Ink Across the Waves: The 1796 Drift of Chaozhou Fishermen to Sendai, Brush-Talks, and the Border Epistemology of New Maritime History

In 1796 (the 8th year of the Kansei era), a violent hurricane in the South China Sea disrupted the lives of fourteen ordinary fishermen from Chaozhou, Guangdong—among them Chen Shide, Lin Guangyu, and Chen Rangguang. Pushed far beyond their usual coastal routes by the relentless elements, their battered vessel drifted northward across the vast expanse of the ocean, ultimately landing on the shores of the Sendai Domain in northern Japan.

This accidental encounter on the periphery of two East Asian realms set the stage for an extraordinary cultural exchange.Stripped of official diplomatic channels and lacking professional interpreters (Tang Tongsiji / 唐通事) typically found in regulated ports like Nagasaki, these grassroots Chinese mariners and the Confucian scholars of Sendai engaged in a profound, unmediated dialogue. Through the shared medium of classical Chinese characters, they communicated via hitsudan (brush-talks) and poetry composition, leaving behind remarkable literary testaments such as Yi Bi Dai Yan (《以筆代言》), Qing Ke Bi Tan (《清客筆談》), and Chen Lin Shi Ji (《陳林詩集》).

1. The Mechanics of Border Communication: Brush-Talks Without Interpreters

Traditionally, Sino-Japanese maritime exchanges during the Tokugawa period were tightly restricted, funnelled through the Dutch and Chinese factories on Dejima in Nagasaki. Officials, merchants, and registered interpreters mediated every interaction.

However, the Sendai drift incident bypassed this institutional monopoly entirely. Sendai was a distant northern domain far removed from the official southern commercial hubs. When the local Confucian scholars—most notably the Shimura brothers (such as Shimura Hirotake)—encountered the shipwrecked Chaozhou fishermen, speech was useless, but writing proved a universal key.

• The Shared Graphic Script: By writing down classical Chinese characters on paper, the Japanese scholars and the southern Chinese fishermen bridged vast geographical and spoken linguistic divides.
  
  
• Beyond Survival: The conversations quickly evolved from basic inquiries about their survival, navigation routes,and home provinces into philosophical, historical, and poetic exchanges.
  
  

2. Archiving the Periphery: The Texts of Mutual Discovery

The intellectual fruits of this accidental meeting were meticulously recorded and preserved by the Japanese scholars who met the castaways before the fishermen were escorted south to Nagasaki for repatriation.

• Chen Lin Shi Ji and Ping Shui Qi Shang: Compiled and hand-copied by figures like Shimura Hirotake, these collections preserved the poems, matching verses, and prose dialogues exchanged during the journey to Nagasaki.
  
  
• Grassroots Voice: Unlike imperial edicts or official trade logs, these texts capture the authentic voices, emotional vulnerabilities, and cultural worldviews of lower-class South China mariners interacting with elite East Asian literati.
  
  

3. Historiographical Significance: "Border Epistemology" and New Maritime History

Examining the 1796 Sendai-Chaozhou encounter through the lens of New Maritime History offers a radical departure from traditional nation-state or empire-centered narratives:

• Decentering the Empire: History is often written from the perspective of capitals (Edo and Beijing) or regulated treaty ports (Nagasaki and Guangzhou). This event highlights "marginal actors"—castaway fishermen and regional northern Confucian scholars—who constructed their own decentralized, transnational information networks and emotional solidarities.
  
  
• Border Epistemology: Knowledge production did not flow top-down from central authorities. Instead, it emerged organically from the margins. The "double periphery" (the rugged northern domain of Sendai meeting the seafaring edge of Chaozhou) subverted official borders, demonstrating how human empathy and shared cultural syntax (wenyanwen) could transcend geopolitical isolation.
  
  

墨跡跨越怒海：1796年潮州漁民漂流仙台之筆談奇緣與「新海洋史」的邊地認識論

1796年（日本寬政八年），一場猛烈的颶風打亂了廣東潮州十四位尋常漁民的命運。這群以陳世德、林光裕、陳讓光等人為首的海民，在怒海中載浮載沉，最終漂流至日本東北邊疆的仙台藩。

這場發生在兩國邊地的偶然相遇，意外牽引出一場動人心魄的跨文化對話。在既無官方派駐、也無長崎「唐通事」（官方譯員）從旁中介的真空狀態下，這群來自華南底層的漁民與日本東北的藩儒，竟憑藉著東亞傳統社會共享的漢字書寫系統，展開了深刻的「筆談」與詩歌唱和。這段奇緣不僅留下了《以筆代言》、《清客筆談》、《陳林詩集》及《萍水奇賞》等珍貴文獻，更具體而微地實踐了「邊地認識論」的精髓。

一、 無需通事的對話：漢字媒介與筆談奇蹟

德川幕府時代對外交往採取嚴格的鎖國與口岸控制政策，中日官方貿易與資訊交流長期壟斷於長崎的出島，一切互動皆需透過官方通關文書與專業通譯。

然而，1796年的仙台事件完全發生在官方體系的邊緣盲區。當仙台藩儒（如志村三兄弟等地方知識分子）面對這群落難異國的潮州漁民時，雙方言語不通，卻在紙筆之間找到了跨越汪洋的密碼：

• 書面文字的均質性： 漢字超越了方言與口語的隔閡，成為串聯中日邊緣行動者的強大溝通橋樑。
  
  
• 從求生到唱和： 雙方的交流最初雖從探詢漂流經過、家鄉風土等生存實務開始，但隨即升華為文學、歷史與情感的深度對話，展現出東亞士人與民間社會深厚的文化共鳴。
  
  

二、 筆尖激盪的文獻寶庫：從《陳林詩集》到邊地記憶

在幕府將這群潮州漁民護送南下長崎、並安排隨清朝商船回國的漫長旅途中，仙台藩儒志村弘強等人將沿途的唱和詩作與筆談紀錄細心整理、手抄成冊。

• 歷史的微觀留存： 《以筆代言》、《清客筆談》以及《陳林詩集》等文獻，跳脫了官方奏摺與正史的冰冷敘事，活靈活現記錄了底層華南漁民的生命情調，以及日本地方儒生對外界未知世界的強烈好奇與悲憫情懷。
  
  
• 跨國界的微型網絡： 這些文本證明了在帝國體制的海禁高牆之外，民間社會始終存在著自主運作、充滿韌性的資訊交流與情感連結。
  
  

三、 新海洋史的視角：打破帝國中心的跨區域省思

從「新海洋史」與「邊地認識論」的學術視野審視這場歷史事件，它為我們帶來了幾項重要的史學啟示：

• 去中心化的邊緣視角： 傳統歷史書寫往往過度聚焦於北京、江戶等權力中心，或是長崎、廣州等官方特許口岸。然而，仙台與潮州的這場交集證明，歷史的動能同樣存在於帝國的邊陲。
  
  
• 邊緣行動者的主體性： 漁民與藩儒並非消極的歷史受害者，他們在無前例可循的困境中，主動調動生活經驗與文化記憶，建構出跨國界的理解。
  
  
• 跨區域對話的新意義： 這起事件不僅豐富了「華南社會史」對於海洋邊民生存狀態的理解，也為「日本東北學」注入了宏觀的國際視野，凸顯出東亞次區域之間複雜而迷人的流動軌跡。