ABSTRACT
During the Ming, the local residents of Quanzhou suffered a great deal from the court’s prohibition of maritime trade. But between then and the mid-Qing, offshore or disguised forms of trade prospered to help some recover from the loss. Despite all the political turmoil, maritime trade continued quietly at sea. Centered in Guangzhou and organized partly by the pirate kingdoms and partly by the government, trade in Chinese silks, nankeens, and porcelain for European silver advanced between the seventeenth century and the early nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century, the amount of tea exported from the southeast coast also increased to such an extent that more and more silver fl owed to China.1
