The animal world is an important part of the natural world. All animals are psychic, from raising and taming animals (such as cattle, sheep, dogs and pigs, to taming horses, mules, donkeys, and even elephants as animal power) to imitating animals (Hua Tuo imitated the movement forms of five animals, such as tigers, deer, bears, apes and birds, and made the exercise method of "Five Birds Play", and China traditional martial arts imitated dragons and birds. Furthermore, we appreciate and worship exotic animals (the face of God, man and beast in Liangzhu culture, the face of fish in Yangshao culture, the four spirits of dragons, phoenixes and turtles, and devil wears prada in the official clothes of the Ming Dynasty, etc.), and rely on the extraordinary strength of animals (such as the phoenix to receive blessings, the tortoise to deal with disasters, the brave to exorcise evil spirits, and the heavenly dog to resist). The pride of human beings as the spirit of all things emphasizes too much that people are different from animals, but ignores that they also know and conquer the natural world through animals, so human beings gradually realize the importance of maintaining balance and harmony with nature through animals.

Zou Zhenhuan, Goodbye to Animals: Animal Culture in Ming and Qing Dynasties and Sino-foreign Exchanges, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, December 2021.

As an animal system, it has a "human form" and even a "divine spectrum", and even named a magnificent history book after it.(Zhu Xueyuan: Seeking Roots for the Chinese Nation with the word "awkward", Literature and History Knowledge, No.5, 2005. )Animals themselves are also combined with the history books of human culture, and animal history is also an important part of history. Animal history, as a new branch of this towering historical tree, is in a weak stage in terms of historical materials and research methods compared with other branches. China’s traditional history books have always paid more attention to personnel than to nature, politics and military affairs than to culture and customs. In the limited discussion of animal materials, they mainly started from the auspicious perspective, lacking systematic descriptions. Most of the information about animal history is scattered in a variety of unconventional ancient books and documents, which requires researchers to use open historical knowledge and view of history and have multidisciplinary theoretical literacy in order to find a direction in these miscellaneous historical jungle. Undoubtedly, the history of animal cultural exchange between China and foreign countries is a meaningful academic blank, and there are many contents that need to be filled through academic research. Researchers of animal history need not only the ability to interpret traditional historical documents, but also the ability to integrate and associate and then explore the cultural information hidden between the lines of historical documents.

The spread of animals in different regions of civilized society has also become an immortal chapter in the history of human cultural exchange, which helps human beings to understand the coexistence of human beings and the lives of all animals in the world; Humans need animals, and they have never stopped searching for rare birds and animals in different historical regions. Animal culture fascinates the world, not only because of its colorful life forms, but also because it reveals the profound metaphor of human culture. Understanding animals is often a way to explore nature and study culture. In the study of the history of thought and culture, animals are often used as persuasive metaphors, such as Aesop’s Fables and Animal Farm. Since ancient times, taking animals as metaphors has even become a familiar way of thinking in academic circles. For example, Yang Xiong, a scholar in the Han Dynasty, used "a young bull’s horn" as a metaphor for things that are neither ancient nor modern; Isaiah berlin, a contemporary British thinker, divides western thinkers and writers into two categories: hedgehog and fox. He thinks that from the cultural point of view, hedgehog is generally closed, while fox is open, and the latter is more willing to interact and communicate. We will call the dreamland isolated from the world and the paradise escaping from real life "ivory tower", and describe the era that has passed away and devoured the youth, life and conscience of a generation as a beast waiting in the jungle. Humans and animals complement each other not only in bionics but also in the spiritual world. Animals not only open up the good side of human nature, but also show the strange side of human nature. Every human culture is embedded with bizarre animal culture, which is one of its dazzling splendor.

Zheng He’s voyage to the Western Ocean in the early Ming Dynasty opened up a new situation on the Silk Road at sea. From Zheng He’s voyages to the Western Seas in the 15th century to the Qianlong period in the 18th century, the history of animal culture exchanges between China and foreign countries in the Ming and Qing Dynasties has the following characteristics:

1. The animal communication between China and foreign countries in Ming and Qing Dynasties took the sea as the main channel, and gradually formed an animal communication network with the maritime Silk Road as the center of gravity, and the scope of communication was wider than that of land.

Talking about the bloody horse, people will associate it with Zhang Qian’s mission to "hollow out" the land silk road developed by the western regions in the Western Han Dynasty, the land silk road across Eurasia in the Sui and Tang Dynasties gradually declined from prosperity, the maritime silk road gradually rose in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and Zheng He’s voyage to the Western Ocean in the early Ming Dynasty opened up a new situation of the maritime silk road. The Silk Road on land and sea, with multiple lines at the same time, shows the general pattern of China’s communication with the world in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. With the three-dimensional network contact with the outside world, exotic animals also appeared frequently. In the Han and Tang Dynasties, rhinoceros, elephants, peacocks, lions and other exotic animals were imported into China, while the Silk Road on the sea welcomed more types of exotic animals such as giraffes, lions and elephants. As tributes, these exotic animals continuously entered the mainland and went deep into the palace. The Mongols’ Western Expedition opened up Eurasia, and the Silk Road on land was once unprecedented. The Yuan Dynasty also attached great importance to overseas trade, and the sailing traditions of Persia, Arabs and even earlier Sogdians laid an important foundation for Zheng He’s voyage to the West. The 15th and 16th centuries marked an important beginning for the world to move from regional history to world history, and Zheng He’s voyage to the West was the first prelude to the great discovery of European geography. The opening of this book focuses on Zheng He’s voyages to the West and "Kirin Diplomacy" in the early Ming Dynasty, as well as the animal interpretation and imagination in The Journey to the West, aiming at expounding the exchanges between the Ming Dynasty and Asian and African countries, which are not only political and economic, but also reflect the achievements in cultural exchanges. Generally speaking, the Maritime Silk Road refers to the route from the South China Sea across the Indian Ocean, to East Africa, and to Europe. It is the maritime passage for transportation, trade and cultural exchanges between ancient China and foreign countries.But the eastern route of another maritime Silk Road is often overlooked. This oriental road is an economic and cultural exchange with East Asian countries, as well as Japan, North Korea and Ryukyu. East Asia is the northern road network connecting the semi-circular trade network of the Western Pacific. Since the beginning of Ming Dynasty, it has been the core area of the tributary system in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Korea, Ryukyu and China have continued the suzerain-vassal relationship for more than 500 years. This book also discusses the "elephant record" and "elephant journey" between North Korea and Japan, that is, the imprint of this East Asian Maritime Silk Road. In other words, the spatial expansion of knowledge exchange between China and foreign countries in the Ming and Qing Dynasties not only continued the traditional Maritime Silk Road, but also extended it to the Indian Ocean and East Africa. In the context of the great voyage era, it also exchanged animal knowledge with the East Asian world extensively. As He Fangchuan said, the input of animals and animal knowledge expanded Chinese’s horizons and opened up much room for imagination.(He Fangchuan: The Convergence of Chinese and Foreign Civilizations, City University of Hong Kong Press, 2003, pp. 13. )In different cultural contexts, people endow animals with special knowledge and feelings, and animals have different cultural associations, which also endow animals with the significance of cultural exchange.

Elephant tour in Japan. Collected from [Japanese] Kano Hiroyuki and Chen Fenfang’s translation of "Atlas of Animals and Plants in the Edo Period: Appreciating the Modern Japanese Natural History World from 500 Precious Paintings", published by Maihaosi, a city-state cultural enterprise co., Ltd., in 2020, page 89.

2. With the formation of the global background of animal knowledge exchange, the types and contents of animal knowledge exchange are becoming wider and wider with the increasing convenience of new modes of transportation.

The Ming and Qing Dynasties were the beginning of China’s entry into globalization, and it gradually entered the mixed field of globalization and pluralism. The research on the history of animal communication between China and foreign countries needs to be carried out from the perspective of interdisciplinary globalization and internationalization, which has become a common cognition in the world today. Under the background of globalization in the 15th century, the Jesuits, the western Catholics, became the main force to transmit foreign animal knowledge. Before the era of great navigation, culture and art in different places had different types of knowledge, and each product of knowledge was tightly bound in its corresponding society by various regional cultural, social, political and economic factors. Naturally, the production and dissemination of animal knowledge can be achieved through direct contact with one’s own eyes. However, in the environment of limited life activities of ancient individuals, most of the animal knowledge still needs to be taught through book compilation and individual transformation. After the era of great navigation, the picture of broken knowledge was gradually broken, and the traditional narrative of animal history centered on nation-state was gradually replaced by the narrative of cross-country and cross-cultural global history, and the situation of animal knowledge exchange and interaction between China and the West was changed. With the western Jesuits as the main body, foreign animal knowledge, especially marine animal knowledge that is unfamiliar to Chinese, was introduced through the dialogue and interaction between the translation and several knowledge groups at different levels. Matteo Ricci’s "great universal geographic map" and ferdinand verbiest’s "Full Map of Kunyu" highlight the animal pictures and texts in the new world. Related to it are the books "Gong Shi" and "The Lion’s Tale" in Kangxi Dynasty. While Li Leisi spread the western animal culture through "The Lion’s Tale",It also aims to break the connection between lions and Buddhism in Buddhist literature from the perspective of Christian communication, and to create a new tradition of systematically describing lion culture in China by questioning the reliability of land lion tribute in history.

Gong Shi Tu, China Painting and Calligraphy at the 31st auction of China Guardian Four Seasons (8), October 2012.

3. The characteristics of globalization and localization in the process of animal cultural exchange between China and foreign countries.

Under the background of the influence of globalization, we still need to go beyond the thinking mode of binary contrast between China and the West and between advanced and backward, and maintain the necessary tension between globalization and localization. The interactive influence of Chinese and foreign animal knowledge, how to keep the local culture from being submerged in the process of globalization. No matter the sender or receiver of animal knowledge, in the process of cultural choice of welcoming and rejecting, there are remodeling and misappropriation of learning from foreign knowledge and preserving local culture. How to model, deduce and grow the animal knowledge and animal images in the original text after entering the foreign environment, and even form various new and diversified variants, is a problem worthy of in-depth discussion. In the interactive dialogue between foreign animal knowledge and Chinese native animal knowledge, the journey of localization (localization) soon began. Westerners and Chinese people who accept and learn from foreign animal knowledge and participate in translation all use transliteration and free translation to express their new understanding of the knowledge system of exotic birds and animals by using the knowledge resources of China traditional documents, and devote themselves to the interaction between "foreign classics" and "classical" and "modern classics". When the new knowledge of foreign animals enters the knowledge field of Chinese people, it also reflects the complicated globalization and localization process of a new knowledge dissemination through animal translation.

4. Plurality and diversity The input of exotic animal knowledge has directly or indirectly influenced the changes of animal drawing in China, which presents a unique expression form in both content and form, providing a broader interpretation space for the text.

In 2014, the Forbidden City Press published four animal maps of Qing Dynasty, including Bird Map, Pigeon Map, Animal Map and Sea Fault Map, among which the most important ones are Animal Map and Sea Fault Map, which just represent the interaction between Qing Dynasty painters and folk painters in animal drawing and foreign knowledge. These animal maps show extremely obvious diversity and pluralism in terms of intellectual input of characters and artistic expression of drawings, which is incomparable to natural history paintings before the era of great navigation. The arrival of western missionaries, scholars and painters from the 16th century brought new knowledge of exotic animals and new skills of western natural history painting. In order to show the world that they are full of cosmopolitan spirit, the rulers of Ming and Qing dynasties instructed western missionaries to draw animal images on the world map, and also instructed court painters and famous officials to complete animal maps together. Both of them adopted the form of "left picture and right text", and the text texture composed of different symbols, from the geographical map of scrolls to the atlas of album pages, from printed books to picture books, and different carriers were intended to create different viewing cultures, each carrying different sensory cognition. The publication of these maps, texts and animal maps, which are artistic and knowledgeable, has become a new material for studying animal drawings in Ming and Qing Dynasties. The "exotic animals" in Fauna and the knowledge and painting skills of Chinese and foreign marine animals in the sea wrong map fully show the exchange of animal knowledge between China and foreign countries.Plurality and diversity in content and form, as well as direct or indirect interactions.

The well fish in the sea wrong map

Mermaid in "The Map of the Sea Mist"

5. The history of animal cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries shows the characteristics of global history research, which also shows that cultural differences determine the direction of cultural exchanges.

The history of animal cultural exchange between China and foreign countries has expanded the field of traditional history and become the best case of global history research. First of all, we must take a macro perspective and put specific historical topics into the broader context of global history; Secondly, it emphasizes the relevance of animal cultural exchange cases. The cases exchanged in animal history are not isolated cases, so they must be understood in a complex and interactive historical space to avoid simplistic judgment. Thirdly, we should not only get rid of the concept of Eurocentrism, but also give up the tribute mode dominated by China’s celestial centralism, so as to force us to avoid diplomatic arrogance and cultural narrowness. The history of animal cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries has also triggered an important new revelation, that is, we usually agree with some commentators that cultural exchanges, like running water, are irrigated by the side with strong cultural potential. The exchange of animal culture between China and foreign countries in Ming and Qing Dynasties showed pluralism and diversity. The contact of animal culture in different regions determined that the chance of communication between them was their differences rather than the strength of potential energy, and it was differences that determined the direction of culture. Not only the cultural areas with high potential energy will flow to the cultural areas with low potential energy, but also the cultural areas with low potential energy will flow to the cultural areas with high potential energy. Zheng He’s massive introduction of exotic animal cultures during his voyage to the West is a notable example.

(This article is excerpted from Zou Zhenhuan’s Goodbye to Animals: Animal Culture in Ming and Qing Dynasties and Sino-foreign Exchanges, published by Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House in December 2021. Published by The Paper under authorization. )