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The Story of the First Dutch Embassy to the Emperor of China

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The Story of the First Dutch Embassy to the Emperor of China The story of the first Dutch embassy to the emperor of China An analysis of the different influences on the representation of China in Het Gezantschap (1665) Master Thesis ‘Historical and Comparative Studies of the Sciences and Humanities’ Iris van der Knaap (3244539) 12th of August 2014 Utrecht University Dr. Remco Raben Prof. Floris Cohen Figure 1. The route of the Dutch embassy (1655-1657) as given in the map in Het Gezantschap. 1 Table of contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 3 Book history and Orientalism ................................................................................................................. 5 Orientalism: the orientalist and the oriental ...................................................................................................................... 5 The debate about the primary sources of Het Gezantschap ..................................................................................... 10 The contemporary study of proto-sinology ................................................................................... 12 Chapter one: The Gateway(s) into China ............................................................................... 15 Tribute in Chinese history..................................................................................................................... 15 The Portuguese and the Jesuits’entry into the Middle Kingdom ........................................... 17 The long journey of the Dutch to the emperor of China ............................................................ 22 Reading China’s modes of conducts..................................................................................................................................... 23 A new dynasty, a new possibility? ........................................................................................................................................ 24 The first Dutch embassy to the Qing-emperor................................................................................................................ 26 Chapter two: the previous writings about China ................................................................ 31 Mission, trade and publishers ............................................................................................................. 31 Travel stories ............................................................................................................................................. 33 A new category: intellectual and descriptive travel stories ..................................................... 34 Chapter three: the analysis of the different influences on Het Gezantschap ............ 40 Johan’s report to the Gentlemen Seventeen and Hendrik’s publication ............................. 40 China’s influence ....................................................................................................................................... 43 A thematic analysis of the intertwinement of the different influences on the representation of China in Het Gezantschap .................................................................................. 44 Chinese crafts and practices .................................................................................................................................................... 46 Religious practices in China .................................................................................................................................................... 48 The inhabitants of China ........................................................................................................................................................... 52 The Manchus and the Manchu-conquest ........................................................................................................................... 55 Chinese cities and prominent buildings............................................................................................................................. 62 China’s overarching influence on different themes and different topoi ............................. 71 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 76 List of illustrations ........................................................................................................................ 80 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................... 81 Archival sources ........................................................................................................................................ 84 2 Introduction We were looking out for the emperor, and awaited with great desire to witness this great Ruler personally and in his all his greatness ; however he was so vastly surrounded by his subordinates, that we could not get the slightest vision of him.1 These are the words of Johan Nieuhof (1618-1672), steward of the first embassy of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) regarding his visit to the court of the Qing emperor Shunzi (1638-1661) in Beijing, quoted from the book Het Gezantschap. These words are exemplary for the seventeenth-century Dutch-Chinese relations. For the Chinese, the Dutch were of no importance, people from a country far away that was of no interest to them, while the Dutch marveled about the great Chinese empire and all its riches and wanted to establish a lasting trade relationship with it. In July 1655, after decades of trying to set up trade contracts with China, the first Dutch embassy left Batavia, capital city to the VOC in Asia, with the objective of getting permission from the Qing court for free trade. In Beijing the ambassadors were granted an audience with the Shunzi emperor, who eventually refused their request for free trade. The envoys left Beijing again in October 1656 to return to Batavia in March of 1657, having travelled for almost two years. The embassy failed to achieve their main goals, but Johan Nieuhof, on the other hand, managed to complete his mission. He had been appointed by the VOC to make re- alistic drawings of China and to document the journey correctly and extensively.2 When he returned to the Dutch Republic in 1658 he was commissioned by the board of the VOC to write a report about his experiences. He based this report on the notes and draw- ings that he had made during his journey and handed it in on August third 1658 during a plenary board meeting.3 After three months Johan left the Republic again, but not before he had asked his brother Hendrik Nieuhof4 to publish his writings on China.5 This resulted in the publication of the book Het Gezantschap. It became one of the crucial Western texts on China in the early modern period. It was reprinted fourteen times and translated into four languages: German, French, English and Latin. 6 The book was lavishly illustrated, containing 149 prints from copper engravings, which were claimed to be based on Nieuhof’s own drawings, and described the Chinese empire in 1 ‘Wy zagen vast om en om na den Keizer, en wachtten met groot verlangen om deze grooten Vorst eens perzoonlijk in zijne grootste staat t’aanschouwen ; maar hy was zoodanigh met zijn Volk omringt en be- stuuwt, datwe het minste niet van hem te zien konden krijgen.’ Johan Nieuhof, Het Gezandtschap der Neêr- landtsche Oost-Indische Compagnie, aan den grooten Tartarischen Cham, den tegenwoordigen Keizer van China: Waarin de gedenkwaerdigste Geschiedenissen, die onder het reizen door de Sineesche landtschappen, Quantung, Kiangsi, Nanking, Xantung en Beijing, en aan het Keizerlijke Hof te Beijing, sedert den jaren 1655 tot 1657 zijn voorgevallen, op het bondigste verhandelt worden. Beneffens een Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Sineesche Steden, Dorpen, Regeering, Weetenschappen, Hantwerken, Zeden, Godsdiensten, Gebouwen, Drach- ten, Schepen, Bergen, Gewassen, Dieren, et cetera en oorlogen tegen de Tarters (Franeker 1991) 175. 2 Leonard Blussé and Floris-Jan van Luyn, China en de Nederlanders: Geschiedenis van de Nederlands- Chinese betrekkingen 1600-2008 (Zutphen 2008) 89. 3 Jing Sun, The Illusion of verisimilitude : Johan Nieuhof’s images of China (Dissertation Leiden 2013) 81- 84. 4 I use the first names of the brothers to refer to them, because the use of their surnames would only lead to confusion. 5 Blussé and Van Luyn, China en de Nederlanders, 15. 6 Dawn Odell, ‘The Soul of transactions, Illustrations and Johan Nieuhof’s Travels in China’, Zeventiende eeuw 17 (2001) 225-242, 226. 3 great detail.7 The images in the book greatly influenced the eighteenth-century view on China and the Chinoiserie movement.8 The book was divided in two large sections: one section covered the journey of the embassy, while the other was a nineteen chapters long encyclopedic description of China. The second part was based on other works, while the travel story was presented as an authentic eyewitness account, claiming to represent the real China in word and image.9 This thesis researches the different influences on the portrayal of China in the first section - the travel story - of Het Gezantschap. The research ques- tion of this thesis is: Which dif- ferent factors influenced the representation of China in Het Gezantschap and how were the- se factors intertwined, connect- ed and overlapping with one another? To answer
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