Christopher Cottrell
 |
| Jack Weatherford, Emperor of the Seas: Kublai Khan and the Making of China |
Embora muitos livros tenham sido escritos sobre Kublai Khan, nenhum o enquadrou em termos de poder marítimo. Emperor of the Seas: Kublai Khan and the Making of China (Bloomsbury Continuum, 2024) é o mais recente relato histórico do antropólogo e autor Jack Weatherford sobre o vasto império mongol que se alastrou pelos séculos XIII e XIV, de Bagdá a Pequim, com o controle dos oceanos como tema central.
Os três primeiros livros de Weatherford sobre a Mongólia — Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (2004), The Secret History of the Mongol Queens (2010) e Genghis Khan and the Quest for God (2016) — narram a saga histórica do império mongol e seus sucessivos canatos de 1206 a 1368. Emperor of the Seas agora contextualiza como Kublai Khan, neto de Genghis Khan, ultrapassou a marinha da Dinastia Song do Sul (1127-1279), combinando-a com sua própria marinha para se tornar o primeiro mestre dos mares na Ásia. Favorecendo uma narrativa poderosa em vez de prosa acadêmica, o livro também detalha como o neto de Kublai Khan, Temür Khan, o segundo e último imperador Yuan, abriu isso em um poderoso império de comércio oceânico, embora de curta duração.
Os estudiosos da China podem ter muito o que discutir quando se trata das fontes primárias chinesas de Weatherford, mas, por sua própria admissão, ele não é um sinólogo nem um leitor da língua chinesa. Professor aposentado de antropologia do Macalester College em Minnesota, Weatherford ficou conhecido por seu trabalho inovador sobre a história dos nativos americanos. Ele também foi conselheiro especial do senador e astronauta dos EUA John Glenn e recebeu duas medalhas do governo mongol por seus livros de história populares sobre seu país: a Ordem da Estrela Polar e a Ordem de Genghis Khan.
Conversei com o autor primeiro por uma chamada do Zoom e depois durante o almoço em Phnom Penh, onde Weatherford mora. Tomando chá e comendo comida local em um restaurante de frente para o lamacento rio Tonle Sap, conversamos sobre a relação espiritual da Mongólia com o oceano, a "Grande Muralha do Mar" da China e como os despachos de um enviado da dinastia Yuan do império Khmer o levaram a pesquisar o livro no Camboja.
Os três primeiros livros de Weatherford sobre a Mongólia — Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (2004), The Secret History of the Mongol Queens (2010) e Genghis Khan and the Quest for God (2016) — narram a saga histórica do império mongol e seus sucessivos canatos de 1206 a 1368. Emperor of the Seas agora contextualiza como Kublai Khan, neto de Genghis Khan, ultrapassou a marinha da Dinastia Song do Sul (1127-1279), combinando-a com sua própria marinha para se tornar o primeiro mestre dos mares na Ásia. Favorecendo uma narrativa poderosa em vez de prosa acadêmica, o livro também detalha como o neto de Kublai Khan, Temür Khan, o segundo e último imperador Yuan, abriu isso em um poderoso império de comércio oceânico, embora de curta duração.
Os estudiosos da China podem ter muito o que discutir quando se trata das fontes primárias chinesas de Weatherford, mas, por sua própria admissão, ele não é um sinólogo nem um leitor da língua chinesa. Professor aposentado de antropologia do Macalester College em Minnesota, Weatherford ficou conhecido por seu trabalho inovador sobre a história dos nativos americanos. Ele também foi conselheiro especial do senador e astronauta dos EUA John Glenn e recebeu duas medalhas do governo mongol por seus livros de história populares sobre seu país: a Ordem da Estrela Polar e a Ordem de Genghis Khan.
Conversei com o autor primeiro por uma chamada do Zoom e depois durante o almoço em Phnom Penh, onde Weatherford mora. Tomando chá e comendo comida local em um restaurante de frente para o lamacento rio Tonle Sap, conversamos sobre a relação espiritual da Mongólia com o oceano, a "Grande Muralha do Mar" da China e como os despachos de um enviado da dinastia Yuan do império Khmer o levaram a pesquisar o livro no Camboja.
Como você deixou de ser um autor de história nativa americana para se tornar um autor de história mongol?
Como estudante [nas décadas de 1950 e 1960], me interessei pela Mongólia, mas, como estudante de graduação, descartei o assunto, porque o país foi fechado durante a Guerra Fria. Eu tinha interesse, mas, em vez disso, concentrei-me nas tribos nativas americanas mais tarde, após o doutorado na Alemanha, porque queria destacar as contribuições dos povos tribais para a história mundial. Então, a Mongólia se abriu na década de 1990. Naquele momento, pensei: estou muito velho. Eu tinha mais de 50 anos e era meu sonho de infância. Mas me interessei intelectualmente e pensei: OK, aqui está outra tribo que teve sucesso em todos os aspectos que você pode imaginar. E quando fui para lá na década de 1990, não havia muita diferença entre suas vidas e as dos povos nas reservas nativas americanas.
 |
| O império mongol em seu auge na época de Kublai Khan, no final do século XIII. (Arienne King) |
So it was the continuity of nomadic Asian tribes who had migrated to the Americas, and their historical cousins, who drew you back to Mongolia?
I did not see it as a major shift in my life to pursue this. I just saw it as a different light coming in. I had no idea I would end up doing four books on Mongolia. I didn’t even think I’d do one. I wasn’t there for that. I was there for the nostalgia of my youth. It’s like the high school reunion and suddenly there she is. Oh my god, she never spoke to me in high school, but now I’m going to go up and say hi. At an emotional level, that’s how I felt.
I’m not a China or Chinese expert, but for this book I draw on the official account from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) on the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), the History of the Yuan (元史), doing so with a sense of Mongolian culture and history. That’s just one source that I’ve revisited that demonstrates how China, because of its Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan (1215-1294) and his grandson Toghon Temür (1320-1370), became the first world empire to dominate seas from the Bering Strait to Hormuz. In fact, one of Temür’s special diplomatic envoys to the Khmer Empire led me here [to Cambodia] on my research, then the pandemic hit and I stayed.
Why Mongol sea power?
I thought I was going to conclude my writing about Mongolian history with my third book. I didn’t quite realize that as the Mongol land conquest came to an end, its ocean power was opening. From early on I already had the importance of water in mind. The ocean or Da Lai (as in Dalai Lama) is a very important Mongolian spiritual concept.
It was slowly coming together, turning from the decline of the land empire to the oceans, and Kublai Khan is a pivotal figure. He’s probably the most famous emperor of China known outside of China, although not nearly as highly respected inside China. Although a lot has been written about Kublai Khan, I wanted to write about him and the sea. Most scholars of China think of it as a continental land power, but I wanted to look at it in a different light.
What surprised you most about the story of Kublai Khan at sea?
When I first thought of China and the ocean, I thought of Zheng He and the Ming dynasty. All you hear about the Mongols at sea is their defeat, the typhoon kamikaze, the dramatic story of their two invasions of Japan. Sometimes people know about the invasions of Vietnam or even Java, which is almost unknown. In my mind too, Kublai Khan was a failure at sea. But as I looked closer at it, I realized he still controlled those seas. He did not control the land of Japan or Vietnam, but he controlled the sea because his navy was so large. It was the navy that defeated the Southern Song dynasty. Yes, they were defeated on land by the Mongolian army, but that was because the ships were always breaking through.
The Southern Song depended on what they called the “Great Wall of the Sea.” This was before the Ming dynasty rebuilt the Great Wall in the north. This Great Wall of the Sea was a defensive navy wall. They literally chained the ships together to blockade a port or city or river. The Mongols were more aggressively orientated — they didn’t have a strong sense of a defense. They realized they had to break through this wall of ships with their own offensive navy that could also destroy the walls of cities, for example.
Why Mongol sea power?
I thought I was going to conclude my writing about Mongolian history with my third book. I didn’t quite realize that as the Mongol land conquest came to an end, its ocean power was opening. From early on I already had the importance of water in mind. The ocean or Da Lai (as in Dalai Lama) is a very important Mongolian spiritual concept.
It was slowly coming together, turning from the decline of the land empire to the oceans, and Kublai Khan is a pivotal figure. He’s probably the most famous emperor of China known outside of China, although not nearly as highly respected inside China. Although a lot has been written about Kublai Khan, I wanted to write about him and the sea. Most scholars of China think of it as a continental land power, but I wanted to look at it in a different light.
What surprised you most about the story of Kublai Khan at sea?
When I first thought of China and the ocean, I thought of Zheng He and the Ming dynasty. All you hear about the Mongols at sea is their defeat, the typhoon kamikaze, the dramatic story of their two invasions of Japan. Sometimes people know about the invasions of Vietnam or even Java, which is almost unknown. In my mind too, Kublai Khan was a failure at sea. But as I looked closer at it, I realized he still controlled those seas. He did not control the land of Japan or Vietnam, but he controlled the sea because his navy was so large. It was the navy that defeated the Southern Song dynasty. Yes, they were defeated on land by the Mongolian army, but that was because the ships were always breaking through.
The Southern Song depended on what they called the “Great Wall of the Sea.” This was before the Ming dynasty rebuilt the Great Wall in the north. This Great Wall of the Sea was a defensive navy wall. They literally chained the ships together to blockade a port or city or river. The Mongols were more aggressively orientated — they didn’t have a strong sense of a defense. They realized they had to break through this wall of ships with their own offensive navy that could also destroy the walls of cities, for example.
To go from the time of Genghis Khan, when Mongols could not swim and were still crossing rivers on inflated goat skins, to having the most powerful navy in the world that sailed all the way to the Strait of Hormuz and back — it’s a total revelation. But the sea power that grew in Kublai Khan’s life came into greater realization under the rule of his underappreciated grandson, Temür Khan (Emperor Chengzong). He was the one who turned the navy into a peaceful endeavor through trade, and I wanted to give him credit for that. I think Kublai Khan was realizing at the end of life that he didn’t know what to do with his massive navy and all this land that he controlled. He still thought in the old-fashioned way: you use a navy to conqueror land. But his grandson saw that it was also for trade.
So the Mongols created a superhighway of the seas, and this has an echo in the present era, when China is attempting to become an ocean power once again. Yet the world acts as though that never happened before, that it’s something totally new in history for this continental power to go to sea when they controlled the largest route in the world before Europeans discovered the Americas.
So the Mongols created a superhighway of the seas, and this has an echo in the present era, when China is attempting to become an ocean power once again. Yet the world acts as though that never happened before, that it’s something totally new in history for this continental power to go to sea when they controlled the largest route in the world before Europeans discovered the Americas.
 |
Detalhe da “Batalha de Koan” de Takezaki Suenaga, onde soldados japoneses repelem a invasão naval mongol, c.1293. (domínio público) |
Did the Mongol control of ocean economics not create a vacuum in the Eastern Mediterranean and into the Indian Ocean?
Yes, and that vacuum is what sucked in the Europeans, and gave rise to European colonial power. They were desperately trying to recreate the Chinese routes and get access to those goods again.
When China pulled back from the sea in the early Ming dynasty, they lost this system?
They still had the ability to launch those naval expeditions, but they were vastly expensive, and didn’t bring in the resources that were anticipated. There was also a prejudice in the early Ming dynasty against almost everything Mongol and Yuan. In the Ming, the eunuchs were in charge of trade, but there were other powers rising, especially the old Confucianist polity. One way to stop the eunuchs was to cut them off from their sea trade that enriched them.
You researched and wrote most of this book while living in Mongolia?
Jack Weatherford at the Sombok Restaurant, Phnom Penh, January 2025. (courtesy of author)
My home is on Bogd Khan mountain; I live in a valley on the far side, about one hour from Ulaanbaatar. Most of the research for this book was done by drifting around, tracing the route of the Mongol conquests. I also spent some time in Sri Lanka, which pushed my thinking about Western colonial powers versus the Chinese expeditions. I do not want to be an apologist for China, but in Sri Lanka I saw the brutality of western colonialism versus a more open attitude of the Chinese, bringing in arts and things like that.
In Vietnam I saw some old Mongol defensive stakes in the riverbed of the Red River — some very clumsily and quickly made from chopped trees, others well refined because they had been the pillars of houses. And in Cambodia I saw a report from one of Temür Khan’s envoys, named Zhou Daguan. He had lived in Angkor Thom for a year and wrote a dispatch, which is why I came to do research in Cambodia. I tried to find out the names of the Mongols who led the expedition, especially their clan orientations and ethnicity.
Yes, and that vacuum is what sucked in the Europeans, and gave rise to European colonial power. They were desperately trying to recreate the Chinese routes and get access to those goods again.
When China pulled back from the sea in the early Ming dynasty, they lost this system?
They still had the ability to launch those naval expeditions, but they were vastly expensive, and didn’t bring in the resources that were anticipated. There was also a prejudice in the early Ming dynasty against almost everything Mongol and Yuan. In the Ming, the eunuchs were in charge of trade, but there were other powers rising, especially the old Confucianist polity. One way to stop the eunuchs was to cut them off from their sea trade that enriched them.
You researched and wrote most of this book while living in Mongolia?
Jack Weatherford at the Sombok Restaurant, Phnom Penh, January 2025. (courtesy of author)
My home is on Bogd Khan mountain; I live in a valley on the far side, about one hour from Ulaanbaatar. Most of the research for this book was done by drifting around, tracing the route of the Mongol conquests. I also spent some time in Sri Lanka, which pushed my thinking about Western colonial powers versus the Chinese expeditions. I do not want to be an apologist for China, but in Sri Lanka I saw the brutality of western colonialism versus a more open attitude of the Chinese, bringing in arts and things like that.
In Vietnam I saw some old Mongol defensive stakes in the riverbed of the Red River — some very clumsily and quickly made from chopped trees, others well refined because they had been the pillars of houses. And in Cambodia I saw a report from one of Temür Khan’s envoys, named Zhou Daguan. He had lived in Angkor Thom for a year and wrote a dispatch, which is why I came to do research in Cambodia. I tried to find out the names of the Mongols who led the expedition, especially their clan orientations and ethnicity.
Por que você escreve história do jeito que escreve, com talento dramático e literário?
A palavra história tem "história" nela, e nós esquecemos disso. Como profissionalizamos tudo no mundo, a história foi profissionalizada como um relato do que outros historiadores disseram. Ao repeti-los — argumentando com este, apoiando aquele — torna-se mais sobre historiadores e menos sobre história. Para mim, a história não é principalmente sobre ideias, edifícios ou coisas, é sobre pessoas. Quem são elas, o que estão fazendo, como e por que fizeram aquilo que fizeram? O que estavam sentindo, o que estavam pensando? Essa é a história, e mais importante do que o desenrolar de tendências históricas. São seres humanos lutando com a vida. ∎
Christopher Cottrell é um editor e escritor que se concentra na história do Indo-Pacífico e assuntos atuais. Ele contribuiu para o The Boston Globe, CNN, The Guardian, The New York Times e The South China Morning Post. Cottrell tem mestrado em história das Ilhas do Pacífico pela University of Hawaii, Manoa, passou 18 anos na China e um total de 28 anos na Ásia e nas Ilhas do Pacífico. Atualmente, ele mora na Tailândia.
Christopher Cottrell é um editor e escritor que se concentra na história do Indo-Pacífico e assuntos atuais. Ele contribuiu para o The Boston Globe, CNN, The Guardian, The New York Times e The South China Morning Post. Cottrell tem mestrado em história das Ilhas do Pacífico pela University of Hawaii, Manoa, passou 18 anos na China e um total de 28 anos na Ásia e nas Ilhas do Pacífico. Atualmente, ele mora na Tailândia.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário