唐代海上丝绸之路与广州港口

Maritime Silk Road and Harbors of Guangzhou in Tang Dynasty

广州港开发较早。唐代广州港,已发展成为第一大港口,承载着海上丝绸之路瓷器、香料等大宗商品贸易。随着中国造船术、航海技术的发展,广州与朝鲜半岛、日本群岛、东南亚各国海上丝路商贸活动十分兴盛。市舶司的设置,建立了与海外更为广泛的联系,广州港口中外商船云集,彰显了唐代广州港商贸的繁荣程度。唐代后期,各国商人聚集广州,蕃坊成为外国商人的居住区。大食、波斯兵围攻广州城,黄巢协助政府平叛,这一事件间接表明广州已成为国际性港口城市,折射的是广州港海路商贸的繁荣景象。

Guangzhou had a quite early history of developing harbors and in Tang Dynasty it had become the biggest harbor in China, which carried a great deal of such merchandise as china, spices and so on along the region in Maritime Silk Road. With the progress of technique in ship-building and navigation in ancient China,Guangzhou’s economic trade with Korean peninsular, Japanese islands and southeast Asian countries was extremely prosperous. The establishment of municipal shipping bureau in Guangzhou furthered broader trade relation with overseas regions and there were numerous trading ships in its harbors, demonstrating its outstanding prosperity in Tang Dynasty. In the later period of Tang Dynasty, merchants from various countries came to Guangzhou and the places they lived in were specially named “Fanfang”(literally “places of foreign people”). The historical fact that when some Arabic and Persian soldiers besieged Guangzhou the government was relieved by help from Huang Chao and his troop indirectly showed that Guangzhou was already an international harbor and reflected the profound prosperity of maritime trade in the region.