由‘香’入‘藥’——龍涎香、嘉靖煉丹、葡人入居澳門與海洋亞洲的新格局

Focusing on the procurement and consumption of ambergris in imperial China particularly in the sixteenth century, this article illustrates how this marine product served as the tipping point that led to the Portuguese settlement at Macao in 1557. Primarily exported in the Indian Ocean and initially used as an aromatic luxury in China, by the reign of Jiajing (r.1522–1566), ambergris had become a key medicinal ingredient in the making of elixir for the emperor’s pursuit of longevity and sexual pleasure. However, his continuous efforts to obtain ambergris proved futile until the Portuguese in Macao, the sole suppliers of this Indian Ocean substance, began to present it around the year 1555–1556. Scrutiny of both Chinese and Portuguese sources has illustrated the temporal and spatial junctures in which the Portuguese succeeded in squeezing their way in and putting down roots in maritime Asia, a water body with unbounded oceans. This study of ambergris hence sheds some fresh light on the conceptualization of maritime Asia, especially in terms of its traditions and changes, and exemplifies “the interactive emergence of European domination” in the region.