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The Formation of the Modern East Asian Economy
Settling in great numbers in the commercial quarters outside Changmen Gate, they kept a close eye on the city's active trade in rice, raw silk and cotton, silk and cotton goods, and sugar.43 Thus, a network of merchants with ties all along the China coast could link up with the prosperous shipping routes of the Yangtze Valley.

     And with southeast Asia as well. Here, even more than with the domestic coastal trade, they followed the monsoon winds. Leaving the southeast coast between November and February, they might hurry down the Malacca Peninsula and then sail up another 20 days to reach Bangkok, where they would stay until their return trip in June or July.44 Usually, however, their voyages were longer, as they greatly preferred to hop from port to port for trades rather than risk the high seas for the dubious benefits of a quicker arrival.45 By 1742, three-quarters of the boats setting forth from China were going as far as the Malay Peninsula and Siam.46

     Once they reached southeast Asia, the Fukien traders experienced great success. With Vietnam the China contents of the trade were meant to be highly restricted. The Chinese side was supposed to export only satin thread, certain kinds of cloth, paint pigment, stockings, stationery, tea, white sugar, and drugs, all for Vietnam's authorized exports in cardamom, a brown-dye-producing plant, zinc, and bamboo. What each side more wanted from the trade however, the other side officially classified as contraband-Chinese iron and Vietnamese rice.47 Along the Malay Peninsula, the Chinese acquired tin, lead ivory, deer hides, and water buffalo hides, while in Batavia they purchase primary products like wood, dyes, and especially sugar.48 Overall, the variety of their imports expanded greatly in the eighteenth century over earlier trading practice, to include bulk products like tin, iron, led, copper, indigo, sticklac, benzoin, wax, woods, as well as food goods, like sugar, pepper, coconut oil, and rice. In general, the Chinese processed these imports into profitable exports, such as sweetmeats, or sold manufactured goods it had long been famous for, such as silk porcelain, tools, copper and brass pans and kettles.

     As virtually all sides of this trade were actually conducted by Chinese, many a Chinese, especially the Fukinese and Cantonese, found the lure and lucre of this trade too attractive to ignore. Their emperors' response to their emigration may have varied between pity a la Kangxi in 1690 and Yungzheng's and Qianlong's mixture of scorn and distrust in the mid-eighteenth century.50 But many seem to have found this foreign life to their liking, as they enjoyed an economic and social success barred them at home due to intense competition, instability, and overpopulation.

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