Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
ThiswasaMing-dynastyprefectureonthemainlandnorthofHainan,notanisland
at all. The only actual large island in this area is Hainan, which in the Ming was
known as Qiongzhou prefecture. Not Lianzhou. If we look for Qiongzhou on the
map, we can find it, but on the mainland, not on this island. The island marked Li-
anzhou has two other labels, both associated with Hainan. One is Duzhu, Lone Pig
Mountain(knowntodayasWuzhu,BlackPigMountain).Thehighestmountainon
Hainan, Lone Pig was used by mariners as a fix to tell them they were sailing past
the island. The other label says Qizhou, Seven Islands, which is a tiny archipelago
off the north-east corner of Hainan where vessels on the coastal route stopped for
water and wood in the Ming. So is this island at the top of the circle Hainan Island
after all? No, but we'll get to that later.
Now look inside your virtual circle. You will find there a sloping parallelogram
containingtwolinesofChinesecharacters.Theyread,'shoalsfortenthousandliin
the shape of a ship's sail'. Beneath it are three characters, 'islet red in colour', and
then below that appears another curtain of tiny islets labelled 'reefs for ten thou-
sand li'. A li is half a kilometre and a third of a mile. 'Ten thousand li' is simply a
common expression for 'a lot' (the Great Wall, for instance, is 'the long wall that
goes on for ten thousand li'). These labels mark the Paracel Islands. The first ten
thousand li correspond to what are now called the Amphitrite Group, the second to
the Crescent Group. Together they are less than 250 kilometres end to end - well
shortofthedistancethattheChinesefigureofspeechimputes,althoughMingmar-
iners who found themselves swept into this trap of tiny islets and submerged reefs
must have felt as though they were caught in a nightmare ten thousand li in length.
TheParacelswerenothinganyonewantedtoclaim.Theywerenothingbutdanger;
the smart navigator steered clear of them.
I have asked you to draw this circle as a kind of portal linking the past and the
present. The present we know. It is the world we currently inhabit, in which states
and corporations jockey with their citizens, each other and nature itself for ever
morewealthandpower,inwhichairmenfalltopointlessdeathsintheSouthChina
Sea, in which the dignity of the nation trumps the dignity of the individual. The
past may feel more abstract, more elusive, but this is why I have chosen to put the
Seldenmapatthecentreofthisbook.Itmeansthatwewillalwayshavetheseven-
teenth century right in front of us as we go forward. That the centre of the Selden
map should also be where Lt.-Col. Wang Wei fell to his death is pure coincidence.
And yet, if we are willing to treat history not as something dead and gone but as
the dimension in which we live, we may find that they have everything to do with
Search WWH ::
Custom Search