See also: Great Post Road
The following is another excerpt from Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Jalan Raya Pos, Jalan Daendels. This section describes Gresik, a city near Surabaya in East Java. My translation:
Five kilometers south of the city of Sidaya, Jalan Raya Pos crosses the Solo River, and around 22 kilometers south it reaches Gresik, an old port-city on the strait that separates Java from Madura. This city is also well-known for the grave of Malik Ibrahim, which has a headstone engraved with the words: “Passed away on Monday, the second day of the month of Rabi-ul-awal in the year 822 [of the Islamic calendar].” The aforementioned year (1419) provides a point of reference for the history of Gresik. Within the framework of Pan-Islamism and the struggle of Islamic traders against Spanish and Portuguese hegemony over the sea, which in Java manifested as the early spread of Islam, Malik Ibrahim was promoted as the first wali. But it can still be asked whether or not this is historically accurate.
It would be tedious to describe the succession of wars over this port-city. However, after the VOC built stone fortresses, both in Sidaya and Gresik, in the mid-18th century, war became rare.
During the rule of Erlangga (928-1049), according to a Western historian (Fruinmees), the population of tens of thousands of people was more literate than during the colonial period of the Dutch East Indies. Indeed there is still much need for further historical research. It is known, however, that Gresik was a center of brass and bronze handicrafts.
As a result of the wars between Napoleonic France and the European Alliance, Gresik’s rubber was also tapped. At that time Java was under the rule of France. Britain as a member of the European Alliance was aiming for Java. The year prior to the arrival of Governor-General Marsekal Daendels, Britain destroyed Gresik’s harbor, as well as part of the Dutch armada under Hartsinck. In the era of Daendels, this city, famous for brass and bronze handicrafts, was transformed into a center for the manufacture of rifles, much as Semarang was transformed into a producer of ammunition.
Since long ago, Gresik was known for the prosperity of its people. Not only because of its harbor—which became a center of traffic for inter-island and international trade—and its highly refined handicrafts, but also because it was the best area for fishing in East Java. Among other marine products, it became a center for milkfish.
In the era of national independence, this was also the site of the country’s first cement factory, which was followed by other large industries. The District of Gresik shrank because a number of big industries in sub-districts (onderdistrikten) were annexed to the municipality of Surabaya. Among the aforementioned industries were an asphalt factory with a capacity of 180,000 tons per year; a petrochemical industry that produced various kinds of fertilizer, liquid ammonia, sulfuric acid, oxygen, and dry ice; a pharmaceutical industry; a ferrocement-ship factory; a plasterboard factory; an umbrella factory that made hundreds of thousands of umbrellas per year; a train-wheel factory with a production of 8,000 wheels per year, the first in Indonesia and Asia; and a factory that made diethyl-phthalate (DOP), a material used in plastic production, which was also the first factory of its kind in Indonesia, and which produced tens of tons per year.
Here have also been found quite a lot of archeological remains. In 1985 an old four-eyed anchor was found, similar to the kind found in Tuban, with a shaft of 3.5 meters. The Pacekan village, where once camped the soldiers of Kublai Khan, […] has already vanished due to the growth of the city. There is also an old Chinese shrine which still houses ancient bells. And of course, there are the old graves: the grave of Malik Ibrahim, regarded as the first wali from the time of the early Islamic expansion in Java, as well as the grave of Sunan Giri. There is also a VOC fortress at Mengare.
I have indeed been to Gresik, first in the year 1941 while on a bicycle excursion from Surabaya. Unfortunately, at the time, I was mostly concerned with enjoying the bicycle, which I had recently bought, rather than paying attention to the landscape. More than 40 years later I revisited this city. The scenery had entirely changed, including settlements, life, and the surrounding environment. The cement factories had ravaged the limestone mountains; the formerly attractive scene had become grim. Gaping wounds in the mountains looked like chronic gangrene, impossible to heal.