Thanks to the Sino-German Mobility Programme, funded by the Sino-German Centre for Research Promotion (SGCRP), I was honoured to receive an invitation from Prof. Dr. Hans Ulrich Vogel at the University of Tübingen to undertake a 12-week research trip to Germany. My general expectations for this trip included an in-depth investigation of the pre-1912 Chinese maps in Germany and German maps of China before 1914; the Chinese rare books and manuscripts located in Germany; the firearms in early modern period, particularly the old Chinese guns preserved in Germany; as well as the history of German Sinology and that of the Sino-German relationship.
In the first week, I participated in the 16th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia (ICHSEA) at Goethe University Frankfurt, and on 21 August, I presented “Nine-section Bronze Cannon in Eighteenth-Century China” in a panel titled “Knowledge Transfer between Europe and Ming-Qing China – Technology” which was co-organised by Dr. Alexander Jost and Dr. Cao Jin.
For the following five weeks, I was primarily based in Berlin. My workdays were mostly spent in the Maps reading room of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, where I surveyed old Chinese map collections and rediscovered several hidden gems. Concurrently, I conducted research at the Oriental and East-Asia reading room of Stabi, the library of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and the Archives of the Max Planck Society. I am profoundly grateful for the assistance provided by Dr. Cathleen Päthe, Prof. Dr. Dagmar Schäfer, and Mr. Florian Spillert. At Spandau Citadel, I examined F. Verbiest's bronze gun produced in Beijing in 1689, and I also encountered two Japanese bronze guns from the late Edo period. At the end of September, I visited the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel to review some rare Chinese books.
The first half of October and the last nine days of my trip were spent in Munich. There, I consulted the collections of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and visited various galleries and museums. I also managed to check another piece of Verbiest’s 1689 bronze gun at the Bavarian Army Museum in Ingolstadt.
In the latter half of October, I was warmly welcomed by the Department of Chinese Studies at the University of Tübingen. Prof. Dr. Achim Mittag, Prof. Dr. Huang Fei, Prof. Dr. Emily Graf, Mr. Jonas Schmid, Ms. Han Qijin, Mr. Patrick Aberle, Mr. Kobayashi Takahiro, along with other researchers and students, were extremely supportive. On 24 October, I gave a presentation “Mapping Peking 1688-1914: A Czech Jesuit and a Russian Priest, Chinese Painters and German Soldiers, the Interweaving of City Plans,” incorporating my new findings from Berlin. My time in Tübingen also included visits to local museums, collections, bookstores, and the university libraries where I located old Chinese and Tibetan manuscripts.
In early November, at the invitation of Dr. Alexander Jost, I visited Freilassing-Salzburg and presented “Mapping Peking 1688-1914” on 3 November at the Forum Asia Pacific of the Paris Lodron University Salzburg. I also visited the libraries of Paris Lodron University and Admont Abbey, which was facilitated by the much-appreciated kindness of Dr. Alexander Jost and Dr. Cao Jin.
To conclude my report, this research trip was immensely fruitful and left me with many cherished memories. With the materials I collected in Germany, I plan to compose several articles, including a study on the old Chinese maps in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.