Niao Chuan (鳥船)

Illustration of a Wanli-era six-oared Niao Chuan, from 'Liang Zhe Hai Fang Lei Kao Xu Bian (《兩浙海防類考續編》)'.

The last of the "Four Great Ancient Ships" of China, the Niao Chuan is perhaps the least known of the four, owing to its confusing history and relatively short (but no less crucial) period of military significance.

Though it had existed for far longer, the Niao Chuan first came into prominence in the early 17th century, during a period when a beleaguered Ming Dynasty was facing unprecedented threats from the sea due to the rise of powerful Chinese pirate lords and the arrival of the Dutch East India Company with their powerful great ships. Being one of the few junk-type ships capable of meeting the new challenge, the Niao Chuan quickly displaced older types of war junks and became the premier warship favoured by the Ming navy and pirate lords alike, and was later also adopted by the ascending Qing Dynasty.

Unfortunately, the Niao Chuan's heyday ended almost as quickly as it began. After the downfall of the Ming Dynasty, the Dutch were evicted from Formosa by the Ming loyalist Koxinga, whose rump state was in turn defeated by the Qing. With naval threats subsiding, the Niao Chuan was also retired from active military service, although it continued to play an important role as an armed merchant ship long afterwards.

Niao Chuan as one of the "Four Great Ancient Ships of China"

A replica Zhejiang "Green Eyebrow" Niao Chuan built in 2003. Although seaworthy, the replica's sails appear much smaller than historical ships.

There are many confusing and often conflicting theories regarding the Niao Chuan's true origin and form, as well as whether it warrants inclusion to expand the "Three Great Ancient Ships of China" taxonomy into four. This is probably, at least in part, due to the fact that a distinct shipbuilding tradition clearly existed in Zhejiang, with archaeological finds predating the Ming period; yet surviving designs, such as the representative Lu Mei Mao (綠眉毛, lit. 'Green Eyebrow') ship, are remarkably similar to the Fu Chuan. 

Many believe the Niao Chuan evolved or branched out from the Fu Chuan into a distinct ship type, while others maintain that it actually descended from the Guang Chuan (廣船)—arguing that the Guang Chuan's alternative name, Wu Cao (烏槽, lit. 'black junk'), is actually a misprint of Niao Cao (鳥艚, lit. 'bird junk') in Qing-era reprints of Ming treatises, caused by the close similarity between the characters wu (烏) and niao (鳥). It is also variously described as an 'in-between' form of the northern Sha Chuan and southern Fu Chuan, or as a hybrid combining the white-coloured Fu Chuan and dark-hulled Guang Chuan.

Regardless of origin theories, the commonly accepted definition nowadays is that the Niao Chuan is simply another name for the Zhe Chuan (浙船, lit. 'Zhejiang ship')—that is, a distinct ship type and shipbuilding tradition originating from Zhejiang. The Niao Chuan is similar to the Fu Chuan in most respects, although it features a more slender U- or S-shaped hull (or one that is V-shaped at the prow but gradually transitions into a U-shape towards the stern) with a very pronounced curvature. It also possesses a narrow, pointed prow with a flat stempost that flares towards the top, alongside a diagonally fitted open bulwark, giving the prow a distinct Y-shape when viewed from the front. Some Niao Chuan are also fitted with leeboards.

Niao Chuan during the Ming period

The ship known as the Niao Chuan first showed up in historical records in the mid-16th century as one of the smaller classes of the Fu Chuan (福船), described as having a narrow and possibly pointed prow, four oars, and a single stern-mounted yuloh, and known for its great weatherliness and tidal resilience. It gradually increased in size in the following decades, and by the Wanli period, shipwrights in Fujian were converting near-decommissioned medium-sized Fu Chuan vessels into Niao Chuan, while their counterparts in Zhejiang were doing the same with similarly-sized Cang Shan Chuan (蒼山船), outfitting them with six lateral and two stern yuloh in place of the original four oars and single stern yuloh.

eventually outgrew even the largest Fu Chuan. Ming period Niao Chuan was described as having a "swollen" (i.e. tumblehome) yet slender hull with low sheer, small and pointed prow, as well as using sails, rowing, and Yuloh stern sculling for propulsion (although rowing was later retired). It was known to be a fast and nimble ship capable of remaining mobile regardless of wind and sea conditions, and even said to be able to keep up with small speedy ships like Sha Chuan (沙船) despite being significantly larger.

Possibility of late Ming Niao Chuan being a "post-upgrade" Fu Chuan

(Disclaimer: this part is my own theorising based on admittedly very limited data. More research may be needed.)

Nevertheless, current definition may not be applicable to the historical Niao Chuan that were in widespread use for much of the Ming and Qing period. The period of which Niao Chuan replaced older Fu Chuan more or less coincide with the transition of tower ship into gun deck-based design and the obsolescence of Fu Chuan classification, which hints at the possibility of Niao Chuan not being a distinct ship type, but rather what became of Fu Chuan after the transition. In other words, Fu Chuan evolved into Niao Chuan rather than the other way around, and the ship type now commonly recognised as Fu Chuan might actually be called Niao Chuan historically.

Left: A Kai Lang Chuan circa 1540s. Middle: A Niao Chuan circa 1600s. Right: Japanese illustration of a merchant Niao Chuan visiting Nagasaki port circa 1700s. Ship images are taken from 'San Cai Tu Hui (《三才圖會》)', 'Bing Lu (《兵錄》)' and 'Nagasaki-shi Seihen (『長崎志正編 』)', cleaned and merged together by myself.

Several other lines of evidence also lend credence to this theory. Notably, after the Qing dynasty decisively defeated the Ming rump state of Tungning in 1683, it found itself with no further use for its powerful Niao Chuan fleet and began converting these vessels into cheaper Gan Zeng Chuan (趕繒船) to cut costs. Since the Gan Zeng Chuan is widely recognised as a Fu Chuan-type warship, it stands to reason that the Niao Chuan—being convertible into a Gan Zeng Chuan—was likewise a Fu Chuan-type vessel.

Furthermore, the Niao Chuan was frequently associated with Fujian in Qing records. Conversely, ship types more closely associated with Zhejiang were the Dan Chuan (蛋/蜑/疍船, lit. 'Egg ship'—a type of flat-bottomed cargo vessel commonly used to transport salt along the Grand Canal during the Qing period, as well as referring to the boat dwellings of the Tanka people) and the San Bu Xiang Chuan (三不像船, lit. 'three unlikes ship', a hybrid design incorporating elements from three different vessels) rather than the Niao Chuan. In addition, historical records from Japan, such as the Nagasaki-shi (《長崎志》), which catalogued various Chinese merchant junks visiting Nagasaki, also linked the Niao Chuan to Fujian—not to mention that a preserved Japanese illustration of a Niao Chuan bears little resemblance to its Zhejiang counterpart.

Other blog posts in my Four Great Ancient Ships series:

Guang Chuan (廣船)

Fu Chuan (福船)

Niao Chuan (鳥船)

Sha Chuan (沙船)

EXTRA: Ships of Zhezhi during the Ming period