken Baynes and Francis Pugh, The Art of the Engineer (Guildford, UK, 1981), 35-37.
7. For cultural differences in the development and use of technical drawings, see John K. Brown, "Design Plans, Working Drawings, National Styles: Engineering Practice in Great Britain and the United States," Technology and Culture 41 (April 2000): 195-238.
8. For the design and construction of steam engines, see H. W. Dickinson, "The Steam-Engine to 1830," in A History of Technology, vol. 4: The Industrial Revolution, c.1750-1850, ed. Charles Singer et al. (Oxford, 1958), 168-97.
9. I amgrateful to Wang Cheng-hua and Lai Hui-min of Academia Sinica and Chang Li-tuan of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, who pointed out that artisans of the Qing court could have used the lathe to produce delicate, ball-shaped objects. Unfortunately, the tools are not extant. It is possible that the Jesuits and European artisans who served in the imperial court introduced machine tools to imperial workshop artisans. Catherine Pagani has documented that Jesuits and European clock smiths had produced clocks and watches for the Qing court and officials; however, she does not discuss the clock-making tools used. Chinese artisans do not seem to have further developed the principle of the lathe in producing larger metal machine parts. See Catherine Pagani, Eastern Magnificence and European Ingenuity: Clocks of Late Imperial China (Ann Arbor, Mich., 2001).
10. Chinese artisans' drawings, both rough and fine, could have been understood within the circle of masters and disciples or colleagues who shared similar technical knowledge. Unfortunately, I have not found any surviving working technical drawings. It is likely that they were destroyed soon after the work was done. The drawings of Chinese technological treatises of the nineteenth century are not an adequate source for understanding Chinese technical drawings because they were produced not for artisans, but mostly for an elite readership. Peter Golas has argued that the lack of accuracy in Chinese technical illustrations might have been related to the shift from realism to impressionism in Chinese painting during the southern Sung period. See Peter Golas, "Like Obtaining a Great Treasure," in Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China: The Warp and the Weft, ed. Francesca Bray et al. (Leiden, 2007), 569- 614.
11. A good example is the Qianlong emperor's (1736-1795) comment on production procedures. He ordered wooden models to accompany artisans' drawings because the drawings were inadequate in their details. This practice was not limited to the imperial workshop: Chinese architects also produced detailed drawings and scale models. See Zhang Liduan (Chang Li-tuan), "Cong 'Huoji dang' kan Qing Gaozong zhijie kongguan yuzhi qiyong de liangge jizhi," Gugong xueshu jikan 24, no. 1 (2006): 49;.
12. and Klaas Ruitenbeek, Carpentry and Building in Late Imperial China: A Study of the Fifteenth-Century Carpenter's Manual Lu Ban Jing (Leiden, 1996), 33.
13. German Jesuit Johannes Shreck (also Terrenz, or Terrentius Constantiensis), known in China as Deng Yuhan, studied medicine and went to Macau in 1619 and Beijing in 1623. He worked with his Jesuit colleagues and Chinese friends to translate books on mathematics and astronomy, Yuanqi qiqi tushuo luzui being one of them. He died in Beijing in 1630. See Deng Yuhan andWang Zheng, Yuanxi qiqi tushuo luzui (1830 edition in the Fu Ssu-nien Library, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan).
14. Words (texts) and drawings can only be understood when readers, listeners, and viewers agree on the same set of conventions. For a more detailed discussion, see William M. Ivins Jr., Prints and Visual Communication (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), 51-63.
15. George Basalla, The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge, 1988), 84.
16. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 4: Mechanical Engineering (Cambridge, 1965), 4:225-27.
17. J. L. Cranmer-Byng and Trevor H. Levere, "A Case Study in Cultural Collision: Scientific Apparatus in the Macartney Embassy to China, 1793," Annals of Science 38, no. 5 (1981): 503-25;.
18. Elman (n. 2 above), 29-30;.
19. and Maxine Berg, "Britain, Industry, and Perceptions of China:Matthew Boulton, 'Useful Knowledge, ' and the Macartney Embassy to China, 1792-94," Journal of Global History 1, no. 2 (2006): 269-88.
20. At this early stage in the steam engine's development, it had not yet become the major source of motive power for industrial manufacturing. As yet it consumed too much fuel, it was bulky, and its motion was unstable. The biggest users of steam engines, even as late as 1850, remained the mining and metallurgy industries. Therefore it was far from clear how Macartney and Dinwiddie could have presented the steam engine as more than a curious contrivance in the 1790s. See David Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present (Cambridge, 1969), 104.
21. The earliest Chinese account of the steamship can be found in Wang Dahai, Haidao yizhi, which was printed in 1791.Wang had resided in Batavia since 1783.He left a short account that asserted that steamship machinery was driven by fire. It is unclear if Wang had really seen any steamers; it is possible that he learned about them from hearsay. See Lü Shiqiang, Zhongguo zaoqi de lunchuan jingying (Taipei, 1962), 3.
22. One li is about 576 meters. But "1, 000 li" is an often-used metaphor to describe high speed and long distance. See Wei Yuan, comp., Haiguo tuzhi (1876; reprint, Shanghai, 1997), 52:12b.
23. Wei Yuan (1794-1857) was an open-minded, educated elite concerned with various crises that the Qing empire was facing, especially after the dynasty was defeated in the First Opium War. He compiled and printed the first edition of the Haiguo tuzhi in 1843, which included translated works about the Western world and essays about maritime defense. He later extended the book in 1847, and again in 1852. Historians consider it one of China's earliest systematic attempts to understand theWest during the nineteenth century.
24. In 1830, the British East India Company's steamship Forbes visited Guangzhou; the British firm Jardine, Matheson & Company's steamship Jardine did the same in 1835. In the latter incident, Guangzhou civil and military officials boarded and inspected the ship but prohibited it from entering the port, as reported by The Chinese Repository, an English-language missionary newspaper published in Macau; see The Chinese Repository 4 (May 1835-April 1836): 438.
25. Wenqing et al., comp., Chouban yiwu shimo (1851; reprint, Beijing, 1929), 11:18ab. Chouban yiwu shimo was a collection of official documents concerning Qing China's foreign affairs, first compiled after the death of the Daoguang emperor (1820-1850).
26. Anonymous, Yifei fanjing wenjian lu (1857; reprint, Beijing, 1995), 14.
27. Joseph Needham has traced the invention of the treadmill paddle-mill boat to Zu Chongzhi, a fifth-century official who was interested inmathematics. Zu built a thousand- league boat that could cruise several hundred li in a day without the help of the wind. Late-eighth-century records have clear descriptions of a kind of naval boat with two wheels that were attached to its sides and propelled by treadmills. The southern Song navy also used this same type of boat to fight the Jurchens on the Yangzi River. Treadmill, paddlewheel vessels were still being used on the Pearl River during the 1920s. See Needham (n. 10 above), 4:413-35;.
28. and Jung-pang Lo, "China's Paddle-wheel Boats: Mechanized Craft Used in the OpiumWars and Their Historical Background," Qinghua xuebao 2, no. 1 (1960): 189-206.
29. Wei, 84:27a-28b.
30. Ibid., 79:16a.
31. J. E. Bingham, Narrative of the Expedition to China from the Commencement of the War to Its Termination in 1842 (London, 1842), 1:181.
32. Wei (n. 14 above), 86:2a;.
33. and Needham, 4:429-30.
34. Wei, 84:27a-b.
35. Ibid., 84:28b-29a;.
36. and Needham (n. 10 above), 4:430.
37. William Bernard, Narrative of the Voyages and Services of the Nemesis, from 1840 to 1843 (London, 1844), 2:226.
38. Wei, 84:16b;.
39. and Gideon Chen (Chen Qitian), Lin Tse-hsü: Pioneer Promoter of the Adoption of Western Means of Maritime Defense in China (1934; reprint, New York, 1961), 35.
40. Cao Cheng, Yihuan baichang ji, 40a (1842; reprint, Taipei, 1968), 85-86. Cao was from Zhejiang province.
41. This occurred on 16 June, 1842;.
42. see Bernard, 2:396.
43. J. F. Davis, China during the War and since the Peace (London, 1852), 1:258.
44. Wenqing et al. (n. 16 above), 59:48a-49a.
45. Qing officials were also making an effort to improve their warships. By 1840, Lin Zexu built some vessels after the European model; he also purchased a U.S. merchant sailing ship, Cambridge, and armed it with cannons. In 1841, Yi Changhua, prefect of Guangzhou, built a war junk after theWestern model. Pan Shicheng, a Guangzhou merchant, contributed money toward building four ships after theWestern model. For more details, see Chen, 32-37.
46. Wenqing et al., 63:16a-b.
47. Wei (n. 14 above), 89:12a-13b;.
48. Wenqing et al., 63:15a-b;.
49. and Jung-pang Lo (n. 18 above), 189-212.
50. Wenqing et al., 63:17a-b.
51. George Smith, A Narrative of an Exploratory Visit to Each of the Consular Cities of China and to the Islands of Hong Kong and Chusan, in Behalf of the Church Missionary Society, in the Years 1844, 1845, 1846, 2nd ed. (London, 1847), 109-10.
52. The Chinese Repository 16 (1847): 104;.
53. Charles Gutzlaff, The Life of Taou Kwang, Late Emperor of China. With Memoirs of the Court of Peking; including a Sketch of the Principal Events in the History of the Chinese Empire during the Last Fifty Years (London, 1852), 221-22.
54. This Chineseman also produced two volumes of diagrams andmaps of the stars, asking Smith's opinion about them and asking Smith to send him some books on Western astronomy; see Smith, 109-10.
55. Ding Gongchen, Yanpao tushuo jiyao (1841; reprint, [n.p.], 1945), 4:16b.
56. Ding Gongchen, Yanpao tushuo jiyao , 1841), 4:16b, Ibid.
57. Zheng Fuguang's Huo lunchuan tushuo is an appendix to his Jingjing lingchi (1847; reprint, Shanghai, 1936).
58. Zheng Fuguang, "Dingbu huolunchuan jiju tushuo zhiwu," Jingjing lingchi, 88.
59. As early as 1846, there were two steamboats shuttling between Hong Kong and Guangzhou. In 1848, the Hongkong Canton Steam Packet & Company was formed for the ferry business between the two sites; see Nie Baozhang, ed., Zhongguo jindai hangyun shi ziliao (Shanghai, 1983), 1:7. The Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company also had river service between Hong Kong and Guangzhou; in 1850, the company established its Hong Kong-Shanghai line.
60. Xin Yuanou, Zhongguo jindai chuanbo gongye shi (Shanghai, 1999), 21-39.
61. Xin Yuanou, North China Daily News, 21 April 1864, quoted in ibid., 34.
62. Xin, 34-35.
63. North China Herald, 5 April 1881.
64. Xin, 35-36.
65. Ibid., 40-42.
66. Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue dongjian yu wanqing shehui (Shanghai, 1994), 145.
67. Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue dongjian yu wanqing shehui , 1994, Between the 1840s and 1860s, the LondonMissionary Society Press was the most important publisher of Western science in China; for more details, see ibid., 181-205.
68. For the role of Western firearms and mercenaries during the Taiping Rebellion, see Kwang-Ching Liu, "The Ch'ing Restoration," in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 10, ed. John K. Fairbank and Denis Twitchett (Cambridge, 1978), 425-34.
69. No document describes the facilities and skills of the Anqing arsenal; see Sun Yutang, ed., Zhongguo jindai gongyeshi ziliao diyi ji (Beijing, 1957), 1:251-52.
70. "The boiler was made of a compound resembling zinc; the diameter of the cylinder was one inch and seven tenths, and the speed attained by the engine was 240 revolutions per minute" (North China Herald, 5 September 1868).
71. Zeng Guofan, Zeng Guofan quanji: riji (Changsha, 1987), 766, .
72. translation based on Gideon Chen (Chen Qitian), Tseng Kuo-fan: Pioneer Promoter of the Steamship in China (1935; reprint, New York, 1968), 40.
73. Historian Gideon Chen argues that Zeng's "two of the front holes" might have referred to two valves.When they were closed, the steam goes into "the other front hole," or the front part of the cylinder. See Chen, Tseng Kuo-fan, 40-41.
74. John Fryer continues: "The steamer [the Huanghu], which was of twenty-five tons measurement, was able at her trial trip on the Yangtze in the year 1865 to make 255 li or about 85 miles in fourteen hours, and to do the return journey in less than eight hours" (North China Herald, 29 January 1880).
75. North China Herald, 5 September 1868;.
76. Xin (n. 43 above), 94.
77. North China Herald, 5 September 1868.
78. Zhongguo shixuehui, ed., Yangwu yundong (Beijing, 1961), 4:16.
79. In his diary entry of 28 January 1864, Zeng Guofan described the steamboat built by his subordinate Cai Guoxiang: "I went out of town and down to the river to see a small steamboat built by Cai Guoxiang, two zhang and eight or nine chi long [between 2.5 and 2.8 meters]. Since on reaching the middle of the river we had traveled [only] eight or nine li [around 5.2 kilometers], I calculate that in two hours we would have traveled around 25 or 26 li [around 14 to 15 kilometers]. Larger versions of this will be built after this model, and more will be built." See Zeng (n. 54 above), 961. Cai Guoxiang was a commander of the Xiang army, but we know nothing else about him. Historians attribute this steamboat to Xu Shuo and Hua Hengfang, arguing that it was Cai who supervised the building work, and hence Zeng put Cai's name in his diary. However, there is no evidence to support this speculation. The North China Herald (5 September 1868 and 29 January 1880) only recorded one trial steamboat, which was the one built by Hua and Xu in 1863, and this account matches John Fryer's reminiscence of 1880.
80. See also Chen, Tseng Kuo-fan (n. 54 above), 41;.
81. David Wright, "Careers in Western Science in Nineteenth- Century China: Xu Shou and Xu Jianjin," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 5, no. 1 (1995): 64;.
82. and Bai Guangmei and Yang Gen, "Xu Shou yu Huanghu hao lunchuan," in Xu Shou he Zhongguo jindai huaxueshi, ed. Yang Gen (Beijing, 1986), 161-62.
83. Wright, 64.
84. North China Herald, 5 September 1868.
85. Chinese scholar Song Ziliang points out that it is impossible to build a steam engine according to the simple description of the Bowu xinbian; See Song, "Anqing nei junxiesuo he Zhongguo diyisao zhengqichuan," Chuanshi yanjiu 6 (1993): 2.
86. According to Chinese historian Xin Yuanou, the steel parts of the engine's shaft, boiler, and cylinder were purchased from abroad, but most of the other parts were made in the arsenal;.
87. see Xin (n. 43 above), 101.
88. Demetrius C. Boulger, The Life of Sir Halliday Macartney, K.C.M.G. (London, 1908), 79. Macartney originally served in the British Army in China as a military medical doctor, later leaving the British service and joining Li Hongzhang's army in 1863.
89. Demetrius C. Boulger, The Life of Sir Halliday Macartney, K.C.M.G. ,1908,Unfortunately, we do not know the quantity of these machine tools; see ibid., 125-32.
90. In April 1863, Li Hongzhang told Zeng Guofan that he was trying to hire foreign technicians and purchase machine tools (or tools that made guns) from Hong Kong; see Li Hongzhang, Li Wenzhong gong quanji (1905; reprint, Shanghai, 1921), 3:16b.
91. Zhongguo jindai bingqi gongye dang'an shiliao bianweihui, ed., Zongguo jindai bingqi gongye dang'an shiliao (Beijing, 1993), 1:50-51.
92. Sun (n. 52 above), 1:253.
93. Ibid., 1:260.
94. Yung Wing (Rong Hong), My Life in China and America (1909; reprint, New York, 1978), 149-51. Hong was one of the earliest Chinese to receive a Western education. He was educated in missionary schools in Macau and Hong Kong as a child during the 1830s and 1840s. He went to the United States in 1847 and graduated from Yale College in 1854, then returned to China.