:NVG 061 cover.qxd 6/1/10 10:12 Page 1 ... · PDF fileNew Vanguard • 61 New Vanguard ......

Stephen T

urnbull

Fightin

g Ship

s of th

e Far East (1

)

OSPREYP U B L I S H I N G

OSPR

EY

Following on from the two

volumes on Siege Weapons of

the Far East, this title adds

enormously to the hitherto

small corpus of knowledge

about a fascinating and little

known subject. Using detailed

descriptions, accurate cutaway

artwork and reliable historical

examples, this book covers the

history of Chinese ship design

and naval warfare from the

beginning of the Han dynasty

to the first few years of the

Ming dynasty, when a Ming

naval force first countered

Sichuanese rebels. Also covered

is the epic battle of Lake

Poyang in 1363, won by the

man who was to become the

first Ming Emperor.

www.ospreypublishing.com

Fighting Ships of theFar East (1) China and Southeast Asia 202 BC–AD 1419

New Vanguard • 61

New

Vanguard

• 61

The design, development, operation and history

of the machinery of warfare through the ages.

New Vanguard

Fighting Ships ofthe Far East (1)China and Southeast

Asia 202 BC–AD 1419

OSPREYP U B L I S H I N G

Unrivalled detail

Full colour artwork Illustrations

Cutaway artwork

Stephen Turnbull • Illustrated by Wayne Reynolds

I S B N 978-1-84176-386-6

9 7 8 1 8 4 1 7 6 3 8 6 6

5 1 7 9 5

US $17.95 UK£9.99CAN $19.95

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© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com

STEPHEN TURNBULL is recognised as one of theworld’s foremost military historians of the medieval andearly modern periods. He firstrose to prominence as a resultof his 1977 book, The Samurai:A Military History. Since thenhe has achieved an equal famein writing about European military subjects and has had30 books published. He hasalways tried to concentrate on the less familiar areas ofmilitary history, in particularsuch topics as Korea, EasternEurope, the Baltic states andthe Teutonic Knights.

WAYNE REYNOLDS was bornin Leeds, UK, and attended artcollege in Middlesborough. Hehas had a life-long passion forillustration, and since 1991has worked as a professionalartist. Wayne has providedillustrations and source material for many gamingcompanies, creating figures,landscapes and interiors, aswell as providing core characterisation. He is perhaps best known thoughfor his work on titles such as2000AD, Slaine, and JudgeDredd. Wayne is also a keenmodeller and historical re-enactor.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 3

FIGHTING SHIPS AND NAVAL WARFARE IN THE ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL FAR EAST 4• Fighting ships from Ancient China to the Tang• The fighting ships of the Song dynasty• Southeast Asia in the 12th Century AD• The rise of the Mongols• The founding of the Mongol navy• The Mongol naval campaigns in Southeast Asia• Naval power in the founding of the Ming dynasty

TECHNIQUES AND TYPES OF CHINESE SHIPS AND SHIPBUILDING 10• The first Chinese ships• The sampan• The eternal Chinese junk• The construction of a Chinese junk• Oar propulsion• Sails, rudders and anchors

THE CHINESE FIGHTING SHIP 14• Early specialist warships• The typology of Chinese warships• Lou chuan: The medieval Chinese battleship• Paddle-wheel fighting ships

THE CHINESE FIGHTING SHIP IN ACTION 21• Armour plating on Chinese warships• The use of striking arms• Boarding parties and close combat• Catapults and bombs• Naval incendiary weapons

A CASE STUDY OF CHINESE FIGHTING SHIPS 37• The battle of Lake Poyang, 1363

SOUTHEAST ASIAN FIGHTING SHIPS 40• The war barge• War barge fighting techniques

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 43

COLOUR PLATE COMMENTARY 44

INDEX 48

Related TitlesISBN SERIES No. TITLE

978 0 85045 302 7 Men-at-Arms 86 Samurai Armies 1550–1615

978 0 85045 372 0 Men-at-Arms 105 The Mongols

978 1 85532 347 6 Men-at-Arms 287 Byzantine Armies AD 1118–1461

978 1 85532 599 9 Men-at-Arms 295 Imperial Chinese Armies (2): 590–1260 AD

978 1 85532 697 2 Men-at-Arms 314 Armies of the Ottoman Empire 1775–1820

978 0 85045 897 8 Elite 23 The Samurai

978 1 85532 131 1 Elite 35 Early Samurai AD 200–1500

978 1 84176 304 0 Elite 82 Samurai Heraldry

978 1 85532 345 2 Warrior 7 Samurai 1550–1600

978 1 84176 573 0 Warrior 70 Japanese Warrior Monks AD 949–1603

978 1 84176 339 2 New Vanguard 43 Siege Weapons of the Far East (1): AD 612–1300

978 1 84176 340 8 New Vanguard 44 Siege Weapons of the Far East (2): AD 960–1644

978 1 84176 478 8 New Vanguard 63 Fighting Ships of the Far East (2): Japan and Korea

AD 612–1639

978 1 84176 429 0 Fortress 5 Japanese Castles 1540–1640

978 1 84603 253 0 Fortress 74 Japanese Castles AD 250–1540

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New Vanguard • 61

Fighting Ships of the Far East (1)China and Southeast Asia 202 BC–AD 1419

Stephen Turnbull • I l lustrated by Wayne Reynolds

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INTRODUCTION

These books complement my two previous volumes in the NewVanguard series that deal with the medieval siege weapons of theFar East. Here the subject is the fighting ships of China, Korea,

Japan and Southeast Asia during roughly the same period, where we willsee a similar ingenuity applied to military matters over an equally widerange of technology, and with equally impressive results.

The division between the two siege-weapon books was madeaccording to weapon type. Here the division is by country and by timeperiod, and it has seemed most sensible to deal with China andSoutheast Asia together in Volume 1. For China the period covered isfrom the beginning of the Han dynasty to the first half-century of theMing dynasty. The era covers over 1,600 years, during which there wasmuch development in Chinese fighting ships, but also a remarkable consistency both in naval architecture and the techniques of navalwarfare. The Chinese section ends with the classic case study of the epicnaval battle of Lake Poyang in 1363, won by the man who five years laterbecame the first Ming emperor.

FIGHTING SHIPS OF THE FAR EAST (1)

CHINA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA 202 BC–AD 1419

3

The classic sea-going Chinesejunk, shown here during the disastrous attempt by the Yuandynasty to invade Japan in 1281.



The connections between the Chinese dynasties and Southeast Asiaare also explored, firstly, because there are strong links between the twoareas in terms of the transmission of military technology, and secondlybecause the major naval campaigns of the Yuan dynasty were directedagainst Vietnam and Java, whose war barges and river warfare completethe survey.

As space is limited I have no wish to repeat earlier material, so I shallconfine technical descriptions of such weapons as trebuchets andincendiary bombs to the modifications made to them for use in navalwarfare rather than in a siege situation. Instead the focus will be on theships themselves and how they were used in war, from multi-storeyChinese battleships to Cambodian war barges.

Many organisations and individuals have been more than helpful inthe preparation of this volume, but I would particularly like to thank theRoyal Armouries Museum, Leeds; Cambridge University Library; and theMuseum of Chinese History in Beijing.

FIGHTING SHIPS AND NAVALWARFARE IN THE ANCIENT ANDMEDIEVAL FAR EAST

Fighting ships from Ancient China to the TangThe countries covered in this volume have a long history in the use offighting ships in naval conflict, and just as in the case of siege weapons,the tradition begins in ancient China.

As early as 486 BC, during the Chun Qiu (‘Spring and Autumn’)Period, we read of warships possessing similar characteristics to thosethat would be met centuries later, particularly the use of ‘marines’fighting from deck castles. In 219 BC a similarly equipped fleet was sentto war by the Qin emperor. Large battle fleets were found during theHan dynasty (202 BC–AD 220), including one sent against Korea in 108BC, and there are lively tales of warships in the accounts of the ThreeKingdoms Period (AD 221–265). This is the time that is thought of bythe Chinese as the era of military romance par excellence, where accountstell us of double-hulled battleships being attacked by small boats whose bows were tipped with iron rams. Huge battleships then helpedbring about the downfall of the former Three Kingdoms state of Wu in 285. Three centuries later in 584 a naval genius called Yang Su wascommissioned by the Sui emperor to destroy the Chen dynasty, andconstructed a one-hulled, five-storey tower ship. By the time of the Tang

4

The use of sampan-type boats for military purposes as depictedon the wall of a stone tomb in AD 147.



dynasty in the 8th century we have become usedto references to ships of three storeys in heightpossessing ‘bulwarks, arms, flags and catapults’,and now read as well of Greek Fire being projected from ships.

The fighting ships of the Song dynastyThe Song dynasty, which replaced the Tang and reigned from AD 960 to 1279 in spite of interruptions and interregnums brought about byother dynasties, developed a considerable navalcapacity, and shipyards were established inHangzhou and elsewhere. The first Song emperorattached great importance to shipbuilding, andoften made personal visits to the yards. Defenceagainst pirate raids provided the initial stimulusfor this enthusiasm, but the Song fleet soon provedvital in combating the Jin dynasty. During the 12thcentury the Jin fought a long war against the Song,and captured Kaifeng, the Song capital, in 1126.From this time on, Song hegemony was limited tosouthern China, so the dynasty became known asthe Southern Song. It continued to fight backagainst the Jin, conducting operations from theirnew capital of Hangzhou from 1135 onwards, andmuch naval fighting took place.

Southeast Asia in the 12th century ADThe last quarter of the 12th century also saw the rivers and estuaries ofSoutheast Asia resound to naval warfare. While the Song were fightingthe Jin, hundreds of miles to the south war barges and war canoes weregoing into action on behalf of the Khmer empire of Cambodia and theChams of Champa (present day Vietnam). The war was indecisive forsome time, but in 1177 King Jaya Indravarman decided on an invasion ofCambodia by sea. His fleet sailed up river to the Khmer capital of Angkor.The city was pillaged, and the Chams occupied Cambodia for the nextfour years. Other countries then took advantage of Cambodia’s weakness.Ceylon sent a naval and military expedition against the Khmers in 1180,and this state of affairs continued until the future Cambodian kingJayavarman VII staged a revolt. He defeated the Chams in a great naval battle in 1181, an epic river fight commemorated forever in the bas-reliefs carved into the walls of Banteay Chmar and the Bayon inCambodia. Further naval action followed 13 years later when KingJayavarman VII took his revenge on Champa. The defeated KingSuryavarmadeva of Champa fled with his followers in more than 200junks, and being warned that the local dignitary with whom he had takenrefuge was planning to murder him, Suryavarmadeva set fire to his rival’sjunks while their guards slept, and then escaped in the confusion.

The rise of the MongolsThe early 13th century saw the rise of the Mongols, whose initial operations launched overland from the grassy steppes did not require 5

The ‘sand boat’, a wordsometimes used for a Chinesewarship, which is shown herecrudely drawn and full of armedmen. One source says, ‘theirbottoms are flat and broad; theycan sail over shoals and moornear sandbanks, frequentingsandy creeks and havenswithout getting stuck’.



6

them to undertake any naval warfare. Even siege warfare was foreign tothem at first, but when the neighbouring Xixia kingdom was conqueredthe Jin emperor considered it wise to put a barrier of water betweenhimself and these wild horsemen. He accordingly moved from Zhongdu (modern Beijing) to the Jin’s southern capital of Kaifeng,which was protected to the north by the natural moat of the Yellow River. The Mongols then overran Beijing and became the masters ofnorthern China.

In spite of the new threat from the Mongols the Jin continued to fightthe Southern Song, and we will note some further naval operations in this endeavour. The death of Genghis Khan in1227 gave both kingdoms a brief respite fromMongol attentions, but in 1230 his successorOgodei Khan began a large-scale operation againstthe Jin, culminating in 1232 in the celebratedcapture of Kaifeng by the Mongols under theirfamous general Subadai. The Mongols pursuedthe Jin emperor to nearby Caizhou where he hadtaken refuge, and with his suicide in 1234 the Jindynasty came to an end.

The founding of the Mongol navy The conquest of the Southern Song was hinderedtemporarily by the death of Mongke Khan in1259. The effort was resumed by Khubilai Khan,and became a colossal military undertaking thatfaced numerous obstacles. The Mongol armieswere not used to the naval warfare that was nowrequired in order to secure the rivers and ports ofsouthern China, so the development of a Mongolnavy became a top priority. In fact, transport bysea, and naval warfare in general, had not beenneeded at all until the invasion of Korea in 1231,but that campaign had taught the Mongols a veryvaluable lesson. The initial operation had beentotally land-based. But when both sides suffered a

ABOVE A fine representation of aKhmer war barge going intoaction. The spearmen are at theready. All have shields andapparently some form of simplearmour.

BELOW A fanciful drawing of afighting ship shaped like adragon.



stalemate during the protracted siege of the town of Kuju in what is nowNorth Korea, the Korean king took advantage of the opportunity to slipaway with all his court from the capital at Kaesong to the island ofKanghwa. There he formed a government in exile, and resisted allMongol attempts to capture him, even though the distance fromKanghwa to the mainland was only half a mile!

In addition to the lack of sea-going transport, the Mongol horsemenof the steppes were also faced with great rivers that would somehow haveto be crossed and navigated in the unfamiliar climate and terrain ofsouthern China. The first steps towards creating a Mongol navy occurredearly in 1265 with a major battle at Diaoyu in Sichuan Province. TheMongols not only won the battle but captured 146 ships that thenbecame the core of their fleet. The speed with which the Mongol navythen began to grow impressed a Chinese historian, who wrote, ‘thealacrity with which the Mongols, a nation of horsemen unacquaintedwith the sea, took to naval warfare was amazing’.

Further defections from the Southern Song followed, and in 1273an additional 500 ships entered Mongol service from a very unlikelysource. Over the centuries, silt at the mouth of the Yangtze hadproduced a number of islands, and on the largest of these, Chongming,two pirates called Zhu Qing and Zhang Xuan had established themselves. They offered their services to the Mongol leaders, and soonfound themselves in positions of responsibility. A further boost wasgiven to the Mongol maritime capacity when the king of Korea saw hiscountry ravaged around him and abandoned his offshore refuge. Theresulting peace settlement handed the vast naval resources of Korea toKhubilai Khan, and the first use he made of them was in 1274 when theMongols attempted to invade Japan. This well-known operation, whichonly lasted a couple of days and was essentially a reconnaissance inforce, was nonetheless a considerable naval campaign.

The advance against theSouthern Song continuedusing the Mongols’ newlyacquired skills in both navaland siege warfare, and infact it was a sea battle thatbrought about the finaleclipse of the SouthernSong. Bayan crossed theYangtze in 1275, and from1277 the war against theSong developed into aseaborne chase from oneport to another. Thepursuit reached its climaxin 1279 in a sea battle offGuangdong. The Mongolsblockaded the Song fleet,which attempted to breakout. In the fight thatfollowed the Song imp-erial ship was one of the 7

The sha chuan or Jiangsufreighter, a sea-going junk thatwas probably the parent type formany kinds of Chinese ships,including ocean-going war junks.The largest types could reachnearly 200 feet in length, butthis example is 85 feet long.



casualties, so an official took the child emperor in his arms and jumpedinto the sea, drowning them both.

On completion of the conquest of the Southern Song the newlycreated Emperor Khubilai Khan of the Yuan dynasty of China turned hisattentions once more towards Japan. He carried out a second invasionin 1281, but this attempt was no more successful than the first, and thefledgling Yuan fleet was smashed to matchwood by the kami kaze, the‘divine tempest’ that saved Japan. Within a year the sailors of the Yuandynasty had a new role, that of shipping and guarding grain convoys bysea from southern China to the Yuan capital at Beijing. This newenterprise was placed in the hands of the ex-pirates Zhu and Zhang, andwas found to be a workable alternative to river transport. It also provideduseful experience for the forthcoming series of naval expeditions toSoutheast Asia.

The Mongol naval campaigns in Southeast AsiaThe greatest test for the Yuan navy came with their campaigns inSoutheast Asia that added dense jungles, long rivers, insects and diseasesto the Mongol learning curve. Vietnam was the first objective. At thetime Vietnam was divided into two kingdoms: Annam in the north, withits capital at Hanoi, and Champa, home of the Chams, in the south. In1281 the king of Champa aroused Mongol wrath by refusing to payhomage. Khubilai responded by sending Sodu, one of his leadingofficials, on a punitive expedition by sea with 100 ships and 5,000 men.This was an amphibious exercise on the model of the Japanese invasion,but the king withdrew to the mountains, and fierce guerrilla warfare pre-vented the Mongols from making any headway.

A Mongol expedition against Annam reached Hanoi by 1287 and theAnnamese king fled. Not satisfied with his victory, the Yuan generalToghon unwisely returnedduring the hot season of1288. This time a fiercenaval battle took place inthe estuary of the BachDang River off Haiphong,where a celebrated Viet-namese general haddefeated a Chinese armyseveral centuries before.General Tran Hung Daonow repeated the victory,using the same tactics,against the Mongols. Hewaited until high tide, andlured the Mongol fleet intoadvancing over an area ofshallow water where iron-tipped stakes had beenplanted. When the tideturned the Mongol shipswere caught on the pro-jections, and suffered great8

An ocean-going junk depicted in a printed work of 1757, butshowing many traditionalfeatures.



loss. On land too, they were forced to retreat because of the heat and theenvironment, much to Khubilai’s anger, and the efforts to conquerVietnam were effectively over.

A large naval force carried out the Mongol expedition against Javain 1292. The fleet set sail from Quanzhou and took several months toreach Java because they chose an open sea route, calling at smallislands, rather than following the coast through Malacca and Sumatra.We are told that ‘the wind was strong and the sea very rough, so thatthe ships rolled heavily and the soldiers could not eat for many days’.The Mongols landed near present-day Rembang, on the north-easterncoast, early in 1293. The Mongol commander disembarked half hisarmy and instructed them to march overland in a show of force, whilethe rest of the troops continued eastwards by sea. The Chinese accounttells us how ‘the fleet in the river and the cavalry and infantry on shorethen advanced together, and Hi-ning-kuan [the Javanese commander],seeing this, left his boat and fled overnight, whereupon more than ahundred large ships, with devils’ heads on the stem, were captured’.

After four months of fighting the Mongol army began to suffer fromthe equatorial heat; so taking with them what prisoners and treasure theyhad gained, the fleet set sail for China and home.

Naval power in the founding of the Ming dynastyIt was not long before the Yuan dynasty in turn ‘lost the mandate ofHeaven to rule’. A rebel army under Zhu Yuanzhang captured Nanjing in1356 and, with this as their base, began a campaign to overthrow theYuan, although they had other rivals who wished to steal the prize fromthem. It was a naval battle fought on an inland lake that decided which ofseveral rebel groups would succeed the Yuan as the new dynasty. This wasthe battle of Lake Poyang in 1363, described later as a case study inChinese naval warfare. Zhu Yuanzhang, the victor of Poyang, took Beijingin 1368, and that same year proclaimed himself the first emperor of the 9

A replica Chinese junk in thestyle of the ships of the Yuandynasty that tried to invadeJapan is seen here moored inthe harbour of Hirado in Japan.



Ming. The Ming navy became the glory of the empire and the means bywhich such heroes as the eunuch Zheng He carried out astonishing expe-ditions to Sumatra, Ceylon, India and even Africa, from where in 1419 hebrought back a spectacular cargo of lions, leopards, camels and giraffes.

TECHNIQUES AND TYPES OF CHINESESHIPS AND SHIPBUILDING

The first Chinese shipsIn common with many countries, the fighting ships of ancient andmedieval China do not represent a development entirely separate fromthat of other craft, but were adapted from boats and ships designed forpeaceful purposes. For this reason we will begin the study by taking anoverview of Chinese ship design.

The history of shipbuilding in China is lost in the mists of legend andantiquity. Some of the ancient Chinese classics attribute the inspirationfor the earliest craft to Fu Xi, one of the Five Great Rulers of the legendary period, from about 2852 to 2205 BC. Fu Xi is said to havemade important contributions to divination and philosophy, and also tohave introduced rafts to the Chinese people. The use of the word ‘raft’is interesting because although many adjacent countries developed theircraft through the medium of the dugout, China does not appear to havedone the same. It seems quite reasonable to conclude that China’s development of built-up craft came straight from the raft. In southernand central China rafts were generally made from bamboo, of whichthere was a local abundance, while in the Yellow River basin rafts basedupon inflated hides were more common.

Until comparatively modern times similar raftsmade from sheepskins or goatskins were still beingused for passenger traffic or light cargo on theYellow River. Single skins like waterwings were alsoused to support swimmers for short distances. Inthe case of larger rafts the skins were taken fromyaks or bullocks. The prepared skins were stuffedwith wool or tobacco leaves (to escape payingduty!) and inflated. The legs, pointing upwards,were lashed to the wooden framework of the raft, and the skins were tied together. A small ‘one-man’ raft consisted of a wooden platformabout seven feet square, supported by betweennine and 12 skins. Large rafts would be about30–40 feet long and used up to 200 skins.

The sampanWhen we turn to the first all-wooden boats inChina we encounter a word that was to becomevery well known. The word ‘sampan’ is derivedfrom the Chinese ‘san’ meaning ‘three’ and ‘pan’meaning ‘planks’, the whole being a symbolic rep-resentation of a small boat. As a class it represents10

A simple drawing of a Chinesefighting ship suitable for ocean-going work. Lots of lively militaryactivity is going on.



a boat in its most rudimentary form, and doubtless the derivation of itspopular name indicated its origin from a raft of three planks or logs. If itsconstruction is studied, it becomes apparent how, through a process ofevolution, it would occur to the ancient naval architects to build up thefore end of the raft to create a bow. Later improvements would haveincluded the introduction of a transom in the stern. Ancient stonecarvings give us our first pictures of Chinese sampans, and it is fascinatingto note that one representation, dating from AD 147, shows sampansbeing used for naval warfare. The boats are of a characteristic shape, andwe see combatants armed with swords and shields, while one has a bowand arrow. A single oarsman in the stern propels the sampans.

The eternal Chinese junkThe most commonly used word to describe any Chinese or even EastAsian ship is ‘junk’. This familiar expression was first used in a Western-language source in 1555, and is probably derived from a mishearing ofchuan, the Chinese word for boat or ship. Unfortunately, the pejorativeconnotations of ‘junk’, in English at least, have tended to lead to a presumption that Asian ships were somehow inferior to Western ones,an impression that even a knowledge of the Ming voyages to Africa hasdone little to dispel. Yet in many respects Chinese ships were years aheadof their European counterparts, displaying such features as watertightbulkheads, balanced rudders and sails extended with battens longbefore these innovations were seen on Western ships. The expression‘junk’ will occur frequently in the pages that follow, although a moreuseful nomenclature will enable us to identify warship types, includingfighting junks, more precisely where this is possible.

The construction of a Chinese junkWhen a man decided to build a junk, he was not confronted with anydifficulties in choosing its design. That was decided for him centuries 11

A grain freighter on the GrandCanal at the beginning of theMing dynasty. Some of thewarships that fought during thebattle of Lake Poyang wouldhave looked like this.



before, for certain typeswere proper to certain districts. Some slight modi-fications were permitted to meet particular require-ments, but they were in noway allowed to interferewith the essential design.The methods employed inbuilding a junk variedaccording to the localityand the type and size of thecraft, but the followingprocess may be taken astypical and would form the basis even for the different types of specialist warships described below.

The initial operation was essentially to lay the flat planks for thebottom boards side by side on the ground over a central keel (whereone was fitted) and secure them together. This was done using wrought-iron double-ended nails, the planks being knocked together to form asolid whole. At suitable intervals, according to the length of the junkand the strength of the construction desired, transverse bulkheads orribs were placed in position on the bottom planks, each being fastenedin the same manner. The carpenters, who worked without a rule, usingonly the carpenter’s string, cut the side planks of the hull and the walesto shape. The side planks were then placed in position, hove down withropes and finally nailed to the bulkheads. Deck beams, usually ofhardwood, rested on all the bulkheads, their ends being let into thetopmost side planks. Frames, when fitted, were next built into thejunks. These consisted of two, three or more members scarfed andjoined by heavy nails. The bow and stern were built up in more or lessthe same way according to the traditional design usual in the district.When the hull was complete the deck planking was added. Caulkingwas vital, and was carried out using a compound of lime and wood oil.The caulk set hard and white within about 48 hours to produce awatertight join.

Sea-going commercial junks were important vessels in their ownright, and there are good sources for them from the Song and Yuandynasties. There is also an important pictorial source for a Chinese junkon one of the bas-reliefs at Angkor Thom in Cambodia, which may bedated to 1185. Similar vessels acted as warships during the Mongols’

12

The simplest form of watertransport, still used in Chinauntil comparatively recently, wasthe inflated bullock skin. It couldbe used by an individual person,or tied together under hurdles tomake simple rafts. Severalcultures are known to havemade military use of this simplevessel.

The sampan. The word derivesfrom a Chinese expression for‘three planks’.



overseas naval campaigns,as attested to in thepaintings of Mongol shipsthat appear on the MongolInvasion Scroll that illus-trates the expeditions toJapan of 1274 and 1281.Marco Polo, who was inChina between 1275 and1292, adds more detailabout junks. Among manyother features, he notedwith some approval onedeck with little cabins, agood rudder and four

masts, and he was fascinated to see that the design of the larger vesselsmeant that they possessed watertight compartments, somethingunknown in contemporary Europe: ‘so that if by accident the ship isstaved in one place, namely that whether it strikes a rock, or a whale-fishstriking against it in search of food staves it in … the water cannot passfrom one hold to another’.

We may also note the ‘sand ships’, which were sea-going vessels: ‘astheir bottoms are flat and broad they can sail over shoals and moor nearsandbanks, frequenting sandy creeks and havens without getting stuck’.These were simple junks without a keel.

Oar propulsionOne important characteristic of many types of Chinese vessel, bothmilitary and civilian, was the use of an oar known as the yuloh. This typeof oar was radically different from conventional Western oars, and mayalso be seen in Korean and Japanese craft. Instead of being draggedthrough the water the yuloh operated on the principle of a screw, andconsisted of a broad blade of hardwood joined to a central section or‘staff’, which in turn was fixed to a handle or ‘loom’. A rope wasfastened at one end to the loom, and at the other end to a ring bolt onthe deck. The yuloh rested on a fulcrum at about its point of balance.The rope balanced the weight of the blade and kept it at the correctangle as it was moved. A pull on the rope also controlled the featheringof the blade. In contrast to Western practice, instead of multiplying thenumber of oars to increase the power, more men were added to thesame number of yuloh.

Sails, rudders and anchorsSea-going junks would make use of wind power. The characteristic sailof China is known as the ‘balance lug’, whereby between one-sixth andone-third of the sail area was before the mast. The actual designdepended on the traditions and environment of the particular area, butthe overall construction was the same everywhere. Battens of bamboo,each of which connected with, and indeed formed part of, the sheet,stiffened the sail. The sail was therefore kept very flat. The battens alsohad other advantages that would be appreciated in a war situation. Thesail could be half-full of holes and still be drawing well, and a man 13

A drawing of a Han dynasty boat model excavated from atomb. It is a flat-bottomed bargeoperated by oarsmen, with asteersman in the stern and asimple wooden ‘cabin’.



could use the battens toclimb up the mast to throwbombs down on to anenemy deck from thecrow’s nest. In about 1100an observer commentedon a junk’s employment ofwind power as follows:‘Their masts are firmlystepped, and the sails arehoisted beside them. Oneside of the sail is close tothe mast like a door on itshinges. The sails are made of matting … At sea they can use not onlywind from abaft, but winds from onshore or offshore … When the windis dead ahead they cast anchor and stop.’

Chinese junks were fitted with stern post rudders for steering. Somewere very large, but all were superbly balanced. The anchors looked verycrude, being usually made from a stone thrust through a piece of timber,but were very efficient.

THE CHINESE FIGHTING SHIP

Early specialist warshipsThe earliest known representation of a Chinese fighting ship may befound on a bronze vase of the 4th century BC preserved in Beijing. Thisis contemporaneous with the written records of deck castles on shipsduring the Warring States Period (463–221 BC). It is clearly a two-storeyvessel. The rowers occupy the lower storey, while above them flags are flying as warriors engage with dagger-axe halberds and shortswords. The other similar picture is from a later bronze of the EarlyHan Period (202–209 BC). Archers are more prominent here, and onthe right-hand vessel one man is beating a drum. The inclusion ofsoldiers in the water alongside the fishes is interesting. They may represent guardian spirits, but as they are attired the same as the crews,and two of them appear to be engaged in combat, it is most likely thatthe fight is continuing under water.

Clay models of boats from archaeological excavations may be addedto this picture to build up a good idea of what Han warships lookedlike, and a wooden model of a river boat found in a prince’s tomb hasalso provided vital clues as to the appearance of a simple war vessel ofthe Han dynasty. It is a flat-bottomed barge operated by oarsmen, witha steersman in the stern and a simple wooden ‘cabin’. The larger multi-storey vessels are likely to have been built as rafts mounted overtwo similar flat-bottomed hulls like an ungainly catamaran, with verysimple multi-storey deck castles decreasing in size like a wedding cake(see Plate A). The ships would be used exclusively on rivers or estuaries.Details of sea-going craft of the later Han dynasty (AD 25–220) are alsoknown, and these have typically bluff square-ended bows and sterns and flat bottoms, a style of naval architecture that was to become thetraditional ‘Chinese junk’.

The Han dynasty boat modelreconstructed with side elevation.

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The typology of Chinese warshipsMore types of ship are found as we move into the Three Kingdoms Period(AD 221–265), but their study is bedevilled by a bewildering range ofnames for Chinese fighting ships in the literature. However, a very usefuldocument is the Wu Jing Zong Yao of 1044, which is derived from anearlier work of 759, which describes six types of fighting ship. These typesconstantly recur in the source material for the next ten centuries, andthey provide the overall framework for discussing Chinese fighting shipsfrom the Tang dynasty onwards. The classifications are:

1. Lou chuanThe literal translation is ‘tower ships’. These were three-storey battleships with fortified upper decks described in detail below. Unlikethe Han multi-storey ships, they had flush sidewalls above a single hull,although there were many variations.

2. Zhan xian or Dou xianLiterally ‘war junks’ or ‘combat junks’, these craft resembled the towerships in their design but were of a smaller-sized, one-storey constructionand were less well protected. Just as with the tower ships, the oarsmenoperated outside the central deckhouse, but there was a raised sterncastle from where the captain directed operations.

3. Meng chongThe two characters meng (cover) and chong (swoop) imply a vessel that was covered over but still able to swoop on to its prey. These fast andlight warships were the ‘destroyers’ of medieval China. Unlike the abovetwo types, the wall of the two-storey meng chong was continuous with itshull, so that the oarsmen who occupied the lower deck were fully protected, while missile troops went into action above their heads. Close-combat grappling was therefore not a primary function of theseships. The ‘armour plating’ was of wood or rhinoceros hide, and therewas a fierce tiger’s face painted on the bow.

4. Zou geThese smaller fast ships had one open deck with protective bulwarks,and carried ‘the best and bravest soldiers’, who were transported

rapidly to and from thescene of action. The designmeant that the soldierswere on deck alongside therowers.

5. You tingThese simple patrol boatswere used for scouting andreconnaissance, and werenot primarily fighting ships as such, although they would have a smalldetachment of marines onboard for self-defence. 15

The yuloh-type oar, showing itscomponent parts and mode ofaction by rotation.



6. Hai huLiterally ‘sea hawks’, these were converted merchant vessels to whichprotective features were added for use in war.

Lou chuan: The medieval Chinese battleshipThere are so many accounts of the important lou chuan, the towerships of the fleet from the Han dynasty to the Ming, that we can have afairly good idea of what they looked like. They were multi-storey in construction and had portholes and other openings for crossbows and lances. Trebuchets (both traction and counterweighted) weremounted on the uppermost deck beside portable forges for molteniron projectiles. In later varieties under the Ming dynasty, cannon andother firearms replaced the trebuchets. On its wide and curved bow waspainted a fierce tiger’s face in lieu of a carved figurehead. A door gaveaccess to the bow areas and the sides from the castled area. The wholeensemble, says an early description, resembled a city wall.

Variations on the theme of the tower ship are encounteredthroughout history, as the following selection of examples will show,and their great size made them almost literally ‘floating fortresses’.This was in fact the exact consideration entered upon in 285 in a waragainst the former Three Kingdoms state of Wu. Their enemies controlled no strong points on the borders of their territory, anddecided to remedy this deficiency by building what amounted to awooden castle and floating it downstream. The naval architect was one

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The earliest known represen-tation of a Chinese fighting shipon a bronze vase of the 4thcentury BC preserved in Beijing.It is a two-storey vessel. Therowers occupy the lower storey,while above them flags are flying as warriors engage withdagger-axe halberds and shortswords.

Warship from a bronze of theEarly Han Period (209–202 BC).Archers are more prominenthere, and on the right-handvessel one man is beating adrum. The inclusion of soldiersin the water indicates that thefight is continuing under water.



Wang Chun, nicknamed the ‘prancing dragonadmiral’, who produced a square-shaped towership with multiple hulls (perhaps four sets offour), 600 feet along each side and capable ofholding 2,000 men. Horses could be riddenround its wooden ramparts. At the bows therewere decorations of birds and animals ‘tooverawe the river spirits’. The ship was built inSichuan Province, and warning was given to theWu by pieces of scrap wood that floated down-stream. The Wu prepared accordingly byerecting iron chain booms and planting ironstakes in the river. But the advance of the floatingfortress down the Yangtze was preceded bypiloted rafts that took the impact of and brokethe underwater obstacles. The boats holding the chains were then set on fire and the river was cleared of all hindrances for the great ship’smagnificent descent.

As no other descriptions of the huge shipexist we cannot be precise about whether it wasthe earlier Han dynasty type of ‘wedding cake’warship, or the later lou chuan. But it is almostcertainly the latter version that is being describedin 584 when Yang Su was commissioned by theSui emperor to destroy the Chen dynasty. He

constructed a one-hulled, five-storey tower ship of which one featurewas a set of the strange ‘striking arms’ as described below. Multi-deckedlou chuan battleships are also reported in 934, and in 1048 the Liaodynasty built warships that could carry horses below decks and menabove, and these worked effectively as landing craft along the YellowRiver. Finally, in 1170, a traveller on the Yangtze watched navalmanoeuvres carried out by 700 ships, each about 100 feet long withcastles, towers, flags flying and drums beating as they moved rapidlyeven against the current.

We will look in detail at the armaments of all six categories of shipin a later section, but it is worth noting that there are many variationsof style within these categories. Some vessels were simply adaptations ofsea-going transport junks, which enabled fighting to take place on theopen seas rather than on rivers and coastal waters. The earlier listquoted above is also non-specific about the motive power of the vessels,so the paddle-wheel ship is not directly identified. This is such animportant category of warship that the section that follows will bedevoted solely to it.

Paddle-wheel fighting shipsIn 1842, during the Opium Wars, a naval battle took place in the estuaryof the Yangtze between Chinese ships and vessels of the Royal Navy. Whenthe British commanding officer wrote an account of the incident he drewparticular attention to the fact that while the British used steam-poweredpaddle-wheel ships of the very latest design, the Chinese ships were also powered by paddle-wheels, but in their case the motive force was 17

A smaller warship of Jiangsustyle depicted in the Wu Bei Zhiof 1628. The vessel carries asmall cannon in its bow.



provided by manpower. He concluded ratherpatronisingly that this idea ‘must have been suggested to them by the reports they receivedconcerning the wonderful power of our steamersor wheeled vessels’, all of which showed the rapidchanges that the Chinese were making towardsmodernisation when they were confronted bysuperior Western technology. In fact the reality ofthe situation lay in exactly the opposite direction,because the Chinese paddle-wheel vessels were a19th-century manifestation of a type of warshipthat had been used by them for hundreds of years.If anything, the British were the copyists, havingsimply applied steam power to the establishedprinciple of paddle-boat design in the mid-18thcentury.

Even before the Spring and Autumn Periodthere are references in the Chinese literaturewhich imply the existence of paddle-wheel ships.Here are descriptions of vessels that could coverconsiderable distances ‘without the help ofwind’, where ‘the men propelling the boats wereall inside the vessels’. Their enemies, noting theabsence of oars and oarsmen, concluded thatthey were operated by spirits. A reference to abattle that took place in AD 418 notes the shipsmoving away from their moorings ‘apparently by themselves’, and acentury and a half later we read of ‘foot boats’, which gives a furtherclue as to how the manpower was converted into motive power. Thismatter was further clarified in AD 782, when, ‘Li Gao, always eagerabout ingenious machines, caused naval vessels to be constructed, eachof which had two wheels attached to the side of the boat, and made torevolve by treadmills. The ships moved like the wind, raising waves as ifsails were set.’

By ‘treadmill’ however, we must not conjure up images of prisonerswalking inside some enormous wheel. The treadmills that operated thepaddle-wheels were smaller devices, with pedals projecting radially fromthe axle, upon which a man, or a team of men, trod from an externalposition, a principle similar to that of the ‘pedalo’ found on holidaybeaches. As all the Chinese texts remark on the speed attained, someform of gearing may also have been incorporated.

It was during the time of the Southern Song that paddle-wheelwarships really came into their own as war vessels. When the Songdynasty was driven south by the Jin, the Yangtze River became its ‘GreatWall’, and paddle-wheel ships were regularly used for patrolling the riveragainst Jin incursions. They were employed in battle in 1130 when theJin were trying to withdraw across the Yangtze after one of their raids,and in 1132 a report noted that ‘to defend the thousand-li vastness of theGreat River it is necessary to have warships’. The writer then reportedthat he had designed a ‘flying tiger warship’ with four wheels at the sides.Each wheel had eight blades and was rotated by four men. The shipcould travel 1,000 li a day.

A four-decker lou chuanbattleship armed with counterweight trebuchets, whichdates it to after 1272.

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At about the same timeanother inventor calledGao Xuan produced aneight-wheeled version,which was tested in battlewhen it was deployedagainst a peasant revolt thathad degenerated intonumerous pirate raids onthe settlements on theshores of Lake Dongting.The eight-wheeler ‘provedspeedy and easy to handlewhether going forward orbackward. It had planks on both sides to protect the wheels so that theythemselves were not visible.Seeing the boat move by itself like a dragon,onlookers thought it wasmiraculous.’ Larger ships

driven by 20 or even 23 wheels then followed from Gao Xuan’s drawingboard, and the sources tell us that his largest ships were 200–300 feetlong and could carry 700–800 men. Unfortunately the technology fellinto the wrong hands when a pirate fleet captured two eight-wheeledpaddleships that had become stranded in a tidal river. On board one ofthem was Gao Xuan himself, who was taken captive. The pirates forcedhim to work for them, and within two months they had built paddle-wheel ships that were better than the imperial originals, which theirrebel fleet then proceeded to ram and bombard with traction trebuchets. The account goes on to say that the imperial forces in theirturn copied the rebels’ large paddle-wheel ships and replied with theexploding bombs described in a later section.

The eventual government triumph in 1135 came about from acurious stratagem that took advantage of a design weakness in thepaddle-wheel ship. General Yo Fei, one of China’s greatest naval heroes,covered the surface of the water of one arm of the lake with masses offloating weeds and rotten logs, and lured the pirate fleet on so that theirpaddle-wheels became entangled and could not move. His boardingparties then swarmed on board and won a notable victory.

In 1161 there occurred the most celebrated naval battle between theSouthern Song and the Jin, when the latter, who were that day under thepersonal command of their emperor, attempted to force a crossing ofthe Yangtze at Caishi. The Song paddle-wheel fighting ships went intoaction as they had against the pirates and moved rapidly round theisland of Jinshan to bombard the Jin with traction trebuchets:

But our fleet was hidden behind Jinshan, with orders to come outwhen a flag signal was given. So a horseman was sent up to the topof the mountain with a hidden flag, and then our ships rushedforth from behind on both sides. The men inside them paddled

The lou chuan (battleship) in the1520 edition of Wu Jing ZongYao (AD 1044). It has the charac-teristic open constructionwhereby the oarsmen are pro-tected only by the ship’sgunwales. Its offensivearmament is a counterweighttrebuchet.



fast on the treadmills,and the ships glidedforward as though theywere flying, yet no onewas visible on board.

The Jin had no vessels of their own that couldcompare to these rapid andmanoeuvrable warships,and were so badly defeatedthat the Jin emperor wasassassinated on board hisflagship by his own fol-lowers.

Throughout the lit-erature on the SouthernSong paddle-wheel fightingships we find references tolarge vessels having an oddnumber of paddle-wheels.This implies that one wheelwas fitted at the stern, whichis not surprising, because ifwe assume that a ship’smanoeuvrability (which isregularly admired) arisesfrom the wheels on the portand starboard sides being operated independently of each other, thenthe ship could be steered and reversed without the need of a rudder. Thiswould leave ample space for a larger paddle-wheel at the stern. As for thenumbers of the men providing the power, a four-wheeled ship of 1203 isrecorded as needing 28 men, while a larger version, but still of only fourwheels, has 42. The largest number of pedallers mentioned in any of thesources is 200, which may imply either relays of men or a system knownto have been used during the 19th century (of which the technology wasknown to the Song) whereby several shafts were joined to the wheel bycoupling rods and eccentrics, so that each paddle-wheel could beoperated by three groups of pedallers at once.

The most famous use of paddle-wheel fighting ships in Chinesewarfare took place during the epic siege of Xiangyang (modern Xiangfanin Hubei Province) between 1267 and 1272, the war which saw the mostdesperate rearguard action by the Southern Song against the advancingMongols. The siege of Xiangyang is best known today because it was theoccasion when counterweight trebuchets made their first appearance inChina, but the use of paddle-wheel warships is equally striking. Twoheroes of the Song called Zhang Shun and Zhang Gui took a reliefconvoy of 100 paddle-boats laden with clothing and other supplies to thehelp of the beleaguered twin cities of Xiangyang and Fancheng that layopposite each other on the river. The Mongol commander, Achu,attacked them as they approached, and Zhang Shun was killed. Theconvoy waited until dark to make their return voyage, but Achu burned

A four-wheeled paddle-wheelwarship, with tigers’ facespainted on to the sides, whichcould be let down for boarding.

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A charming drawing of a Chinesepaddle-wheel warship of theSong dynasty which appeared inan 1842 edition of a work oncoastal defence.

bales of straw on the riverbank to give illumi-nation, and this time Zhang Gui was also killed.

Later in the same year we find paddle-wheelships being used by the Mongols againstXiangyang, but in a very different way. Thesevessels had almost certainly been captured fromthe Southern Song defenders, and were usedagainst a floating bridge which the Song had constructed between Xiangyang and Fanzheng.The ships were anchored in midstream next to thebridge, and the current was used to turn thepaddle-wheels to operate mechanical saws that cutthrough the timbers of the bridge.

A Ming account of the 15th century gives vividdetails about what happened when a paddle-wheelfighting ship closed with its enemy, a situation thatcan have been little different in Song times,because it was clearly written before the advent ofcannon:

Above the hold the deckhouse gives throughcommunication fore and aft, with a great beamsupporting bulwark boards on each side, eachplank being five feet long and two feet wide.Below this are fixed turning pulleys like those which raise hanging windows. When

approaching the enemy those inside can loose bombs, incendiaryarrows and fire lances. With all this the enemy cannot even see us.The enemy being somewhat weakened, our sailors suddenly lift upand fully open the bulwark hatches, [the walls] acting like a shield,and stand ready within. In addition, raw ox hides are stretched outto protect the crew while from inside they throw incendiary bombsand toxic smoke bombs and shoot iron-pointed javelins [perhapsfrom large siege crossbows?] and use grappling hooks. Thus theenemy ships must be burnt and destroyed.

The Chinese paddle-wheel warships were formidable vessels indeed.Their use would of course be greatly restricted on the open sea, but onrivers and in estuaries they were to prove their worth for centuries tocome, with only their armaments differing greatly from the originals ona craft that served successive dynasties so well and for so long.

THE CHINESE FIGHTING SHIP INACTION

Armour plating on Chinese warshipsThe use of paddle-wheels gave Chinese shipwrights the opportunity toprovide their ships with close covering, or even armoured protection,in a way that projecting banks of yuloh oars or sails on masts would not allow. It is also interesting to see a reference to the principle of



protective bulwarks being adopted by the Jin, whose naval practiceswere inferior to the Song, at the battle of Huang Tian Dang in 1130.The Jin sailors built protective bulwarks (of what materials we are nottold) with oar ports in them, and attacked the becalmed Song fleet withfire arrows. Yet such methods of defence were nothing new, because thewars of the Three Kingdoms Period had already involved the use of fastwarships on which the bulwarks were covered with wetted hides as aprotection against incendiaries. In the battle of the Red Cliff in 207 afleet was destroyed by fireships, which were rendered more effectivebecause the enemy ships were tied together as a precaution against seasickness, a strange remedy that turned out to have been suggestedby a traitor!

The use of some limited form of metal armour plating (as distinctfrom ‘ironclad battleships’ of course) on Chinese warships is also wellattested. Its origin is probably the very mundane one of applying sheetsof thin metal to the undersides of ships for preservative reasons. As thepredominant Chinese naval fighting technique was that of using missileweapons from a distance rather than close-combat grappling andboarding, to extend this protection to the upper reaches of the shipwould have been perfectly natural, with thin plates of forged wroughtiron replacing the rhinoceros hides noted earlier. How much iron wasused on the ship and where it was placed depended on a number offactors, and an excellent example is provided by the Ming expedition of1370 against Sichuanese rebels, who had seized the opportunity for inde-pendence when the Yuan dynasty collapsed. The following passage is sorich in other details of naval warfare that it is worth quoting at somelength:

Where the cliffs are very precipitous and the water most dangerous, the Sichuanese had set up iron chains as booms andbridges to block the gorge horizontally so that no ships could get through. Liao Yung-zhong therefore sentseveral hundred menwith supplies of foodand water to make a portage with smallboats, so that theyappeared up riverbeyond these defences.Now the mountains ofSichuan are so well-wooded that he hadordered the soldiers towear green garmentsand sleeveless raincoatsmade of leaves, and thusthey descended throughthe forests and rocks. Atthe fifth night watch thegeneral assault beganboth by water and land.22

Drawing of a five-mastedfreighter, which gives a goodidea of the probable build of the Ming dynasty treasure ships.These were the vessels that tookZheng He to Africa in the early15th century.



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A standard transport junk, usedfor coastal and river work, froman illustration that shows verywell the details of sails andrigging. As usual, the stern ishigher than the bow, where thecapstan and grapnel may benoted. This ship shows aremarkable resemblance to thejunks used by Khubilai Khan inthe invasions of Japan asdepicted on the Mongol InvasionScroll.

The bows of the naval ships were sheathed withiron and all kinds of firearms were made readyon them … The three bridges were all burned,and the iron chains all cut.

If the bow of a ship was sheathed in iron thereis a clear implication that it would be used forramming, perhaps to break through the ironchains, but it is difficult to extrapolate beyondthis 14th-century modification of existing vesselstowards any generalisation about Chinese shipsbeing used for ramming like Greek triremes. Infact the opposite conclusion would appear to bewarranted, because the traditional design of thejunk with its raised, flat bow was not suitable forramming. Nevertheless there are occasional references to the practice, as for example in AD 220 when ‘they used ships with oars whichbutted into each other as if with horns’, and weknow that during the Han dynasty small boatswere tipped with iron rams in their bows.

The use of striking armsChinese ships, like Chinese armies, went intobattle with flags flying and drums beating, andthroughout Chinese history accounts of navalfighting, whether on river, sea or lake, illustrate awide range of techniques and technology for

ship-to-ship combat. Some have parallels with the more familiar Westernexperience, while others are very different, and an outstanding exampleof the latter concerns the use of weapons that may have been casuallydescribed as ‘grappling irons’, but which actually served the oppositepurpose. In conventional thinking, grappling irons are devices such ashooks, chains and rakes that are used to pull an enemy ship close andhold it there so that boarding parties can storm the ship and just aseasily withdraw. However, in Chinese naval warfare the preferred tacticwas usually not boarding but bombardment, whether by catapult projectiles or a heavy fire from crossbows. This led to a unique Chinesevariation on the grappling iron that was designed to keep an enemy shipat a chosen distance rather than secure it alongside. They were called‘striking arms’, and consisted of some form of ‘hammer head’, such asheavy iron spikes, mounted on the ends of 50-feet-long poles that weresecurely hinged to the attacking vessel’s superstructure. An illustrationfrom the Tang dynasty shows three arms mounted on each side of atower ship. When the ship came alongside an enemy vessel the strikingarms would be released and would fall in an arc to hit the deck of theopponent.

In the case of a small-sized boat the hammer smashing through thewoodwork might well sink it. If the enemy ship was still afloat it would ofcourse now be held fast to the attacker, but the primary intention of thiswas never to provide a platform for boarding. Instead the arms wouldhold the ship securely at a distance suitable for close-range crossbow



work, a technique described in the account of theSong’s war against the rebels on Lake Dongting in1135. Here the weapons used by the piratesappear to be less sophisticated, because they aredescribed as being on the ends of 30-feet-longbamboo poles ‘which prevented the governmentmarines from boarding and attacking at closequarters’. The actual hammer used is described inone version as being a piece of wood three feetlong and sharpened at both ends. As was the casewith the paddle-wheel vessels themselves,however, the imperialists had similar weapons too,and finally won the day.

An alternative technique, which neatlycombined to the attackers’ advantage the twocontrasting principles of grappling and fending,occurs in an account of the battle of Huang TianDang in 1130. The Song admiral equipped hisships with chains fitted with hooks at the end.Somehow these chains were either thrown ordropped on to the Jin ships, and then the Songships, which, one must presume, were paddle-wheel vessels, reversed and began to tow theprize away, the outstretched chains giving therequired distance for sustained crossbow fire. Anaccount of 1140 mentions another variation,whereby the ships were fitted with masts 100 feethigh from which rocks, hauled up by pulleys,could be swung out and dropped on to an enemyship. This was essentially an alternative tocatapult bombardment.

Boarding parties and close combatAlthough the use of boarding parties may not have been the preferredmethod of Chinese naval warfare, there were times when it was bothinevitable and necessary, as attested to in the large numbers of soldiersor marines carried on Chinese warships. All the illustrations indicatethat when on board ship the soldiers wore armour and helmetsidentical to those worn on land, and would be armed with the usual polearm weapons such as long straight spears, curved bladedhalberds, and the dagger-axe halberds, which we noted on the earliestillustrations of ship-to-ship combat where the cutting blade was like ashort sword fitted at right angles to the shaft. We may also imagine theuse of the more fantastically shaped multi-bladed polearms that appearin Chinese illustrations. Swords and daggers would be the weapons for close hand-to-hand fighting, and ceramic hand grenades would supplement the longer-range missile weapons of crossbows, and laterarquebuses. There is an amusing anecdote told about one captainwhose commander ordered him to obtain 100,000 arrows for naval use.The man fitted out 20 ships with bales of straw and sailed up close tothe enemy fleet, whose archers obligingly delivered safely into the strawbales all the arrows they could possibly need.24

A multi-towered ship with the‘striking arms’ that were effectively anti-grappling irons.Their purpose was to seize the enemy ship and keep it at aconvenient distance for bom-bardment. The impact of thefalling hammers could also holea ship’s deck. When the shipcame alongside an enemy vesselthe striking arms would bereleased and would fall in an arcto hit the deck of the opponent.If the enemy ship was still afloatit would of course now be heldfast to the attacker, but theprimary intention of this wasnever to provide a platform forboarding. Instead the arms would hold the ship securely at adistance suitable for close-rangecrossbow work, a techniquedescribed in the account of theSong’s war against the rebels on Lake Dongting in 1135.



A ship filled with soldiers ormarines. They are armed withhalberds, and a large drum isbeing beaten. All illustrationsindicate that when on board shipthe soldiers wore armour andhelmets identical to those wornon land, and would be armedwith the usual polearm weaponssuch as long straight spears,curved bladed halberds, and thedagger-axe halberds, which wenoted on the earliest illustrationsof ship-to-ship combat where thecutting blade was like a shortsword fitted at right angles tothe shaft.

Catapults and bombsThe traction and counterweight trebuchets described for siege situationsin Siege Weapons of the Far East Volume 1 had their exact counterparts innaval warfare. When the Song dynasty paddle-wheel ships took on therebels on Lake Dongting in 1135 they used trebuchets firing containersof lime, as the following account tells us:

Against the paddle-wheel fighting ship of Yang Yao, the government forces used lime bombs thrown from trebuchet catapults. For these they used pottery containers with very thinwalls, inside which were placed poisonous drugs [probablyarsenic], lime and fragments of scrap iron (as well as gunpowder).When these were hurled on to the rebel ships duringengagements, the lime filled the air like smoke or fog so that theirsailors could not open their eyes. The rebels wished to copy thisdevice but as the right containers could not be found or madewithin the territories held by them, they failed.

Reference was also made above to the battle of Caishi in 1161, wherethe Song paddle-wheel ships defeated the Jin. This battle saw the use ofsoft-cased explosive ‘thunderclap bombs’ thrown by traction trebuchets.The bombs were fitted with time fuses that caused them to explode onhitting the surface of the water. The bomb cases rebounded and broke,scattering noxious clouds from the lime that had been mixed in with the

gunpowder, and ‘our shipsthen went forward to attacktheirs, and their men andhorses were all drowned’.

On several occasions the location of a Chinesefortress on a river blurs thedistinction between siegewarfare and naval warfare.For example, the SouthernSong’s defence of Xian-gyang in 1207 against theJin is notable for the use ofthunderclap bombs beingloosed from the city walls,but later in the sameaccount we read of anattack from the Han River,probably by paddle-wheelships:

On the evening of the25th day, taking adv-antage of the rain andovercast sky, the com-mander urgently sentZhang Fu and Hao Yanto prepare boats large 33



and small, more than thirty in number, enough to carry 1,000crossbowmen, 500 trident spearmen, and 100 drummers, togetherwith thunderclap bombs, and gunpowder arrows. They took coverby the river bank below the enemy’s encampment … Then at thestroke of a drum the crossbowmen let fly a volley, and immediatelyfollowing this all the drums sounded and the crossbows werefired. Simultaneously the thunderclap bombs and the fire arrowswere sent into the enemy’s camp.

It was during the Jin’s last campaigns against the Southern Song thatthe introduction of hard-case exploding iron bombs marked a furtherstep forward in Chinese military technology. The fragments producedwhen the bombs exploded could cause great personal injury, and oneSouthern Song officer was blinded in an explosion that wounded half adozen other men. Their first recorded use in war dates from the siege bythe Jin of the Southern Song city of Qizhou in 1221, but they soonappeared in naval warfare, and the year 1231 was to find a Jin army inHezhong using iron bombs to defend themselves against a Mongol armythat was supported by ariver-borne fleet. When thecity fell the Jin escapedalong the Yellow River, andwe are told that they firedbombs at the Mongol fleetto break through thecordon. ‘The flashes andflames could be distinctlyseen. The Northerners [i.e.Mongols] had not manytroops on their barges, soeventually the Jin fleetbroke through.’

The story of the Songpaddle-wheel fleet that wentto the relief of Xiangyang in1272 was told earlier, butthere is material to add concerning trebuchets andbombs, because ‘they tookup a rectangular formation,every ship being equippedwith firelances, trebuchetsand bombs, burning char-coal, large axes and heavycrossbows. When the nighthad worn on three quarterhours by the water clock,the fleet hoisted anchorand sailed out into the riverusing red lamps as signals.’But the Mongols now hadiron-cased bombs too, and34

The sea mine called the sub-marine dragon king was made of iron and was carried on awooden board weighted downwith stones. The mine wasenclosed within an ox bladder,and an incense stick floatedabove it in a container todetermine when the fuse wouldbe ignited. An air supply wasmaintained through a long piece of goat’s intestine.



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An articulated barge being usedas a minelayer. The front endwill be disengaged and leftadjacent to the target. The originof such boats is to be found onthe Grand Canal, whichgradually became silted up. Thetwo halves of the boat could beuncoupled and the resultingseparate sections could thennegotiate shallow channelswhere larger boats would haveto wait until the water level rose.

used them when the Songfleet approached; ‘bombshells were thrown withgreat noise and loudreports, and our armyattacked fiercely for a spaceof more than 30 li. On the ships they were up totheir ankles in blood.’ In1274 the Mongols usedexploding iron bombsduring the first invasion ofJapan. They were probablylaunched from the single-pole rotating ‘whirlwind’traction trebuchets, but wedo not know if they werethe wheeled variety or staticones fixed on to the decksof the Mongol ships.

A 14th-century sourcegives a detailed descriptionof another source of sea-borne explosion: the seamine. It reads, ‘The seamine called the submarinedragon king is made ofwrought iron and carriedon a wooden board.’ Thisboard would be weighteddown with stones. The mineitself was enclosed within an

ox bladder, and an incense stick floated above it in a container todetermine when the fuse would be ignited. An air supply was maintainedthrough a long piece of goat’s intestine. ‘On a dark night’, says thedescription, ‘the mine is sent downstream, and when the joss-stick hasburned down to the fuse, there is a great explosion.’

Delayed-action explosive charges could also be delivered to theenemy by a very unusual boat, and the accompanying illustration showsthe remarkable design that allowed it to operate, because it was in twohalves joined by couplings. The origin of such boats is to be found onthe Grand Canal, which gradually became silted up. The two halves ofthe boat could be uncoupled and the resulting separate sections couldthen negotiate shallow channels where larger boats would have to waituntil the water level rose. In its form as a minelayer, the aim was toapproach a city or a bridge under the cover of darkness, uncouple thebow section in which the explosives were located, and leave it with a fuseburning while the assailants made a rapid getaway in the stern section.

Naval incendiary weaponsGreek Fire, the secret weapon of Byzantium that consisted in burningpetroleum projected under pressure, was another siege weapon adopted



for naval use in China, but in a battle on the Yangtze near Nanjing in 975between the Song and the Tang the weapon almost literally backfiredwhen the Tang ‘quickly projected petrol from flame throwers to destroythe enemy’. The Song forces could not have withstood this, but all of asudden a north wind sprang up and swept the smoke and flames overthe sky towards the Tang’s own ships and men. As many as 150,000soldiers and sailors were caught up in this and overwhelmed, whereuponthe admiral, being overcome with grief, flung himself into the flamesand died. A century later a far more successful use of Greek Fire wasmade when General Li Gang of the Song attempted to prevent the Jinfrom crossing the Yellow River before the siege of Kaifeng in 1126.

The Chinese also developed techniques for coping with incendiaryattacks in naval warfare. In 1279, during the last encounter between theSouthern Song and the new Yuan dynasty off the coast of Guangdong,the Mongol commander made fireships from a number of capturedboats by filling them with oil-soaked straw and setting them ablaze andwaiting for a favourable wind to carry them down against the Song fleet.But the Song were ready for them, and had plastered their ships withmud – a technique also noted in siege warfare. In addition they had‘countless water tubes’, probably fed from water tanks on the decks. Thebales of burning straw were pulled to pieces using long-hooked poles,and water was pumped out to extinguish them through the hoses, whichappear to have been suspended from the Song ships in a similar fashionto the striking arms noted above. They even beat off a Mongol nightattack, but these techniques did not allow the Song to prevail, and only16 of their ships broke through the Mongol blockade. 36

Khmer troops are shown heregoing into action against theChams in fine style. The warbarge is packed with soldierswho have spears and grapplinghooks.



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A CASE STUDY OF CHINESE FIGHTINGSHIPS

The battle of Lake Poyang, 1363The finest case study of medieval Chinese naval warfare, involving manyof the points discussed above, is provided by an epic encounter on aninland waterway. Poyang Hu (Lake Poyang) in Jianxi Province is China’slargest freshwater lake, and in the summer of 1363 a battle occurredwhen a Ming fleet attempted to come to the relief of a city besieged byan enemy fleet.

Zhu Yuanzhang, the future Ming emperor, had a smaller navalcapacity than either of his two rivals, the Han and the Wu. Neverthelesshe had used it both wisely and successfully. But while the main Mingforce was engaged elsewhere against the Wu, the Han laid siege to theimportant Ming-held town of Nanchang in Jianxi Province, which lies onthe Gan River south of where the Gan feeds into Lake Poyang. The lakein turn empties into the Yangtze. A contemporary source described theHan warships that sailed into Lake Poyang as follows: ‘The outside waspainted with red lacquer. From top to bottom there were three decks.On the decks were erected tents for the riding horses. Below were placedseveral tens of oars, protected by coverings made of boards … Thearchers’ towers were covered with iron.’

The description implies a formidable type of multi-storey lou chuan(tower ship) vessel with fighting platforms that could overlook city walls,

but one that was probablycomparatively slow and ofdeep draught, a pointwhich Zhu Yuanzhangclearly anticipated, becausehe was to postpone navalaction until the river levelswere low.

The siege began as soonas the Han fleet arrived, but the Ming commander at Nanchang had been well prepared for a siege,and fought off an assault on a landward gate fromtroops disembarked fromthe Han fleet. Direct attacksfrom the ships had nogreater success; becauseNanchang’s new walls hadbeen built tall, the multi-storey battleships had noheight advantage. A seriesof other attacks followed,and eventually a brave vol-unteer managed to evadethe Han blockade to get a

A stylised drawing of a Mingfireship. In the battle of the Red Cliff in AD 207 a fleet wasdestroyed by fireships, whichwere rendered more effectivebecause the enemy ships weretied together as a precautionagainst seasickness, a strangeremedy that turned out to havebeen suggested by a traitor.



message out asking for help.He reported their plight toZhu Yuanzhang, and addedthe vital information thatthe water levels in the lakesand river were dropping inthe summer heat.

The Ming fleet thatsailed from Nanjing con-sisted of ships that were onthe whole smaller thanthose of the Han fleet. Thevoyage upstream of 250miles to the mouth of LakePoyang took nine days and was largely withoutincident, and the presenceof a large dolphin-like fish,which fancy took to be anaccompanying dragon, wasnaturally taken as a goodomen. The city of Hukuofell to the Ming without astruggle on 25 August. Onedetachment of the army wassent to fortify a positionacross the Yangtze to thenorth, while the Ming army were disembarked to march west andoutflank the besiegers of Nanchang.

Meanwhile the Han naval commander, Chen Youliang, had realisedthat Nanchang was not going to surrender, and if he now had to fight theMing navy that controlled his exit to the Yangtze, then the vast waterysurface of Lake Poyang would be the best place to do it. He knew that hemight be at a disadvantage in a naval battle, because the Han ships hadbeen built to their excessive size for the purpose of serving as a highlymobile siege train, rather than for ship-to-ship warfare, and ChenYouliang had gambled on a short campaign that would be carried outwhen the Yangtze was in flood.

The Ming fleet was divided into 11 squadrons, with their heavier shipsin the centre, and both navies dropped anchor for the night. The firstfighting of the battle began on the morning of 30 August 1363. Whilethe main body of the Han responded to a frontal attack by the Minginvolving close combat, the greater manoeuvrability of the Ming shipsallowed them to gain the weather position from which catapult bombscould be launched or fireships floated, so a separate squadron gainedthe windward position and launched incendiaries from trebuchets,setting fire to more than 20 Han ships. But this failed to break the Hanline. Indeed the opposite was happening because the flagship of the Ming vanguard had caught fire and the Han ships were naturallyconcentrating their attacks on it. Zhu Yuanzhang went to the rescue inperson and the fires were extinguished as the Han attackers drew off toconcentrate on the enemy commander, for whom disaster struck when38

A small junk being hauled fromone river to another. This wassometimes necessary in theconfused layout of Chinesewaterways.



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his ship ran aground on a sand bar and stuck fast. The Han shipsencircled it at a distance to avoid a similar fate and poured in arrowsand fire. Other Ming ships came bravely to the rescue of their leader,and the ships moved so swiftly that Zhu Yuanzhang’s vessel was shakenfree by the waves. Then another Ming ship ran aground, but was alsoknocked free when a friendly vessel accidentally collided with it. It mayseem surprising that so many Ming vessels ran aground rather than theheavier Han ships, but this is partly explained by the fact that the Ming, realising that they would be at a disadvantage in ship-to-shipcounter-battery work, had tried to fight the battle with boardingparties, and their bold advance to encircle the Han ships had led theminto unexpectedly shallow waters.

So far the battle had been a profound disappointment for ZhuYuanzhang, whose plans had so visibly failed, but the battle was by nomeans over. During the night the damaged ships were withdrawn andsent downstream towards Nanjing and safety, but when battle resumed on

the morrow the Mingcaptains were dismayed tosee that Chen Youliang hadmassed his largest warshipstogether in a continuousbattle line, leaving hissmaller ships room tomanoeuvre at the edges ofthe formation. Some of theMing commanders evenrefused to advance andwere beheaded for theirtreason. But in spite of such draconian measuresthe Ming were worstedagain that morning. Onerenowned commandercommitted suicide when herealised that his ship wasdoomed, while anotherdied standing up, coveredin sword cuts.

It was then that ZhuYuanzhang changed histactics and ordered the construction of fireships.Fishing boats were gatheredand laden with straw andgunpowder, while dummysoldiers wearing helmetsand armour and carryingweapons were placed insideto fool the Han intothinking that the smallboats were actually armedwarships. In the afternoon a

Fireships were a usefultechnique of naval warfare. Theupper one is a simple raft withburning brushwood bundles,while the lower one is moresophisticated.



favourable wind sprang up, and the closely packedline of Han ships could not avoid the approach ofthe fireships. In the carnage that followed manyHan troops were either burned or drowned, andthe Ming boarded the stricken vessels, takingmany heads.

Amazingly, there was still another day offighting left, but this did not happen on the following day, because both sides had suffered grievously and needed to regroup. On 2 September battle recommenced. ChenYouliang kept what remained of his large ships inopen order to avoid any further fireship attack,but this allowed the Ming vessels to close withthem one-to-one in the grappling and boardingwarfare they had originally intended. ‘Fromdawn until noon the enemy fleet suffered defeat; abandoned banners, drums, weapons andequipment covered the surface and shores of the lake.’

By this time Zhu Yuanzhang must have beeninformed of the good news that the army sent tocut off Nanchang had not only outflanked thebesiegers but had succeeded in relieving the city.His objective in the Poyang campaign had thusbeen achieved, but a long war of attrition was notto his liking, so Zhu gave orders for a withdrawal. On the night of 2 September, with a lantern mounted on the stern of each ship, the Mingsailed in single file towards the mouth of the lake. This gave them thesecurity of the confluence of the Gan and the Yangtze, but they couldnot simply withdraw to Nanjing, because the Han fleet was still floatingon Lake Poyang and would certainly try to escape. One month later thefinal battle of the epic conflict on Lake Poyang took place when the Hantried to break out. Fireships were used again, and during this encounterChen Youliang was hit in the eye by a stray arrow that penetrated deeplyinto his skull and killed him instantly. On 4 October the remains of theHan fleet surrendered.

Five years later Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed himself as the first Mingemperor, a position largely secured by the long and bitter fight on LakePoyang, the archetypal conflict of the medieval Chinese fighting ship.

SOUTHEAST ASIAN FIGHTING SHIPS

The war bargeBoth the Chams and the Khmers used navies during their 12th-century wars, the former often employing fleets of more than 100vessels. Some of these ships were war junks, which saw active service incoastal fighting against the Chinese and during the Mongol invasionsof Vietnam between 1281 and 1288, but the most common form of warship among both peoples was the war barge or war canoe propelled by oarsmen. These were most often found in river warfare

Map of the battle of LakePoyang.

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or fighting off the coast in support of land armies: they could notventure far from a friendly shore because of the need to replenishtheir fresh water supplies. Accounts of the Mongol invasion of Javastrongly suggest that Javanese war canoes were very similar to theKhmer and Cham models.

Our main sources of information on the fighting ships of the Khmersand the Chams and the nature of their warfare are the bas-reliefs carvedinto the walls of Banteay Chmar and the Bayon of Angkor Thom inCambodia. They are believed to illustrate the battles that took placewhen the Khmers were liberated from the Cham invasion in 1181, andare therefore biased towards the Cambodian point of view, but theirdetail is unparalleled as a historical source. River fighting is illustrated,as shown by the absence of marine life in the depictions of the river andthe presence of crocodiles.

The war barges were very large dugout canoes. Similar ones, butfitted with outriggers, enabled the brave navigators of Polynesia tomake oceanic voyages, but the Cambodian and Vietnamese varietiesare clearly fitted out as warships for river fighting. In one relief 23oarsmen may be counted on each side of the barge, which must beabout 100 feet long. The barges have striking figureheads carved toresemble monsters, and complementary curved ‘tails’ at the stern,which makes them look rather like Viking ships. The two sides can bedistinguished because the Khmer oarsmen are shown bareheadedwhile the Chams wear the flower-like headgear depicted elsewhere inthe Cambodian temples in reliefs of land warfare. All the oarsmen arefacing backwards except for the crew on the Khmer royal barge, whoare shown operating their oars like yulohs while facing forwards. Thesefellows have no physical protection, unlike the other crews who havelong lattice shields through which their oars protrude. No doubt this ismeant to show their great bravery in the presence of their king, whostands, larger than life, in the middle of the royal barge and shoots anarrow. In a neat exercise in Khmer propaganda the rival Cham king isshown as having turned to flee from the battle. Other Cham ships arein retreat, and some of their soldiers have fallen into the water wherethey are being consumed by the waiting crocodiles.

War boats of Indo-China, done inthe peculiar and characteristicstyle of the Dongson culture on abronze drum of the 1st centuryBC. These are the forerunners ofthe war barges seen at Angkor,and appear to have steering oarsat each end. There is an archeron the roof of the deck castle.These figures are contemporarywith Han China.



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Such vessels were still in use a century later, because in 1279 a Chineseofficial visited Cambodia and left an eyewitness account of how both shipsand dugouts were built. He noted in particular how the techniquesdiffered from conventional Chinese practice, in that hatchets were usedinstead of saws, which meant that carving a plank took a long time. Theships were held together with iron nails, and roofed with woven mattingheld in place by strips of palm. The dugouts were carved with the help offire and water.

War barge fighting techniquesThe Cambodian reliefs clearly show that grappling and boarding, ratherthan long-range bombardment in the Chinese style, was the preferredtechnique for river fighting, although one of the rearward Khmer bargesis crammed with archers, who were probably used before the boardingtook place. The Khmer soldiers who fill the barges behind the oarsmenare also shown bareheaded, and are taking the fight to the Chams withgreat gusto. In one picture a barge is sinking as if it has been rammed,but the collision has obviously taken place by accident because twoKhmer vessels are involved, one at each end, and some Khmer soldiersare going down with the enemy ship. In the normal circumstances ofbattle depicted elsewhere there is an exchange of arrows, and then thebarges close with each other either head-on or alongside. Grappling ironsare thrown, and while men haul on the rattan cables that keep the bargestogether boarding takes place under the direction of a Khmer officerwho controls operations from beneath his parasol in the centre of thebarge. The soldiers of both sides are armed with long spears and shields.The war barges deployed against the invading Mongols in Vietnam andJava would have carried very similar fighting men.

War barges were also used as troop transports and supply vessels. Inone Cambodian relief Cham barges are shown approaching a landingplace with Khmer prisoners on board, while civilians flee from them onthe shore. Such boats were also used in siege warfare, with attacks ondefences being made from river or coastal fleets. More complex siegetechniques involved employing numerous war barges to lay a blockadearound a defended place. In such a case the barges could be lashed

A Khmer war barge. It has astriking figurehead carved toresemble a monster, and a com-plementary curved ‘tail’ at thestern, which makes it look ratherlike a Viking ship. The crew’sallegiance can be distinguishedbecause the Khmer oarsmen areshown bareheaded.



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together, as noted in a contemporary inscriptionthat describes ‘thousands of fresh white ships, con-nected by rattans, whichextended on all sides’.

The Vietnamese hadincendiary weapons beforethe Chinese because thetransmission route to China for petroleum-basedincendiary weapons thatoriginated in the ByzantineEmpire appears to havegone through SoutheastAsia via Arab traders. In 958an envoy from the king ofChampa presented a bottle

of ‘fierce fire oil’ to the court at Kaifeng. There is therefore one weaponknown to have been used by the Chams in naval warfare that does notappear on any Cambodian bas-reliefs, so we have to rely on an account of1298 for a description of naphtha grenades (called in this account ‘mudoil’) being thrown by hand in naval warfare from the tops of masts ofwhat must have been junks rather than war barges:

Little bottles are filled with it, and a roll of betel-nut husk is usedas a stopper. When this is lit it acts like a fuse. Then the bottles arethrown down from on high, and when the mud oil [bottles] hit thedeck they [break and] burst into flames which spread everywhereand continue to burn. If water is thrown on it it blazes all the morefiercely, and nothing but dried earth and stove ashes will put it out.Nowadays our official naval ships do not like to approach theseshallow-draught barbarian vessels because of this fearsomeweapon.

One can imagine them being deployed in this way against the Mongolinvaders of Vietnam in 1287–88, but the weapons employed against themin naval warfare in Java are likely to have been far more primitive.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHERREADING

Needham, Joseph, Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 4: Physics andPhysical Technology Part III: Civil Engineering and Nautics(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971)

Turnbull, Stephen, Siege Weapons of the Far East, Volumes 1 and 2 (Osprey New Vanguard Series, 2001 and 2002)

Worcester, G.R.G., Sail and Sweep in China (London: HMSO, 1966)Worcester, G.R.G., The Junks and Sampans of the Yangtze

(Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1971)

The climax of the battle is aboutto be reached as the two boatsare secured to each other bygrappling irons.



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A: THE RIVER BATTLE FLEET OF THE EARLIER(OR WESTERN) HAN DYNASTY IS ATTACKED BYREBEL FIRESHIPS, 200 BCThe Earlier (or Western) Han dynasty took over from the Qindynasty in 202 BC. Here we see their river battle fleet comingunder attack from rebels who have floated crude fireshipsdown the river towards them. Much of the detail of the Hanbattleships is conjecture, because only crude illustrationshave survived, so these have to be augmented by eyewitnessdescriptions. The large multi-storey vessels are likely to havebeen built as rafts mounted over two similar flat-bottomedhulls like an ungainly catamaran, with very simple multi-storeydeck castles decreasing in size like a wedding cake. There are

ABOVE A Cham war barge. The Chams wear the flower-likeheadgear depicted elsewhere in the Cambodian temples in reliefs of land warfare. The decoration on the bows issomewhat less flamboyant than that of the Khmers, but this may just be Khmer propaganda.

BELOW Another Cham barge. This has an elaborate figurehead and is flying banners from bow and stern. Thesteersman is clearly shown.

COLOUR PLATE COMMENTARY

simple bulwarks round the lower deck level of the ship, whichare repeated as the storeys increase. The commander standsproud and undaunted in the prow. In the uppermost tower ofthe ship a drummer encourages the men into action, a displayof power that is added to by the numerous flags that thevessel is flying. The ship’s offensive armament is provided byhand-held crossbows.

Beside the big ship are simpler and smaller boats. Thelargest of these is based on a wooden model of a river boatfound in a prince’s tomb, which has provided vital clues tothe appearance of a simple war vessel of the Han dynasty. It



C: KHMER (CAMBODIAN) AND CHAM (VIETNAMESE) RIVER WAR CANOES COME TO GRIPS DURING THE REVOLT OFJAYAVARMAN VII, AD 1181In 1177 King Jaya Indravarman of Champa (Vietnam) invadedCambodia by sea. His fleet was guided along the coast andsailed up river to the Khmer capital of Angkor. The city waspillaged, and the Chams occupied Cambodia for the nextfour years until the future Cambodian king Jayavarman VIIstaged a revolt. He defeated the Chams in a great navalbattle in 1181, an epic river fight commemorated forever inthe bas-reliefs carved into the walls of Banteay Chmar andthe Bayon in Cambodia. Here we see Khmer and Cham warcanoes grappling in a fierce river battle. The boats havegrotesque figureheads and are filled with scores of archersand spearmen. The two sides can be distinguished becausethe Khmer oarsmen are shown bareheaded while the Chamswear the flower-like headgear depicted elsewhere in theCambodian temples in reliefs of land warfare. All the oarsmenare facing backwards except for the crew on the Khmer royalbarge, who are shown operating their oars while facingforwards. These fellows have no physical protection, unlikethe other crews who have long lattice shields through whichtheir oars protrude. No doubt this is meant to show theirgreat bravery in the presence of their king, who stands, largerthan life, in the middle of the royal barge and shoots an arrow.There is an exchange of arrows, and then the barges close 45

A diagram of a Chinese naval battle formation of the Handynasty, showing the ideal way for one fleet to break intoanother. Key: 1. Double-hulled battleships. 2. Large-oaredopen boats. 3. Small boats tipped with iron rams in thebows. 4. Small patrol boats. 5. Five-man open ‘canoes’.

is a flat-bottomed barge operated by oarsmen, with asteersman in the stern and a simple wooden ‘cabin’. Thereare also two smaller versions, one of which has an iron-tipped ram mounted on its bows. The ram itself is acarved tree trunk that stretches the entire length of the boat.Finally, ‘war canoes’ are paddled by five men. Details of theequipment worn by the ‘marines’ are taken from the famousnear-contemporary terracotta army of the Qin emperor atXian, together with carvings from the Early Han Period, whichshow a remarkable similarity. The helmets, where worn, are ofleather or iron, and have a strange modern look to them. Thefireships have been made by converting simple sampans.

B: A TANG DYNASTY TOWER SHIP HOLDS ASONG DYNASTY WAR JUNK WITH ITS STRIKINGARMS AND PROJECTS GREEK FIRE, AD 975In this plate we see a battle on the Yangtze River near Nanjingin 975 between the Song and the Tang, who were competingfor power. The Tang are fighting from a three-storey lou chuan(tower ship). These classic Chinese battleships were of multi-storey construction, but with straight sides, unlike theHan dynasty ships seen in Plate A. There were portholes andother openings for crossbows and lances. Trebuchets weremounted on the uppermost deck beside portable forges formolten iron projectiles. On its wide and curved bow waspainted a fierce tiger’s face in lieu of a carved figurehead. Adoor gave access to the bow areas and the sides from thecastled area.

The war junks resembled the tower ships in their designbut were of a smaller-sized, one-storey construction and lesswell protected. Just as with the tower ships, the oarsmenoperated outside the central deckhouse, but there was a raised stern castle from where the captain directed operations.

This plate shows a remarkable addition to the towership’s usual armament. In Chinese naval warfare the preferredtactic was usually not boarding but bombardment, whetherby catapult projectiles or a heavy fire from crossbows. Thisled to a unique Chinese variation on the grappling iron thatwas designed to keep an enemy ship at a chosen distancerather than secure it alongside. They were called ‘strikingarms’, and consisted of some form of ‘hammer head’, suchas heavy iron spikes, mounted on the ends of 50-feet-longpoles which were securely hinged to the attacking vessel’ssuperstructure. An illustration from the Tang dynasty showsthree arms mounted on each side of a tower ship. When theship came alongside an enemy vessel the striking arms wouldbe released and would fall in an arc to hit the deck of theopponent. In the case of a small-sized boat the hammersmashing through the woodwork might well sink it. If theenemy ship was still afloat it would of course now be held fastto the attacker, but the primary intention of this was never toprovide a platform for boarding. Instead the arms would holdthe ship securely at a distance suitable for close-range work,in this case Greek Fire, the secret weapon of Byzantium transmitted to China and used both in naval warfare and siegework. However, records tell us that on this occasion theweapon almost literally backfired, because when the Tangprojected the petrol from the flame throwers a sudden northwind sprang up and swept the smoke and flames over the skytowards their own ships. The Song marines fight back withcrossbows.



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The Khmer royal barge. The crew are shown operating theiroars while facing forwards. These fellows have no physicalprotection, unlike the crews on other boats who have longlattice shields through which their oars protrude. No doubtthis is to show their great bravery in the presence of theirking, who stands, larger than life, in the middle of the royalbarge and shoots an arrow.

with each other either head-on or alongside. Grappling ironsare thrown, and while men haul on the rattan cables thatkeep the barges together boarding takes place under thedirection of a Khmer officer who controls operations frombeneath his parasol in the centre of the barge. The soldiers ofboth sides are armed with long spears and shields, and crocodiles consume anyone who falls overboard.

D: A 23-WHEEL PADDLESHIP OF THE SONGDYNASTY BOMBARDS A JIN DESTROYER WITH LIME BOMBS HURLED BY TRACTION TREBUCHETS AT THE BATTLE OF CAISHI, AD 1161This plate shows a contest between two very different formsof warship, both of which could be fast and manoeuvrable. In1161 there occurred the most celebrated naval battlebetween the Southern Song and the Jin, when the latter, whowere that day under the personal command of their emperor,attempted to force a crossing of the Yangtze at Caishi. TheSong paddle-wheel fighting ships moved rapidly round theisland of Jinshan to bombard the Jin with traction trebuchets.The men inside them paddled fast on the treadmills, and theships glided forward as though they were flying. In this reconstruction one paddle-wheel has been placed at thestern, and there is a flag flying which reads ‘Support the Song.Destroy the Jin’. The Jin were so badly defeated at Caishi thatthe Jin emperor was assassinated on board his flagship by hisown followers.

The ships used by the Jin in this plate are the fast andlight warships that were the ‘destroyers’ of medieval China.Unlike tower ships and war junks, the walls of these two-storey ships were continuous with the hull, so that theoarsmen occupied the lower deck and were fully protected,while missile troops went into action above their heads.Close-combat grappling was therefore not a primary functionof these ships. The ‘armour plating’ was of wood or rhinoceros hide, and there was a fierce tiger’s face painted onthe bow.

To combat these fast-moving ships the Song used limebombs thrown by trebuchet catapults. The bombs werepottery containers with very thin walls, inside which were

placed poisonous drugs (probably arsenic), lime andfragments of scrap iron as well as gunpowder. When thesewere hurled on to Jin ships the lime filled the air with smokeso that their sailors could not open their eyes. The explosivedevices were almost identical to soft-cased explosive ‘thunderclap bombs’ thrown by traction trebuchets. Thebombs were fitted with time fuses that caused them toexplode on hitting the surface of the water. The bomb casesrebounded and broke, scattering noxious clouds from thelime that had been mixed in with the gunpowder.

E: PADDLE-WHEEL WARSHIPS OF THESOUTHERN SONG RUN THE GAUNTLET OFTHUNDER CRASH BOMBS TO BREAK THEBLOCKADE OF XIANGYANG BY THE MONGOLS,AD 1272The most famous use of paddle-wheel fighting ships inChinese warfare took place during the epic siege ofXiangyang (modern Xiangfan in Hubei Province) between1267 and 1272, the war which saw the most desperaterearguard action by the Southern Song against theadvancing Mongols. The siege of Xiangyang is best knowntoday because it was the occasion when counterweight trebuchets made their first appearance in China, but the useof paddle-wheel warships is equally striking. Two heroes ofthe Song took a relief convoy of 100 paddle-boats laden withclothing and other supplies to the help of the beleagueredtwin cities of Xiangyang and Fancheng that lay oppositeeach other on the river. The convoy waited until dark to maketheir return voyage, but the Mongols burned bales of strawon the riverbank to give illumination. The Song paddleshipstook up a rectangular formation, every ship being equipped



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with firelances, trebuchets and bombs, burning charcoal,large axes and heavy crossbows, and sailed out into the riverusing red lamps as signals. But the Mongols fired iron-casedbombs from counterweight and traction trebuchets when theSong fleet approached, so that the Song crewmen were ‘upto their ankles in blood’.

The design of these paddleships gave them offensive aswell as defensive potential, because bulwark boards were oneach side, each plank being five feet long and two feet wide.Below this were fixed turning pulleys like those which raisehanging windows. When approaching the enemy, thoseinside could loose bombs, incendiary arrows and firelances.On closing with the enemy the sailors suddenly lifted up andfully opened the bulwark hatches so that the walls acted likea shield.

F: A SEA-GOING WAR JUNK OF THE YUANDYNASTY IS TRAPPED AT THE BATTLE OFBACH DANG AND ATTACKED BY VIETNAMESEWAR CANOES WHOSE CREWS THROWNAPHTHA BOMBS, AD 1288The Yuan (Mongol) general Toghon unwisely attacked Annam(Vietnam) during the hot season of 1288, and a fierce navalbattle took place in the estuary of the Bach Dang River offHaiphong, where a celebrated Vietnamese general haddefeated a Chinese army several centuries before. GeneralTran Hung Dao now repeated the victory, using the sametactics, against the Mongols. He waited until high tide, andlured the Mongol fleet into advancing over an area of shallowwater where iron-tipped stakes had been planted. When thetide turned the Mongol ships were caught on the projectionsand suffered great loss.

The Yuan dynasty sea-going war junks were simplyadaptations from sea-going transport junks, which enabledfighting to take place on the open seas rather than mainly onrivers and coastal waters. Sea-going commercial junks wereimportant vessels in their own right, and there are goodsources for them from the Song and Yuan dynasties. Inabout 1100 an observer noted their employment of sails.Similar vessels acted as warships during the Mongols’overseas naval campaigns, as attested to in the paintings ofMongol ships that appear on the Mongol Invasion Scroll,

Ming soldiers use a sampan to repel Japanese wako(pirates). The wako were the curse of the Far East for muchof the 14th and 15th centuries, raiding Korea and China.

which illustrates the expeditions to Japan of 1274 and 1281. The Vietnamese are fighting from war canoes not

dissimilar to those formerly used against the Khmers. Theyalso use incendiary weapons, in the form of naphthagrenades (called ‘mud oil’) thrown by hand. Little ceramicbottles are filled with it, and a roll of betel-nut husk is used asa stopper. When this was lit it acted like a fuse. Then thebottles are thrown, and when the mud-oil bottles hit the deckthey brake and burst into flames.

G: A SPLIT-HULLED MINELAYER OF THE MINGPLACES ITS CHARGE AGAINST A STRATEGICBRIDGE HELD BY THEIR RIVALS, THE HAN, AD1363When the Yuan dynasty was nearing collapse several rivalscompeted for power. This process reached its culmination inthe naval battle of Lake Poyang in 1363, but here we see astep towards that process when a Ming minelayer attemptsto blow up a strategic Han position. The delayed-actionexplosive charge is being delivered to the enemy by a veryunusual boat of two halves joined by couplings. The origin ofsuch boats is to be found on the Grand Canal, whichgradually became silted up. The two halves of the boat couldbe uncoupled and the resulting separate sections could thennegotiate shallow channels where larger boats would have towait until the water level rose. In its form as a minelayer, theaim was to approach a city or a bridge under the cover ofdarkness, uncouple the bow section in which the explosiveswere located, and leave it with a fuse burning while theassailants made a rapid getaway in the stern section.

The attack has taken place under cover of darkness, andthe crew of a Han zou ge, the smaller and faster ships of an ordinary Chinese river-based battle fleet, sleep in the background. These ships had one open deck with protectivebulwarks and carried ‘the best and bravest soldiers’, whowere transported rapidly to and from the scene of action. Thedesign meant that the soldiers were on deck alongside therowers.



48

INDEX

Achu 20-1anchors 14Angkor Thom, bas-reliefs 5, 12, 41, 45Annam 8, 47, Farchers 14, 16, 24, 41armour plating 15, 21–3, 46, D

Bach Dang, battle of (1288) 8–9, 47, FBanteay Chmar, bas-reliefs 5, 41, 45barges 13, 14, 35, 40–3, 45, A

royal barges 41, 45, 46, Cwar barges 6, 36, 41, 42, 44

battle formations, Chinese 45bombs

iron-cased 34–5, 47, Elime bombs 33, 46, Dnaphtha 43, 47, Fthunderclap 33–4, 47, E

bullock skins 12

Caishi, battle of (1161) 19–20, 33, 46, DCambodia

history 5, 45–6, Cships 6, 36, 40–3, 42, 45, 46, C

cannons 16, 17canoes 40–1, 45–6, 47, A, C, Fcatapults see trebuchetsCeylon 5Champa

history 5, 8, 45–6, Cships 40–3, 45–6, 44, C

Chen dynasty 4Chen Youliang 38, 39, 40China

history 4–8, 46–7, A, B, D–Gships 10–40, 44–5, 46–7, A, B, D–G

Chun Qiu Period 4crossbows 24, 34, 44, 45, A, B, E

Diaoyu, battle of (1265) 7dou xian 15

fighting techniquesChinese fighting ships 21–36war barges 42–3, 43

fireships 36, 37, 39–40, 39, 44–5, Afreighters 7, 11, 22Fu Xi 10

Gao Xuan 19Genghis Khan 6grain freighters 11Grand Canal 35, 47grappling irons 23, 36, 43

see also striking armsGreek Fire 5, 35–6, 45, Bgrenades 24, 43, 47, FGuangdong, battle of (1279) 7–8, 36

hai hu 16

halberds 16, 24, 33Han dynasty 4, 14, 16, 44–5, 47, A, Gheadgear and helmets 41, 45, A, CHuang Tian Dang, battle of (1130) 22,

24

incendiary weapons 5, 35–6, 43, 45, 47,B, E, F

fireships 36, 37, 39–40, 39, 44–5, A

Japan, Mongol invasions of (1274 and1281) 3, 7, 8, 47Java 9, 41, 43Jaya Indravarman, king of Champa 5, 45Jayavarman VII, king of Cambodia 5, 45, CJiangsu freighters 7Jiangsu warships 17Jin dynasty 5, 6, 18–20, 22, 24, 33–4, 36,

46, Djunks 3, 8, 9, 11–14, 23, 38

sha chuan 7war junks 15, 45, 47, B, F

Kaifeng 5, 6, 36Khubilai Khan 6, 7, 8, 9, 23Korea 7, 47

Lake Dongting, Song’s war on rebels 19, 24, 33

Lake Poyang, battle of (1363) 9, 11, 37–40, 40

Li Gang 36Li Gao 18Liao dynasty 17Liao Yungzhong 22lou chuan 4–5, 15, 16–17, 18, 19, 24, 37,

45, B

meng chong 15minelayers 35, 35, 47, Gmines, sea 34, 35Ming dynasty 9–10, 22–3, 37–40, 47, GMongke Khan 6Mongols 3, 5–9, 20–1, 34–5, 36, 46–7, E, Fmulti-storey ships 5, 14, 44, 46, A, D

see also lou chuan

Nanchang, siege of (1363) 37–8, 40

oars 13, 15, 41Ogodei Khan 6Opium Wars 17–18

paddle-wheel warships 17–21, 20, 21, 33, 46–7, D, E

pirates 5, 7, 19, 24, 47Polo, Marco 13

Qin dynasty 4, 44Qizhou, siege of (1221) 34

rafts 10, 12, 44rams 4, 23, 45, Areconnaissance boats 15Red Cliff, battle of the (207) 22, 37

sails 13–14, 47sampans 4, 10–11, 12, 47sand ships 5, 13sha chuan 7shipbuilding 5, 11–12Sichuan, Ming expedition against (1370)

22–3Sodu 8Song dynasty 5, 36, 45, BSong dynasty, Southern 5, 6–8, 18–21, 24,

33, 36, 46–7, D, Espears 33, 36steering 14, 41, 44striking arms 23–4, 24, 45, BSubadai 6Sui dynasty 4, 17Suryavarmadeva, king of Champa 5swords 16

Tang dynasty 4–5, 36, 45, BThree Kingdoms Period 4, 15–16, 22Toghon 8, 47, Ftower ships see lou chuanTran Hung Dao 8–9, 47, Ftreasure ships 22trebuchets 33–5, 45, B

counterweight 16, 18, 19, 20, 46–7, Etraction 16, 19, 33, 35, 46, 47, D, E

Vietnam see Annam; Champa

Wang Chun 17Warring States Period 14, 16weapons 16, 24, 33, 34, 36, 44, 45, A, BWu, Chinese war upon (285) 4, 16–17Wu Jing Zong Yao 15, 19

Xiangyang, siege of (1267–72) 20–1, 33–4, 46–7, E

Yang Su 4, 17Yangtze River 7, 17, 18, 19, 36, 45Yellow River 10, 34, 36Yo Fei 19you ting 15Yuan dynasty see Mongols

zhan xian 15Zhang Gui 20–1Zhang Shun 20Zhang Xuan 7, 8Zheng He 10, 22Zhu Qing 7, 8Zhu Yuanzhang 9–10, 37, 38, 39, 40zou ge 15, 47, G



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