Naval history of China

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The naval history of China dates back thousands of years, with archives extending back very early about the ancient navy of China. Although numerous naval battles took place before the 12th century, it was during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127 - 1279 AD) that the Chinese established a permanent, standing navy (at its height in the Song period, 20 squadrons of some 52000 marines), the admiral's headquarters based at Dinghai, while the main base remained closer to modern Shanghai in those days. The establishment of the permanent navy during the Song period came out of the need to defend against the Jurchens, who had overrun the northern half of China, and to escort merchant fleets entering the South East Pacific and Indian Ocean on long trade missions abroad to the Hindu, Islamic, and East African spheres of the world. However, considering China was a country which was longtime menaced by land-based nomadic tribes such as the Xiongnu, Göktürks, Mongols and so on, the navy was always seen as an adjunct rather than an important military force. By 15-16th centuries China's canal system and internal economy were sufficiently developed to nullify the need for the pacific fleet, which was scuttled when conservative Confucianists gained power in the court and began the policy of inward perfection. With the Opium wars, which shook up the generals of the Qing Dynasty, the navy was once again attached greater importance.

When the British fleet encountered the Chinese during the first Opium War, their officers noted the appearance of paddleboats among the Chinese fleet, which they took for a copy of the Western design. Paddleboats were actually a Chinese invention dating back more than a millennium (see history section of Paddle steamer), which had been abandoned for some time and only recently reconstituted before the war. Numerous other innovations were present in Chinese vessels during the Middle Ages that had not yet been adopted by the Western and Islamic worlds, some of which were documented by Marco Polo but which did not enter into other navies until the 18th Century, when the British successfully incorporated them into ship designs. For example, medieval Chinese hulls were split into sections so that a hull rupture only flooded a fraction of the ship and did not necessarily sink it (see Ship floodability). Junks also had their sails staggered by wooden poles so that the crew could raise and lower them with ropes from the deck, like window blinds, without having to climb around and tie or untie various ropes every time the ship needed to turn or adjust speed.

The Chinese fleet shrank tremendously after its military/exploratory functions were deemed too expensive and it became primarily a police force on routes like the Grand Canal. Ships like the juggernauts of Zheng He's "treasure fleet," which dwarfed the largest Portuguese ships of the era by several times, were discontinued, and the junk became the predominant Chinese vessel until the country's relatively recent (in terms of Chinese sailing history) naval revival.