page_title: Junk (ship)
section_title: 2nd century (Han dynasty)
hierarchical_section_title: Junk (ship) / History / 2nd century (Han dynasty)
caption_attribution_description: English: View of the Bantam city and sketch of ships from Java island. Bantam here refers to the city of Banten, now it is a name of a province in Indonesia. The ships from Java are the javanese jong ships. Bahasa Indonesia: Pemandangan kota Bantam dan sketsa kapal dari pulau Jawa. Bantam di sini mengacu pada kota Banten, sekarang adalah nama sebuah provinsi di Indonesia. Kapal-kapal dari Jawa adalah kapal jong Jawa.
context_page_description: A junk is a type of Chinese sailing ship with fully battened sails. There are two types of junk in China: Northern junk which is developed from Chinese river boats, and southern junk which is developed from Austronesian ship designs, examples of which have been trading with the Eastern Han dynasty since the 2nd century AD. They continued to evolve in the later dynasties, and were predominantly used by Chinese traders throughout Southeast Asia. They were found, and in lesser numbers are still found, throughout Southeast Asia and India, but primarily in China. Found more broadly today is a growing number of modern recreational junk-rigged sailboats. Chinese junks referred to many types of coastal or river ships. They were usually cargo ships, pleasure boats, or houseboats. They vary greatly in size and there are significant regional variations in the type of rig, however they all employ fully battened sails.
  The term "junk" was also used in the colonial period to refer to any large to medium-sized ships of the Austronesian cultures in Island Southeast Asia, with or without the junk rig.
context_section_description: Chinese ships were essentially fluvial before the Song dynasty. However, large Austronesian trading ships docking in Chinese seaports with as many as four sails were recorded by scholars as early as the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE). They called them the kunlun bo or kunlun po (崑崙舶, lit. "ship of the [dark-skinned] Kunlun people"). They were booked by Chinese Buddhist pilgrims for passage to Southern India and Sri Lanka.
  The 3rd century book "Strange Things of the South" (南州異物志) by Wan Chen (萬震) describes one of these Austronesian ships as being capable of 600-700 people together with more than 10,000 hu (斛) of cargo (250-1000 tons according to various interpretations - 600 tons deadweight according to Manguin). The ships could be more than 50 meters in length and had a freeboard of 5.2–7.8 meters. When seen from above they resemble covered galleries. He explains the ships' sail design as follows:
  The people beyond the barriers, according the size of their ships, sometimes rig (as many as) four sails which they carry in row from bow to stern. (...) The four sails do not face directly forward, but are set obliquely, and so arranged that they can all be fixed in the same direction, to receive the wind and to spill it.  Those sails which are behind the most windward one receiving the pressure of the wind, throw it from one to the other, so that they all profit from its force.  If it is violent, (the sailors) diminish or augment the surface of the sails according to the conditions.  This oblique rig, which permits the sails to receive from one another the breath of the wind, obviates the anxiety attendant upon having high masts. Thus these ships sail without avoiding strong winds and dashing waves, by the aid of which they can make great speed.
  — Wan Chen, 
  A 260 CE book by K'ang T'ai (康泰) described ships with seven sails called po for transporting horses that could travel as far as Syria. He also made reference to monsoon trade between the islands (or archipelago), which took a month and a few days in a large po.
  Southern Chinese junks were based on keelled and multi-planked Austronesian jong (known as po by the Chinese, from Javanese or Malay perahu - large ship). Southern Chinese junks showed characteristics of Austronesian jong: V-shaped, double-ended hull with a keel, and using timbers of tropical origin. This is different from northern Chinese junks, which are developed from flat bottomed riverine boats. The northern Chinese junks had flat bottoms, no keel, no frames (only water-tight bulkheads), transom stern and stem, would have been built out of pine or fir wood, and would have its planks fastened with iron nails or clamps.
caption: Illustration of a jong, large native trading vessels, extant until 17th century CE. Shown with the characteristic tanja sail of Southeast Asian Austronesians. Vessels like these became the basis of Southern Chinese junks.
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