中国文化英语概论(吉红卫) 第3课Test A

1. nautical ['n?:tik?l] adj.航海的, 船员的 2. eunuch ['ju:n?k] n.太监, 柔弱的男人 3. can-do adj. 积极肯干的, 有干劲的, 勤奋的, 热心的 4. commission [k?'mi??n] vt.授予, 委托 5. abeam [?'bi:m] adv. 正横着(指与船的龙骨或飞机机身成直角) 6. stern [st?:n] n.尾部, 船尾 7. rudder ['r?d?] n.舵, 方向舵 8. astrologer [??str?l?d??] n.占星家 9. tribute ['tribju:t] n.贡品, 敬意 10. envoy ['env?i] n. 外交使节, 特使 11. tout [taut] v.兜售,吹捧 12. auspicious [?:'spi??s] adj.吉利的 Text A    China Turns Inward 1. Southern Song and Yuan had seen a great advance in Chinese shipbuilding, nautical1 technology, and maritime trade to Japan and Southeast and South Asia. By 1400 the countries in sea trade with Ming China had been known for hundreds of years, while Chinese merchant shipping had been exporting silk, porcelain, and copper coins. Concurrently with his five military expeditions north against the Mongols, the Yongle Emperor ordered the Grand Eunuch2 Zheng He to mount naval expeditions on the routes of trade to the south of China. Zheng He was a Muslim originally surnamed Ma, whose father had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. He led a can-do3 group of eunuchs whom the emperor commissioned4 to perform special tasks. 2. Zheng He's seven voyages between 1405 and 1433 were no small affairs (see Map 18). The shipyards near Nanjing from 1403 to 1419 alone built 2,000 vessels, including almost a hundred big "treasure ships" 370 to 440 feet in length and 150 to 180 feet abeam5. J. V. G. Mills (1970) estimates they must have displaced about 3,000 tons apiece. With four to nine masts up to 90 feet high, a dozen water-tight compartments, and stern6-post rudders7, they could have as many as 50 cabins and carry 450 to 500 men. The fleet of the first voyage of 1405--1407 set out with an estimated 317 vessels, of which 62 were treasure ships. (The Spanish Armada of 1588 would total 132 vessels.) Zheng He was accompanied by a staff of 70 eunuchs, 180 medical personnel, 5 astrologers8, and 300 military officers, who commanded a force of 26,800 men. The first three voyages visited India and many ports en route. The fourth went beyond India to Hormuz, and the last three visited ports on the east coast of Africa, as far south as Malindi (near Mombasa), where Song porcelains and copper coins had long preceded them. Detachments of the fleet made special side trips, one of them to Mecca. As one major function Zheng He carried tribute9 envoys10 to China and back home again. He conducted some trade but mainly engaged in extensive diplomatic relations with about 30 countries. Though seldom violently aggressive, he did fight some battles. 3. Three points are worth noting. First, these official expeditions were not voyages of exploration in the Vasco da Gaman or Columbian sense. They followed established routes of Arab and Chinese trade in the seas east of Africa. Second, the Chinese expeditions were diplomatic, not commercial, much less piratical or colonizing ventures. They exchanged gifts, enrolled tributaries, and brought back geographic information and scientific curiosities like giraffes, which were touted11 as auspicious12 unicorns. Third and most striking, once these voyages ceased in 1433 they were never followed up. Instead, the records of them were destroyed by the vice-president of the War Ministry about 1479 and Chinese overseas commerce was severely restricted until 1567. In the great age of sail that was just dawning around the globe, Ming China was potentially far in the lead but refused to go on. It took the Europeans almost another half century even to get started. After 1433 it would be another 37 years before Portuguese explorers on the west coast of Africa got as far south as the Gold Coast, and 59 years before Columbus set sail with three small vessels totaling 450 tons. 4. Edward Dreyer describes how the great Chinese voyages were stopped by Confucian-trained scholar-officials who opposed trade and foreign contact on principle. Ray Huang stresses the regime's fiscal13 crisis that made funds really unavailable for these very costly ventures. For example, the Ming intervention14 in North Vietnam in 1407 had been repulsed15 by 1428 at considerable cost to the Chinese court, which had to recognize Vietnam as an independent tributary state in 1431. The officials at Beijing were also jealous of the eunuch power that the Yongle Emperor was using in military and security channels to counter the growing hold of the classical examination graduates upon the Ming government. 5. By mid-century Beijing also faced a revival of Mongol power and border raids16. In 1449 a sycophantic17 chief eunuch took the emperor out to chastise18 the Mongols. Instead, the Mongols captured him. When the Mongols approached Beijing to trade him in a deal, a new emperor was quickly installed. Ming policy became transfixed19 by the Mongol menace20. Arthur Waldron (1990) has traced the interminable21 policy discussions among officials who generally feared to attack the Mongols yet refused to let them trade with China so as to reduce their raiding. After 1474 and during the sixteenth century the building of brick-and-stone-faced long walls with their many hundreds of watchtowers created today's Great Wall (see Map 17). It proved to be a futile22 military gesture but vividly expressed China's siege23 mentality. 6. The decline of Ming naval power, once shipbuilding was restricted to small-size vessels, opened the door to a growth of piracy on the South China coast, ostensibly24 by Japanese but in 13. fiscal ['fisk?l] adj.财政的, 国库的 14. intervention [?int?'ven??n] n.介入, 干预 15. repulse [ri'p?ls] v.击退, 拒绝 16. raid [reid] n.突然袭击 17. sycophantic [?sik?'f?ntik] adj. 说奉承话的, 阿谀的 18. chastise [t??s'taiz] v.严惩, 责难, 鞭笞 19. transfix [tr?ns'fiks] vt.钉住,使呆住 20. menace ['menis] n.威胁, 恐吓 21. interminable [in't?:min?bl] adj.无止尽的, 冗长的 22. futile ['fju:tail] adj. 无效的, 无用的 23. siege [si:d?] n.包围, 围攻 24. ostensibly [?s'tens?bli] adv. 表面上地, 外表上地 25. guise [gaiz] n. 装束, 外观, 伪装, 借口 fact mainly by Chinese. Instead of counterattacking, the Ming forced a costly Chinese withdrawal from the seacoast, vainly aimed at starving out the pirates. This defensive posture included restricting foreign trade by demanding that it all be in the guise25 of tributary trade. Sarasin Viraphol (1977) describes how the import of Siamese rice by Sino-Siamese merchants had to be conducted as if it were connected with tribute missions. The tribute system reached its high point under the Ming as a form of defense connoting26 not power but weakness.