丝绸之路续篇:“南京布”的外销

The Silk Road(Continued):The Export of "Nanking Cotton Cloth"

绵延千年古丝绸之路的停歇是中外交通史上的重大事件,南京布这一中国传统手工织布顶级产品的国际流通是传统丝路中断后国人对人类服饰材料的新贡献,反映出棉花替代丝绸的适体功用后世界人们的新选择。在人类穿用史出现重大进步时,中国的传统纺织技术仍然能超前适应,南京布的外销堪称丝路续篇。从为上等人提供华贵锦缎到为一般人提供日常棉料,转折是历史性的。只要是手工制作,心灵手巧的中国人就能够始终居于世界民族之林的前列。但到工业时代来临,国人的手工终于不敌西人的机器,中外两维局面改观。

＂Nanjing Cotton Cloth＂ is originally an English term coined by the Western businessmen in China in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Though called ＂Nanjing Cotton Cloth,＂ it was not made in Nanjing, but in the regions centering around Songjiang to the south of the Yangzhi River. Nanjing Cotton Cloth is a kind of colored cloth, and purple flowers were its dominant hue. The manufacturing of large quantities of purple-flower cotton cloth may have used nankeen （grey cotton） instead of colored cotton and may have been tinted at a later stage. Nanjing Cotton Cloth was mostly for export. The exporters were not the British, but the earliest Portuguese and other Westerners in China. This demonstrates the alternation in the Western colonists＇ control of sea trade： from the Portuguese and Spanish to the Dutch, and finally to the British. Nanjing cotton cloth export is the continuation of the Silk Road, i. e. , it involved the sales of textiles and Chinese products going global. The differences lie in the materials -- from silk to cotton, and in the consumers -- from the high officials and noble lords to the ordinary people. As the production level was low and the traffic was underdeveloped, international trade in those times mostly served the royals and nobles. In contrast, modern international trade serves theordinary people. The rise and fall of the importance of silk and cotton trade is a typical example of the great changes taking place in that period of history. The business network of Nanjing Cotton Cloth facilitated closer lateral ties among the people across broader regions. However, while the ancient Silk Road was controlled by the Orientals, the export of Nanjing Cotton Cloth was mainly manipulated by the Westerners who controlled maritime transportation as well as the overseas market. The shutdown of the thousand-mile ancient Silk Road is a major event in the history of Chinese and world transportation. The international trade of Nanjing Cotton Cloth, a first-class traditional hand-woven product of China, is a new contribution o~ the Chinese people to cotton cloth material after the shutdown of the Silk Road. This is a new choice of human beings to replace silk with cotton as a wearable kind of cloth material. The intelligent Chinese people have always headed the list when it comes to handicraft. However, when the industrial times dawned, the handicraft of the Chinese people was no rival of the rnAehlno~ ~1 ,h~ ~;, ; J