Chinese pottery and porcelain; vol. 1. Pottery and early wares

by R. L. Hobson

CHAPTER XII

CHING–TÊ CHÊN

CHING–TÊ CHÊN, the metropolis of the ceramic world, whose venerable and glorious traditions outshine Meissen and Sèvres and all the little lights of Europe, and leave them eclipsed and obscure, is an unwalled town or mart (chên) on the left bank of the Ch´ang River, which flows into the Po–yang Lake, on the northern border of the province of Kiangsi. In ancient times it was known as Ch´ang–nan Chên, the mart on the south of the Ch´ang, but when the Sung Emperor Chên Tsung commanded that officially manufactured porcelain (kuan chih tz´ŭ) should be sent to the capital, and that the workmen should inscribe the pieces with the nien hao or name of the period, which in this case was Ching Tê (1004–1007), the name of the place was changed to Ching–tê Chên.

The district town is Fou–liang, seven miles higher up the river, a place of relatively small importance, but the residence of the district magistrate; and both Fou–liang and Ching–tê Chên are within the prefectural jurisdiction of Jao Chou Fu, which is situated near the mouth of the Ch´ang.

The wares of Ching–tê Chên are distributed by various routes, some overland to Chi–mên or to Wu–yuan and thence to Hang Chou, Su Chou, Shanghai, etc.; the rest by boat down the Ch´ang, and thence either to Kiu–kiang on the Yangtze for further dispatch to Chin–kiang and northwards via the Grand Canal, or to the south–west corner of the lake and up the estuary of the Kan River to Nan–Ch´ang Fu. From this latter town they could be carried by water (with an interruption of thirty miles of road) all the way to Canton. They are known under various names in Chinese books—Chên yao, Ching–tê yao, Fou–liang yao, Jao Chou yao, Jao yao, Ch´ang–nan yao, and Nan–ch´ang yao—all of which are easily explicable from the foregoing paragraph.

The old name of Fou–liang was Hsin–p´ing, and according to the Annals of Fou–liang the manufacture of pottery[324] was traditionally held to have begun in the district of Hsin–p´ing in the Han dynasty. In the same passage the development of the local industry is traced by means of a few significant incidents. In the first year of Chih Tê in the Ch´ên dynasty (583 A. D.) the potters of the district were called upon to provide plinths for the Imperial buildings at Chien–k´ang (afterwards Nanking), but the plinths, when finished, though cleverly made, were not strong enough to carry the weight of the columns. In the fourth (or, according to another reading, the second) year of Wu Tê of the T´ang dynasty (621 A. D.), "porcelain jade"[325] was offered as tribute to the Emperor under the name of false jade vessels (chia yü ch´i), and from this time forward the duty (of supplying the Emperor) became an institution,[326] and a potter named Ho Chung–ch´u gained a great reputation. In the Ching Tê period of the Sung dynasty, as already stated, officially manufactured porcelain was sent to the capital, where it supplied the needs of the palaces and great establishments. In the T´ai Ting period of the Yüan dynasty (1324–1327) the porcelain factory came under the inspection of the Intendant of the Circuit, who supplied the required wares when orders had been received, and closed the factory if there were no orders (from the Court).

Continuing into the Ming dynasty, the same authority gives details of the various administrative changes which may perhaps be "taken as read," one or two important facts only calling for mention. Thus in the thirty–fifth year[327] of Hung Wu, we are told that the factories were opened, and that supplies of porcelain were sent to the Court. There seems to have been some difference of opinion about the building of the Imperial Ware Factory (Yü ch´i ch´ang).

Some authorities place this event in the Hung Wu period, but the Chiang hsi t´ung chih,[328] though quoting the other opinions in a note, mentions only the building of the Imperial Factory in the reign of Chêng Tê (1506–1521) in the main text, viz.: "In the beginning of the Chêng Tê period the Imperial Ware Factory was established for dealing specially with the Imperial wares." The Imperial establishment was burnt down in the Wan Li period, and again destroyed in the revolt of Wu San–kuei in 1675, but the most serious blow dealt to the prosperity of Ching–tê Chên fell in the T´ai p´ing rebellion in 1853, when the town was sacked and almost depopulated. The Imperial Factory was rebuilt in 1864, and the industry has in a great measure revived, though it is still but the shadow of its former greatness.

Though this great porcelain town has traded with the whole world for several centuries, "bringing great profit to the Empire and to itself great fame" (to quote from the T´ao lu), it seems to have been rarely visited by Europeans, and first–hand descriptions of it are few. We are fortunate, however, in possessing in the letters[329] of Père d'Entrecolles an intimate account of the place and its manufactures, written by a Jesuit missionary who was stationed in the town in the early years of the eighteenth century. These interesting letters are so well known that I shall not quote them extensively here. The picture they give of the enormous pottery town, with its population of a million souls and the three thousand furnaces which, directly or indirectly, provided a living for this host, and of the arresting spectacle of the town by night like a burning city spouting flames at a thousand points, a description which inspired the oft–quoted lines in Longfellow's "Keramos," shows us the place in the heyday of its prosperity.