Java (Shopo) Indonesia

Activity	Method
Trade	Copper money

The kingdom of Java is also called Pukialung. It is southeast of Canton and can be reached within a month.

East of Java is the sea where the waters flow downward and there is the kingdom of women.

Still farther east is the Weilu, the end of the habitable world.

West of Java half a month away is Kunlun. Five days away westward is Arabia.

Sailing north-west from Java in 15 days leads to Brunei.

• Malaysia is 10 days from Brunei.
• Kulo is another 7 days.
• Another 7 days is Chailiting then Hai Phong Vietnam (Kianchi) and then Canton.

Java has 2 religions:

• Buddhism
• shoshon

There is a hill called Parrot Hill where parrots live.

The king wears his hair in a knot. On his head is a golden bell.

He wears a silken robe and leather shoes. His throne is a square seat. His officers at their daily audience bow 3 times when withdrawing.

He rides an elephant, or is carried in a chair, followed by 500-700 armed soldiers.

The people squat down when they see the King until he has passed by.

Three sons of the king are made Royal Deputies.

For officials, they have Ssi-ma-kie and Lo-ki-lien. They conjointly manage the affairs of Government as our Ministers of State do in China.

They have no monthly salaries. But at intervals, they are given a liberal supply of native produce.

They have 300 or more civil officials who divide among themselves the government of the cities, granaries, and the treasury.

Their generals receive an annual salary of 20 taels of gold. Its army has 30,000 troops and get a fixed annual pay in gold.

Marriage do not employ go-betweens. Instead, they make presents of gold to the woman’s family in order to marry her.

They do not inflict corporal punishment or imprisonment. Instead, they are fined in gold according to the gravity of their crime.

Robbers or thieves are put to death.

Every 5th moon, they make pleasure trips in boats.

In the 10th moon, they visit the hills, either riding hill ponies or being carried in a litter.

Of musical instruments they have:

• the flute
• kettle drum
• castanet

They are skilled in pantomimes.

The hills are full of monkeys. They are not afraid of men, but if one calls siau-siau they come out. If one throws fruit before them, a big monkey, called a monkey king, comes forward to eat. The and the crowd of smaller monkeys eat what is left of his meal.

There are bamboo gardens where they have pig-fighting and cock-fighting.

The dwellings are of imposing appearance and painted in greenish tints. Traders going there stay in visitors’ lodges, where they are fed with plentiful and good food and drink.

The natives dress their hair and wear clothes which are girt around their chest and reach down to the knees.

When they are sick, they take no medicines, but simply pray to their local gods or to the Buddha.

The people have personal names but no surnames. They are quick-tempered and pugnacious. When they have a feud with Palembang Sumatra, both parties seek to do battle.

In 435 AD, it entered into communication with China. But it was broken off until 992 when it again sent tribute to our Court.

It is a broad and level country, well suited to agriculture. It produces hemp, millet, beans, but no wheat.

Ploughing is done by buffaloes. The people pay a tithe-rent. They make salt by boiling seawater.

It is rich in fish, turtles, fowls, ducks, goats. They kill horses and buffaloes for food.

Their fruits are:

• big gourds
• coconuts
• bananas
• sugar-cane
• taro

They have:

• tortoise-shell,
• elephants’ tusks
• rhinoceros horns
• pearls
• camphor
• sandal-wood, aniseed,
• cloves
• laka-wood
• mats
• foreign sword blades
• cardamoms
• cubebs
• pepper
• betel nuts
• saffron
• sulphur
• sapan-wood
• parrots.

They also pay attention to the raising of silkworms and the weaving of silk.

They have various coloured brocaded silks, cotton, and damasked cotton gauzes (or damasks and cotton cloth).

They do not grow tea.

They get their clear and well-flavored wine from:

• the coconut
• the inner part of the hia-nau-tan tree, unknown to the Chinese
• fermenting the fruits of the sago palm and areca palm

Their cane sugar is brown and white in color and very sweet.

They cast coins in an alloy of copper, silver, white copper and tin.

• 60 of these coins are equal to 1 tael of gold.
• 32 are equal to half a tael of gold.

For trading, foreign merchants use:

• gold and silver of various degrees of fineness
• vessels of gold and silver
• silk stuffs
• black damasks
• ssi-chuann-kung
• orris-root
• cinnabar
• copperas
• alum
• borax
• arsenic
• lacquer-ware
• iron tripods
• green (or blue) white porcelain-ware.

There is a vast store of pepper here.

The merchant ships smuggle copper cash out of China for bartering purposes to gain huge profits.

• This is why our Court has repeatedly forbidden all trade with Java.
• This is why the foreign merchants changed the name of Java to Surabaya (Sukitan) in order to deceive the Chinese government.

The following are dependencies of Java:

• Paihuayuan

• Bandung (Matung)

• Trowulan (Tapan)

• Hining

• Jung-ya-lu

• Tung-ki

• Ta-kang

• Huangmachu

• Bali

• Niulun

• Tanjungwulo

• Kewu (Tiwu)

• Pingya

• Iwu

• Nuku

Yoyakarta Prambanan is adjacent to those countries.

15. Yoyakarta Prambanan (Sukitan)

Yoyakarta Prambanan is a part of Java.

• West of it is Sunda
• East of it is Trowulan Tapan

It has a very tall mountain called Paulauan [Semuru].

Their king wears a turban of cotton cloth of variegated colours and goes barefooted.

When walking, he is shaded by a black or white umbrella. More than 500 attendants follow him, bearing every sort of weapon and wearing hats of various shapes. Some hats are like:

• a deer’s
• the head of an ox
• a sheep
• a fowl
• an elephant
• a lion or
• a monkey

Little flags of coloured silk are stuck in the side of the hats.

The male natives cut their hair, but the women wear a coiffure.

They all wrap their bodies in cloth, but go barefooted and wear a loin-cloth.

They use Java money whch is alloyed silver cut like dice with the seal of Fankuan stamped on it.

• 6 of these are worth 1 tael of trade gold.
• Each one can be exchanged for 30-100 pecks of rice.

Houses are the same as in Sunda.

They have a lot of rice. Very wealthy families keep as much as 10,000 piculs in their granaries.

They have a tree called jackfruit which has a fruit like a pumpkin and skin like the chestnut, the pulp like mandarin orange.

• It is extremely sweet and well-flavoured.

They also have bananas and sugar-cane, like those of China except that:

• sun-dried lichees will cure bowel complaints.
• the bananas grow 1 foot long
• sugar-cane are 10 feet tall

A drug is added to the sugar-cane juice to create liquor superior to coconut liquor.

Their agricultural products are the same as Java. There is a lot of pepper.

At the right season and in good years, 25 taels of trade money will buy from 10-20 packages of pepper, each package holding 50 pecks (shong).

In years of dearth, or in times of disturbance, the same sum will buy only half of that amount.

The pepper-gatherers suffer greatly from the acrid fumes they have to inhale, and are commonly afflicted with headaclie (malaria) which yields to doses of (ssi)-chuan-kung.

The Barbarian women use Cinnabar in cosmetics for dyeing the finger nails and silk clothing. Foreign traders use these 2 articles as staples of trade.

Traders are treated generously. They are not charged expenses for either harborage or board.

Mojokerto-Surabaya (Tapan)

Activity	Method
Trade	Sago Money

Surabaya is east of Great Java and is also called Jungyalu (also Chungkialu)

Its houses are like those of China. The land is a level plain and is intersected by an anchorage. There is trade by land and sea.

Its native products are bay-salt sheep and parrots.

The Arab slave traders are brave and fierce. They take wives from the pirate states of the eastern borders, such as Surabaya. The Surabaya have relatives married to the Fan-kuan on board their ships and frequently plundered foreign ships by pretending to visit those relatives.

Matters went so far that captives were considered a most valuable commodity, each one being worth 2-3 taels of gold.

This is why trade with Surabaya was broken off.

The pirate states are:

• Tanchung pulo
• Pali
• Sunta
• Kulun

The following are island countries:

• Ta-kang
• Huang-ma-chu
• Bali
• Tan-jung-wu-lo
• Ti-wu
• Ping-ya
• I-wu
• Nu-ku

Each has its own chief and have vessels plying between them.

There is little agriculture. But there are many old trees.

The inner parts produce sago which looks like wheat flour.

• Water is mixed with it and are turned into pellets the size of peas.
• After being sun-dried, it is packed and stored like grain.

They also mix it with fish or meat to make porridge.

They are fond of sugar-cane and bananas.

A substance is added to crushed sugar cane to cause it to ferment and make liquor.

They have the wei-pa tree.

• Its pith is removed an the juice is extracted from it, yielding wine.

The natives are physically strong, but savage and of a dark bronze colour.

They wrap (a cloth round) their limbs and tattoo their bodies.

They cut their hair and go barefooted.

They use leaves instead of plates for eating or drinking. These are thrown away after the meal.

The standard of exchange is only pecks and pints of sago.

• They do not know how to write or how to count.

They erect stages with wooden poles stuck in the ground and reaching 29 feet or more. On the top, they build houses with walls and roofs of the same type as those made by the Sundanese.

The native products are:

• sandal-wood
• cloves
• cardamoms
• fancy mats
• foreign cotton cloth
• iron swords and other weapons

Mali

The islands of Sumba (Tanjung wulo) and Mali are larger than the others. They raise many horses for military service and they have a slight knowledge of writing and counting.

Their exports are:

• laka-wood
• yellow wax
• fine aromatic substances
• tortoise-shell

Although Tan-jung-wu-lo has such products, the people prefer piracy instead of legitimate business. This is why foreign traders rarely go there.