Sally K. Church

Although Chen Cheng is most famous for his three overland missions to Herat, undertaken between 1413 and 1420, the topic of centre and periphery is more fruitfully examined in the context of his earlier diplomatic career, which is less well known. Soon after he passed the civil service examinations and was awarded the jinshi degree, he was appointed as a messenger (xingren 行人) in the ”messenger service” (xingren si 行人司) within the Ministry of Rites (li bu 禮部). In this capacity he received numerous domestic assignments between 1394 and 1396, and then in 1396 was entrusted with a mission further afield, to the Sari Uighurs in what is today the northern part of Qinghai province. This was followed by two other important missions, one to Annam (Dai Viet) in 1396-1397, and another to the Eastern Mongols in 1401, who at that time were based near present-day Baotou, Inner Mongolia. Chen Cheng moved easily between his domestic assignments and his peripheral ones, both of which came under the authority of the same governmental institution, the messenger service. There was a gap in his ambassadorial career between 1401 and 1413, caused by Zhu Di's civil war and subsequent usurpation, and this gap marks a clear distinction between his early and later careers. The present paper analyses the meaning of centre and periphery in the context of Chen Cheng's various missions. It also explores the usefulness of the concept of centre-periphery as a model for the conduct of early Ming foreign relations, compared to the concept of the tribute system. The paper concludes that no clear lines can be drawn between centre and periphery in the context of Ming foreign relations. There are problems with this theory as a model, as well as with the tribute system. Moreover, given that the same person participated in these various different missions, the role of the individual in embassies to distant lands is perhaps more important than is often thought.

This revolutionary new dictionary is designed to give you a comprehensive introduction to Chinese in a completely new way. It covers all the vocabulary learners will need in their first years of study and gives unique guidance to the grammar and usage of the language. This dictionary is created specifically for beginners: colour headwords and translations; no confusing abbreviations; warning symbols show potential problem areas. There are thousands of example phrases drawn from real-life situations. Full romanization of the Chinese text with Chinese script following in simplified characters. Includes a guide to how to write Chinese characters. Full guidance on the pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese is given. Word patterns and constructions from language areas such as dates, and telling time are grouped together to show similarities and differences.

The Oxford Beginner's Chinese Dictionary is an innovative guide to learning Chinese. Designed specifically for English-speaking adult learners who are either learning from scratch or refreshing lost language skills, it offers an easy to use dictionary, extra help with vocabulary, and essential information on living and interacting in the Chinese-speaking world. The dictionary is exceptionally easy to use, because it moves away from the traditional dictionary layout. All main translations are preceded by an equals sign so that they are instantly identifiable, and all parts of the entry are spelt out in full, avoiding confusing jargon and abbreviations. Grammar and usage notes throughout the text warn of possible translation pitfalls, and thousands of example phrases show how the language is used in context. The 30-page Learning and Lifestyle kit gives key information on both the Chinese language, with a list of the words you really need to know, grammar help, and verb tables, and on life in the Chinese-speaking world: background information on lifestyle and culture, tips on etiquette and interaction in the language, and a phrasefinder for use when travelling. The Oxford Beginner's Chinese Dictionary is your essential companion to learning Chinese.

This article takes a long historical perspective on the Silk Road, attempting to see it from a Chinese point of view. It focuses on five themes that figure in the Chinese imagination of the Silk Road, all rooted in China’s history. These include influences that came to China via the Silk Road in prehistoric and early historic times, patterns of military expansion of Chinese power in the Western regions, the threat of invasion from the northern and north-western frontiers, commercial exchanges and individual travel. Individuals journeyed across the Silk Road for diplomatic, military, commercial and sometimes religious reasons and the various themes overlap to some extent. Some myths are also dispelled: first, the Silk Road was not one route but many; second, other commodities besides silk travelled along it and third, the maritime Silk Road should also be included in the concept. Under Mongol rule, the route was at times an unbroken corridor between East and West on which many people travelled in both directions. When the Mongol empire broke up, travel overland was restricted again, which may have been why China took to the seas in the Ming. At present, China is building a New Silk Road to connect with the rest of the world in a more integrated way than ever before. The focus of this article is on establishing the patterns of the past in the hopes that it will contribute to the discussion of whether these patterns will be repeated in the present or if we are in completely uncharted territory. China’s perspective on the historical Silk Road is such a large topic that one would need several volumes to do it justice. This article focuses on certain key themes that figure in the Chinese imagination of the Silk Road, all rooted in China’s history and the history of her interaction with Eurasia and the rest of the world in premodern times (roughly before 1800 CE). The first of these themes is that while the term “Silk Road” is relatively new in origin, having been coined by the geologist Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen (1833–1905) in 1877, the Silk Road itself, defined collectively from the Chinese perspective as the various overland routes extending from China’s north-western and western frontiers to Central Asia and beyond, was a corridor for the exchange of goods and the transfer of information dating back to prehistoric times. It was the route by which many foreign influences came into China during the formative years of Chinese civilisation. The second theme is that beginning with the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), China’s state expansion into the north-western and western frontiers tended to be sporadic, with military expeditions and the establishment of protectorates undertaken by ambitious emperors during the early years of strong dynasties, such as the Han and Tang, when there was ample wealth to support these operations.When these campaigns became overextended and the regime’s wealth drained away from the provision of essential goods and services to the populace in China’s political centre, however, the state tended to withdraw from such far-flung activities in order to deploy its limited resources on more pressing domestic concerns. In this way, we can see that while China had no lack of interest in 1 It was used in its German form (die Seidenstraße) on a map of Central Asia to indicate the trade route between East and West. The map was published in Ferdinand von Richthofen, China: Ergebnisse eigener Reisen und darauf gegründeter Studien (Berlin: D. Reimer, 1877). Cambridge J. Eurasian Stud. | 2018 | 2: #XW4ESF | https://doi.org/10.22261/CJES.XW4ESF 1 other parts of the world, her priority was to look after her own people at home. Hence, at times of internal crisis, she tended to abandon her foreign interests to focus attention on domestic concerns. Third, because China’s northern and north-western borders were susceptible to attack by nomadic raiders and other foreign invaders, the frontier regions to the north, north-west and west came to be seen as potential sources of danger to the empire’s peace and security, particularly at times of disorder, division and weakness at home. The fourth theme is that certain commodities tended to be encountered on Silk Road travels or traded along that route, such as grape-wine, jade and horses, and by virtue of their mention in poetry and historical accounts these became associated with and incorporated into the Chinese imagination of the Silk Road. The final theme to be discussed here is that often independently of major political and economic events, certain individuals traversed the long distances separating the East andWest over the centuries. They each had their own reasons for travel, whether on military or diplomatic assignment, for religious purposes or commercial profit. The prose accounts and poems left behind by these individuals, and others inspired by them, are repositories of the images of the Silk Road and are responsible for their transmission down to…

This paper chronicles the development of diplomatic relations between China and Bengal in the early-fifteenth century, culminating in the pre sentation of a giraffe by Bengal to the court of China in 1414. It examines Chinese sources that recorded the visits of envoys from Bengal to China and from China to Bengal during the period of the Chinese maritime ex peditions from 1405 to 1433. Discussion centres on the historical context for these exchanges in the two countries, the relationship between the Chinese maritime expeditions and these diplomatic missions, and the reliability of Chinese sources in recording the events and rulers of Bengal. An effort is made to elucidate the many complexities that surrounded this seemingly straightforward event.

... Jin interprets her prompt withdrawal from Zhang's presence as a sign that she behaves morally in this act, in accord with her sta-tus as a young girl from a good family.3 This ... The principle of implicit meaning also plays a key role in further-ing Jin's agenda as commentator. ...

rafts, and canoes are known from the accounts of visitors to the southern Red Sea as early as thirdmillennium-BC Egypt. Shell middens and evidence for fishing at coastal sites such as Jizan and Hodeidah pre-date the gradual shift from a maritime-oriented economy to settled villages dependent on herding and agriculture by the early fourth millennium. Tihamah serves as a primer for the state of knowledge in the region at the end of the 20th century, but it is clear from the many projects under way, begun but not completely published, that this is an expanding story of indigenous development which incidentally expands to encompass the trade routes feeding Egyptian and Mediterranean desires for incense and other goods of the Indian Ocean. The volume is maritime in orientation, being about coastal sites and Red Sea connections, but more detailed perspectives must be teased out by the reader. It suffers from some faults of bibliography such as reliance on guidebooks for information readily available in primary literature, and some sources frequently cited in the text are absent from the list of references, but, overall, the work is a useful and accessible review of archaeological research in this important and under-studied region.

Joseph Furttenbach was a multi-faceted man. Born 1591 in Leutkirch, a small Swabian village in Germany, he combined the roles of diarist and chronicler, collector, architect and engineer, civic master builder, pyro-technician, gunsmith and author of many treatises on the artes mechanicae. After a 12-year stay in northern Italy, where he learned about business, the art of pyrotechnics and gun making, Furttenbach returned to Germany, and settled in the imperial town of Ulm. He earned his living as a merchant and accountant, and served as civic master builder from the year 1631, in the middle of the Thirty Years’ War. Born into a noble family, he was one of the dignitaries of Ulm. He married the daughter of a respectable burgher and had several children with her, of which only one son reached his twenties. Alongside his official functions, Furttenbach was a passionate collector, an activity that connected him to a plurality of interlocutors and visitors. His cabinet of curiosities was well known beyond Ulm, and attracted both high-ranking nobles from the Holy Roman Empire and ordinary people. Furttenbach never lacked

The Oxford Beginner's Chinese Dictionary is an innovative guide to learning Chinese. Designed specifically for English-speaking adult learners who are either learning from scratch or refreshing lost language skills, it offers an easy to use dictionary, extra help with vocabulary, and essential information on living and interacting in the Chinese-speaking world. The dictionary is exceptionally easy to use, because it moves away from the traditional dictionary layout. All main translations are preceded by an equals sign so that they are instantly identifiable, and all parts of the entry are spelt out in full, avoiding confusing jargon and abbreviations. Grammar and usage notes throughout the text warn of possible translation pitfalls, and thousands of example phrases show how the language is used in context. The 30-page Learning and Lifestyle kit gives key information on both the Chinese language, with a list of the words you really need to know, grammar help, and verb tables, and...

Joseph Furttenbach was a multi-faceted man. Born 1591 in Leutkirch, a small Swabian village in Germany, he combined the roles of diarist and chronicler, collector, architect and engineer, civic master builder, pyro-technician, gunsmith and author of many treatises on the artes mechanicae. After a 12-year stay in northern Italy, where he learned about business, the art of pyrotechnics and gun making, Furttenbach returned to Germany, and settled in the imperial town of Ulm. He earned his living as a merchant and accountant, and served as civic master builder from the year 1631, in the middle of the Thirty Years’ War. Born into a noble family, he was one of the dignitaries of Ulm. He married the daughter of a respectable burgher and had several children with her, of which only one son reached his twenties. Alongside his official functions, Furttenbach was a passionate collector, an activity that connected him to a plurality of interlocutors and visitors. His cabinet of curiosities was well known beyond Ulm, and attracted both high-ranking nobles from the Holy Roman Empire and ordinary people. Furttenbach never lacked

Although Chen Cheng is most famous for his three overland missions to Herat, undertaken between 1413 and 1420, the topic of centre and periphery is more fruitfully examined in the context of his earlier diplomatic career, which is less well known. Soon after he passed the civil service examinations and was awarded the jinshi degree, he was appointed as a messenger (xingren 行人) in the ”messenger service” (xingren si 行人司) within the Ministry of Rites (li bu 禮部). In this capacity he received numerous domestic assignments between 1394 and 1396, and then in 1396 was entrusted with a mission further afield, to the Sari Uighurs in what is today the northern part of Qinghai province. This was followed by two other important missions, one to Annam (Dai Viet) in 1396-1397, and another to the Eastern Mongols in 1401, who at that time were based near present-day Baotou, Inner Mongolia. Chen Cheng moved easily between his domestic assignments and his peripheral ones, both of which came under the...

Chen Cheng 陳誠 has been praised for his accomplishments on the three diplomatic missions to Herat, which took place during Emperor Yongle’s 永樂 reign (1403–1424) in the Ming period (1368–1644). This acclaim, and the fame that has accrued to him since then, suggest that he played an instrumental role in the relations between China and the Central Asian countries through which he passed. However, since he was second in command of these missions, serving under eunuchs each time, it is difficult to find evidence for his individual contributions to China’s relations with the Timurids or with other powers. This article looks not only at Chen’s two most famous works, his Xiyu xingcheng ji 西域行程記 and Xiyu fanguo zhi 西域番國志, but also at his writings in other genres, including a long descriptive poem (fu 賦), his shorter poems, his letters from another mission, a memorial to the emperor, a summary of his career, and also writings by others, to see the light they shed on his role. Not only do his various writings complement each other and fill in each other’s gaps, but they also reveal that he acted as chief ambassador on at least two side expeditions, and was a member of the inner circle during meetings with various local rulers, enjoying their hospitality and observing their ways of life first hand. Although they do not convey an exact picture of his role on these missions to Herat, taken as a whole his writings convey a sense of his encounter with other civilizations along the Silk Road in the early fifteenth century.

This paper draws a clear distinction between two shipyards in the northwestern corner of Nanjing: the Treasure Shipyard and the Longjiang Shipyard. The former was the site where the Treasure Ships used on Zheng He’s maritime expeditions (1405–1433) were built. The latter was founded at the beginning of the Hongwu period (1368–1398) in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) to provide ships of a military nature to protect the capital (Nanjing, until 1421) and also to defend some of China’s waters and shores against pirates. These two shipyards were in slightly different locations, and had different purposes and different historical trajectories. Our knowledge about them also comes from two different types of sources, one archaeological and the other textual. The two types of evidence complement each other well, and here they are used to survey what is known about the two shipyards and to bring them together into a more comprehensive picture of early Ming shipyards than has been attempted in th...

This paper chronicles the development of diplomatic relations between China and Bengal in the early-fifteenth century, culminating in the presentation of a giraffe by Bengal to the court of China in 1414. It examines Chinese sources that recorded the visits of envoys from Bengal to China and from China to Bengal during the period of the Chinese maritime expeditions from 1405 to 1433. Discussion centres on the historical context for these exchanges in the two countries, the relationship between the Chinese maritime expeditions and these diplomatic missions, and the reliability of Chinese sources in recording the events and rulers of Bengal. An effort is made to elucidate the many complexities that surrounded this seemingly straightforward event.

Chen Cheng 陳誠 has been praised for his accomplishments on the three diplomatic missions to Herat, which took place during Emperor Yongle’s 永樂 reign (1403–1424) in the Ming period (1368–1644). This acclaim, and the fame that has accrued to him since then, suggest that he played an instrumental role in the relations between China and the Central Asian countries through which he passed. However,
since he was second in command of these missions, serving under eunuchs each time, it is difficult to find evidence for his individual contributions to China’s relations with the Timurids or with other powers. This article looks not only at Chen’s two most famous works, his Xiyu xingcheng ji 西域行程記 and Xiyu fanguo zhi 西域番國志, but also at his writings in other genres, including a long descriptive poem
(fu 賦), his shorter poems, his letters from another mission, a memorial to the emperor, a summary of his career, and also writings by others, to see the light they shed on his role. Not only do his various writings complement each other and fill in each other’s gaps, but they also reveal that he acted as chief ambassador on at least two side expeditions, and was a member of the inner circle during meetings
with various local rulers, enjoying their hospitality and observing their ways of life first hand. Although they do not convey an exact picture of his role on these missions to Herat, taken as a whole his writings convey a sense of his encounter with other civilizations along the Silk Road in the early fifteenth century.

This is a translation of the travel diary kept by Chen Cheng, Chinese envoy to the Timurid Empire, in 1414, when he made his first journey on horseback from the beginning of the Silk Road in north-western China to Herat in present-day Afghanistan. Herat was then the capital of Shahrukh (1377-1447), fourth son of the infamous Timur (Tamerlane, d. 1405).

... Jin interprets her prompt withdrawal from Zhang's presence as a sign that she behaves morally in this act, in accord with her sta-tus as a young girl from a good family.3 This ... The principle of implicit meaning also plays a key role in further-ing Jin's agenda as commentator. ...