Response to Kent Deng

摘要

My response will deal with the final part of Kent Deng's paper, concerning the factors which led to the development of steam engines in China during the nineteenth century. China had had a long history of technological innovation, using devices which extracted energy from wind, coal, wood and natural gas, as well as human or animal muscle-power, and an ancient tradition of metallurgical technology. By 1800 (and perhaps long before) the prerequisites for the development of steam power were already present in China; by the mid-century the Chinese were building their own steam-powered vessels. The earliest Chinese contacts with Western steamships were probably around Guangzhou (Canton) in the 1830s, and during the First Opium War (1839-42). Various wealthy merchants and officials saw the potential of these vessels, and the earliest steam prototype in China seems to have been built by Ding Gongzhen(c. 1800-c. 1875) about 1843, although little is known about it. We are fortunate, however, to have an eye-witness account of a slightly later vessel built by Pan Shicheng in the grounds of his garden in Guangzhou.