If the owner rents out the slave, then the "wages" would be the cost rhe owner rented the slave out for. And the costnof the initial purchase price needs to be taken into account when computing a slaves effective "wage".
The Tower ships were river ships, not sea going ships, and essentially nothing more than very large barges. In any case, unlike Roman ships, we have no evidence they actually existed.It sounds like you want to discard the practice of solely using archaeological evidence to prove the existence of large ships. In which case Simaqian recorded that Tower ships were over 10 zhang high.
The 5000 Liao ships you mentioned were not specifically said to be Zheng He's ships. While, given that the size was mentioned on a Hong Bao's tomb who was an official on Zhrng He's voyages, it is likely the 5000 liao ships did refer to Zheng He's ships, it is still not certain. But it is also possible that the 5000 Liao were some other ships, like the river going Tower ships you mentioned earlier.Contemporary evidence shows that Zheng He's Treasure ships were 5000 liao in size (1250 tons), not 300 tons
Actual contemporary inscriptions thst mention Zheng He's ships only give sizes of 1500 and 2000 liao ships. There are different opinions on the size of the Liao, with some estimates of it being 300 lbs, making a 2000 liao ship only 300 tons as said. Even using the larger value of the liao and a size of 5000 Liao, the 1250 tons bm would still be less than the 1400 tons bm of the contemporary Grace Dieus, for which we have actual archeological evidence of, unlike Zhrng He's 5000 liao ship. And that still isn't bigger than the 1400 tons Roman ISIS from a 1000 years earlier, or Caligula's Giant Ship, which again we have actual remains.
Sally Church argument is weak here. The 5th rate HMS Serapis was 879 tons and a crew of 280, and the 44 gun USS Constitution was 1575 tonnage, and 2,200 tons displacement, with a crew of 450. In addition, the far closer in time 15th century Harry Grace a Dieu was 1000 tons burden, and had 300 sailors with a total compliment of 600 including Marines and that is probably a better guide than the later 18th 5th rate ship example you used, being closer in time. Also, the ratio of.1062 andSally K Church:
A ship of about 200-250 ft would make much more sense than the 450 ft one. Such a ship would be large enough to transport the required number of people and amount of supplies and treasures. Although this was the maximum size of wooden ships in the West, this is not the reason why we should accept it as an optimum size. Gong Zhen’s evidence is perhaps the soundest – his statement that there were 200-300 men on the ships. This number of men could not have man- aged a ship of 20,000 tons, but would have been quite adept at handling ships of a smaller size, such as the Razee Corvette, a Ship-of-the-Line manned by 205- 220 men, or the Fifth Rate (46-gun) ship with a complement of 280-300 men.The Razee Corvette was 145 ft long, and 38.5 ft in the beam with a burden of 944 tons and a displacement of 1,280 tons. The Fifth Rate was over 150 ft long and 40 ft in the beam with a capacity of 1,063 tons burden and a displacement of 2,154 tons.132 Ships that are too large also have certain disadvantages, foremost among which is a loss of maneuverability. This lesson was learned by the Spanish Armada
In addition, in a section of Church's work you did not mention, the reports a Ming official reporting of a 1000* liao ship with a crew of 100. For a crew of 200, that would imply a ship of 2000 Lial, consistent with the sizes mentioned in the conetmporary inscriptions of Zhrng He's voyages. Church's speculation tends to inflate the size of Zheng He's ships. Her example of a fifth rate ship has a rather low number of crew and high tonnage compare to other fifth rate ships, and her value of displacement is also high with respect to tonnage. The HMS Victoria had 2142 tons burden and 3500 tons displacement, for a ratio of .612, and the USS Constitution had a tonnage of 1575 and a displacement of 2,200 tons, for 0.72, while the ratio in her example is .49, rather low. Not sure where she got her figures from.
*Corrected a miss quote, originally I said the ships were 500 Liao, but checking back on the source, on page 15 Church said 1000 piculs, which were equivalent to 250 tons (1000 liao).
As I mentioned, the tomb did not specifically state they were Zheng He's ships.She didn't have the evidence from Hong Bao's tomb which was excavated after her article. The tomb gives the first primary source evidence which says that Zheng He had 5000 liao ships,
And it might not have made any real difference in her article. The Gong Zhen ships are not necessarily the same ones as described in Hong Bao's tomb, since Zheng He had several different voyages and the ship sizes might not have been always the same. As noted, contemporary inscriptions only mention ships of 1500 and 2000 liao, but the inscriptions only describe certain voyages. In any case, even the dimensions given on Hong Bao tomb don't support the excessive claims made in later official Chinese accounts. If the Qing officials were clearly exaggerating, why couldn't the Ming officials start exaggerating the size of Zheng He's ships as well? Not as great an exaggeration, true, but Hong Bao was closer in time to the actual voyages.
Only if you use the larger value for the liao. Using other estimates of the liao only gives a size of 750 tons for a 5000 liao ship. Even at the larger 1250 tons, that is still smaller than the 1400 tons of the contemporary Grace Dieus, and the 1000 year earlier Roman ISIS and giant Caligula ship.which is equivalent to 1250 tons burthen and 2000 tons displacement. This coroborrates with Sally K.'s estimation using Gong Zheng's quote that the ships were crewed by 200-300 men, from which she concludes that a ship of 300 crewmen would be the size of a fifth rate ship (1063 tons burthen, 2154 tons displacement, 150 feet in length). Still very large for the time period.
Using a size of 2000 Liao found in the inscriptions, and the lower value of 300 lbs, gives 300 tons, the size of actual Song Dynasty shipwrecks we have found.