For anyone interested I figured I'd post some pics of various Chinese warships through the ages.

These are from the book "Fighting ships of the fear east part 1" by Stephen Turnbull. Small book (less than 50 pages) but interesting pics.


Early Han Dynasty warship, battle canoes, and fire-boats.




A Southern Tang dynasty Lou chuan ("tower ship") fights off a Sung war junk.



A Sung dynasty paddleboat warship.



Jin and Sung dynasty warships.



A Yuan dynasty sea-going war junk fighting off Vietnamese war canoes.



A Ming dynasty detachable mine-layer

Great stuff! Does he include pics of non Chinese ships?

There's a little bit about Cham and Khmer war canoes, but mostly it focuses on China.

Nice pictures.


"A larger paddle-wheel Sung warship breaks the Mongol blockade at Xiangyang, 1272
"

That boat's label is Jin not Yuan, I think its implying the Jin-Song wars.

They looked like Song dynasty navy..

The second pic looks like one of the ships is using greek fire...

Whoops. My mistake. I think those are Jin and Sung dynasty ships fighting it out.

Great pictures. I wished someone draw a full length comic story with them.

These warships are armed with rockets and missiles..as well as hand-grenades.

That's exactly what it is - it had spread to China by the Five Dynasties.



Actually, their main armament was traction (human-powered) trebuchets launching explosive, incendiary or gas-emitting projectiles.

VERY nice pics. Is there an internet site on this that has more?

did stone cannons and heavy crossbows were used in naval warfare?if yes,when is it started?

Just thinking about the whole rome vs han thing, I think those cultures from the mediterrainian would atleast have better boats becuase that was there life and the sea would be in there blood. Is this true, did China have anything comparable to the biremes and triremes. I remember reading a book called "When China Ruled The Seas" and I think boats like triremes and biremes only came about in China after the western counterparts in the med. (The book was refering to the later dynasties: yuan, ming when saying China ruled the seas)

Naval warfare in China took place in a very different context from the Mediterranean. Almost all Chinese naval battles took place on relatively calmer but more confined rivers or lakes, and thus while the Mediterranean was dominated by fast galleys, Chinese warships developed into waterborne fortresses that opted for size, firepower and protection over speed, stability or maneuverability. Instead of ramming or boarding, which was the favoured method for sinking/capturing galleys, the Chinese warship was most vulnerable to fire. So I don't think there's much point in comparing Chinese tower-ships to Mediterranean biremes and triremes - no galley was ever armed with traction trebuchets launching incendiary projectiles. One similarity was the use of striking arms for holding enemy vessels in place so they could not escape - the Romans also used this against Carthaginian ships. But while the Romans did this to allow boarding, the Chinese mainly held enemy ships close alongside to bombard them and set them on fire.

then there is greek fire

Here's another warship. This is one of the Korean warships the Mongols used during the invasion of Japan.

Warships - the ones that protected Zheng He.

What did they look like? Were there specific designs for sea-worthy warships?

Try this for info. http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/journey2001/

thanks, that's a good link!

A lucky find today: lots of pics of Chinese warships and other ships!

http://www.cdnsp.com.tw/musea/musea03/musea03.htm

http://www.cdnsp.com.tw/musea/musea04/musea04.htm

Ming Dynasty - Coastal Patrol


Qing Dynasty - Opium War

About the Qing dynasty war junk.....is there any improvements or upgrade than the Ming predecessors?
They seems have fewer cannons than the Europeans....which 2 or 3 decker...

The Qing dynasty ships were outgunned by European ships. I think there were larger ones. This model is just one typical type, but even the largest Qing war junks were no match for the European galleons.

The Ming dynasty ship if you look carefully, doesn't have cannon, but rather has "fire-sticks" which were used in close ship to ship battle. Basically the ship was drawn alongside the enemy ship and then the fire-sticks were pointed over and fired to clear the enemy ship deck. This was not a naval ship for large naval engagements. It was a coastal defense ship more in an anti-pirate role. None of the Spanish Armada vs. Admiral Nelson stuff.

From what I have learn,war junks are more maneuverable than European ships.......
The junk's sail does not need a sailor to climb up to change or fold the sail like the Europeans do....Besides,they are also to change direction...

I've heard of a pirate or pirate fleet who were famed for being able to out-gun European ships, during the Qing. Anything on that?

Why are they called 'junks' anyways? It makes them sound bad.

'Junk' is most likely a Western corruption of the Chinese word 'chuan' (ship).

Actually, try saying that in Cantonese, Holo or Hakka, then you'll know why it's Junk.

No, I cannot relate the Cantonese pronounciation of 船 to junk.

It comes from the Malay word for ship.

huh? really? Which word?
Perahu = boat
Kapal = ship

one of the more archaic words maybe?

The Malay word is "jong", and yes - there is some debate about whether the southern Chinese adopted it from the Malays, and the Europeans then thought it was a Chinese word, or it was actually the Malays who adapted it from the Chinese word 船.

Song River 3 storey ship (note the trebuchets at the top)

Models of:

A Sui "wuya" (five-toothed) warship with striking arms, in the fleet that invaded and conquered the Chen dynasty in 589

http://elib.lib.tsinghua.edu.cn/techlibrar...ore/ship/27.jpg

A Spring-Autumn and Warring States warship

http://elib.lib.tsinghua.edu.cn/techlibrar...military/06.jpg

Those striking arms (hammers) are fantastic! I've never heard of ships with large 3 storey hammers on all sides, literally for thumping enemy ships! Great pictures Yun!

Junk means rubbish in english language probaly stemming from opium wars.

I imagine that could be a reason that it is pronounced that way, but not the origin.

hmmm, thumping arms...

Liang! You have another project now!

Just found a great site in Chinese: Shanghai Jiaotong University's Digital Ship Museum: http://shipmuseum.sjtu.edu.cn

Especially this page of info and pictures (including models) of ancient Chinese merchant ships and warships:

http://shipmuseum.sjtu.edu.cn/quanzhou/quaninfo.htm

Various ancient Chinese warships:

http://shipmuseum.sjtu.edu.cn/quanzhou/quan03.htm

Here are pictures of the famous Southern Song Quanzhou wreck from 1276: http://shipmuseum.sjtu.edu.cn/quanzhou/quan12.htm

A Yuan warship uncovered on the site of the Ming naval base in Penglai (the former Dengzhou) in Shandong. A stone cannonball was found with the wreck, and it is the largest warship thus far unearthed in China. I saw the exhibit in my recent trip to Shandong:

http://shipmuseum.sjtu.edu.cn/quanzhou/quan11.htm

My photos of the wreck:





Penglai/Dengzhou was also a hometown of the famous Ming general Qi Jiguang. A model in Penglai's ship museum of the Da Fuchuan (Big 'Fu' Ship) class developed by Qi for use against the 'Wokou' smuggler-pirates in Zhejiang and Fujian:



Another model: http://shipmuseum.sjtu.edu.cn/quanzhou/imgs/691.jpg

Contemporary pictures of Qi Jiguang's warships:

http://shipmuseum.sjtu.edu.cn/quanzhou/quan10.htm

Great find, Yun! I am browsing the site now. Looks to be a lot of interesting information.

According to the bronze inscriptions of a Shu couldron (or some vessel) the boats have 2 layers of bottom separated by a layer of air...possibly to prevent enemy divers from hammering a damaging hole in the bottom of the boat.

A lot of mine layer boats from the links...

I noticed some comments about the term junk.

Around 1310 The Persian Qashani, writing the official chronicle of the reign of the Il-Khan Oljeitu, described the large imposing Chinese merchant ships the frequented Persian ports and explained that the Chinese name for them was "jung".

rgds.
Tom..

I have two questions.

1. Does anyone know where this illustration comes from? It seems to show either traction catapults with a reversed throw-arm, hinged counterweight trebuchets with too many slings/winch ropes or a counterweighted crane for goods hoisting.



2. Needham in his book states that the catapults on the deck are fixed counterweight catapults. I believe they are not fixed counterweight catapults but instead are hinged counterweight catapults but with their counterweights unmounted (not in battle) since the Chinese adopted the hinged counterweight catapult directly from the Persians, going from traction to hinged counterweight and by passing the intermediate stage of the fixed counterweight. The round bowl like depiction on the throwarm also matches the singular known illustration of a chinese hinged counterweight trebuchet. Anyone have alternate ideas?

This sketch looks to me to be based on the illustration of the 23-wheel paddle warship in Turnbull's book.

Bahtera = ship (I think it derived from Sanskrit; DaMo your comment please?)

So "Junk" derived from "Jung" and "Jung" in turn derived from "juan" ?

This is my lecturer's explanation of it:

'Junk' came from 'jong', but 'jong' did not come from the Chinese 'chuan'. Instead, the word 'jong' was an indigenous Malay word that was adopted by the Chinese in the Song dynasty to refer to ocean-going ships.

In Javanese, 'djong' and in Malay, 'adjong'. The Chinese transliteration of these terms was 戎克 or 舯.

After Malay shipping died out in Southeast Asia under competition from the Europeans, the Chinese, and the Gujaratis, the term 'jong/junk' came to refer exclusively to Chinese ships.

I have a little question.

What about the transportation capabilities of Chinese ships?
How many soldiers/horses could a Chinese ship carry?
Where there specializied troop transporter, maybe similar to modern landing ships?

cabability varied, the largest tower ships had fighting crews of 1000+.

Yes there were specialist troop transporters, the Liao used special two deck cavalry transports against the Xixia. There was a significant naval arms race between the Song and Liao that created many weird and wonderful ships and boats. There were other examples as well...

[quote name='Yun' date='Aug 31 2005, 06:18 AM' post='4754266']
This is my lecturer's explanation of it:

'Junk' came from 'jong', but 'jong' did not come from the Chinese 'chuan'. Instead, the word 'jong' was an indigenous Malay word that was adopted by the Chinese in the Song dynasty to refer to ocean-going ships.


If 'jong' refers to and ocean-going ship then what would the term for a river junk? Also, what is Malay, a chinese dialect?

Cheers

Malay is the language of Malaysia.

Also Indonesia, but in a slightly different form called Bahasa Indonesia.



'Chuan' - the word now used in Chinese for all ships and boats.