page_title: History of the Song dynasty
section_title: China's first standing navy
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Song dynasty / China's first standing navy
caption_attribution_description: English: Song Dynasty Rivership with Xuanfeng Traction Catapult from the Wujing Zongyao, the 1510 edition of the Ming Dynasty. The photographs are part of my book. You're welcome to use them on Wikipedia so long as you list my book "Chinese Siege Warfare: Mechanical Artillery &amp; Siege Weapons of Antiquity" by Liang Jieming (ISBN 981-05-5380-3) as the source. I hope that helps. Cheers, Leong Kit Meng (Liang Jieming) &lt;liang_jieming@history-forum.com&gt;
context_page_description: The Song dynasty of China was a ruling dynasty that controlled China proper and southern China from the middle of the 10th century into the last quarter of the 13th century. The dynasty was established by Emperor Taizu of Song with his usurpation of the throne of Later Zhou, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.
  The Song is considered a high point of classical Chinese innovation in science and technology, an era that featured prominent intellectual figures such as Shen Kuo and Su Song and the revolutionary use of gunpowder weapons. However, it was also a period of political and military turmoil, with opposing and often aggressive political factions formed at court that impeded political, social, and economic progress. The frontier management policies of the Chancellor Wang Anshi exacerbated hostile conditions along the Chinese-Vietnamese border. This sparked a border war with Vietnam's Lý dynasty, which was fought to a mutual draw and concluded with a peace treaty in 1082. To the northwest the Song Empire frequently quarreled with the rival Western Xia, led by the Tanguts, as well as the Liao Dynasty to the northeast, led by ethnic Khitans.
context_section_description: As the once great Indian Ocean maritime power of the Chola dynasty in medieval India had waned and declined, Chinese sailors and seafarers began to increase their own maritime activity in South East Asia and into the Indian Ocean. Even during the earlier Northern Song period, when it was written in Tamil inscriptions under the reign of Rajendra Chola I that Srivijaya had been completely taken in 1025 by Chola's naval strength, the succeeding king of Srivijaya managed to send tribute to the Chinese Northern Song court in 1028. Much later, in 1077, the Indian Chola ruler Kulothunga Chola I (who the Chinese called Ti-hua-kia-lo) sent a trade embassy to the court of Emperor Shenzong of Song, and made lucrative profits in selling goods to China. There were other tributary payers from other regions of the world as well. The Fatimid-era Egyptian sea captain Domiyat traveled to a Buddhist site of pilgrimage in Shandong in 1008, where he presented the Chinese Emperor Zhenzong of Song with gifts from his ruling Imam Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, establishing diplomatic relations between Egypt and China that had been lost during the collapse of the Tang dynasty in 907 (while the Fatimid state was established three years later in 910). During the Northern Song, Quanzhou was already a bustling port of call visited by a plethora of different foreigners, from Muslim Arabs, Persians, Egyptians, Hindu Indians, Middle-Eastern Jews, Nestorian Christians from the Near East, etc. Muslims from foreign nations dominated the import and export industry (see Islam during the Song dynasty). To regulate this enormous commercial center, in 1087 the Northern Song government established an office in Quanzhou for the sole purpose of handling maritime affairs and commercial transactions. In this multicultural environment there were many opportunities for subjects in the empire of foreign descent, such as the (Arab or Persian) Muslim Pu Shougeng, the Commissioner of Merchant Shipping for Quanzhou between 1250 and 1275. Pu Shougeng had gained his reputable position by helping the Chinese destroy pirate forces that plagued the area, and so was lavished with gifts and appraisal from Chinese merchants and officials. Quanzhou soon rivaled Guangzhou (the greatest maritime port of the earlier Tang dynasty) as a major trading center during the late Northern Song. However, Guangzhou had not fully lost its importance. The medieval Arab maritime captain Abu Himyarite from Yemen toured Guangzhou in 993, and was an avid visitor to China. There were other notable international seaports in China during the Song period as well, including Xiamen (or Amoy).
  When the Song capital was removed far south to Hangzhou, massive numbers of people came from the north. Unlike the flat plains of the north, the mountainous terrain riddled with lakes and rivers in southern China is largely a hindrance and inhospitable to widespread agriculture. Therefore, the Southern Song took on a unique maritime presence that was largely unseen in earlier dynasties, grown out of the need to secure importation of foreign resources. Commercial cities (located along the coast and by internal rivers), backed by patronage of the state, dramatically increased shipbuilding activity (funding harbor improvements, warehouse construction, and navigation beacons). Navigation at sea was made easier by the invention of the compass and Shen Kuo's treatise of the 11th century on the concept of true north (with magnetic declination towards the North Pole). With military defense and economic policy in mind, the Southern Song established China's first standing navy. China had a long naval history before that point (example, Battle of Chibi in 208), and even during the Northern Song era there were concerns with naval matters, as seen in examples such as the Chinese official Huang Huaixin of the Xining Reign (1068–1077) outlining a plan of employing a drydock for repair of 'imperial dragon boats' (see Science and technology of the Song dynasty). Already during the Northern Song, the Chinese had established fortified trade bas
caption: A Song illustration from the Wujing Zongyao manuscript of 1044, showing a rivership with a Xuanfeng traction trebuchet catapult mounted on the top deck.
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