I am having trouble finding sources of any kind to research China's naval history. I would like to specifically focus on the Chinese Junk ships but I can't even pull enough sources together to know what time period I should even be focusing on or what direction to go from there.
I have the Van Tilburg book but it is only the one and is a secondary source on a small sample of Junks. Google scholar and my uni library have yielded zilch but more likely my searching for sources is just not my strong suit.
What period? There's lots of information about the treasure fleets of Zheng He that might represent a good direction. For example, When China Ruled the Seas by Levanthes, and I have read Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty, and it's not bad. A quick peak at the bibliography of the Wiki article for Zheng He is pretty extensive with some sources that might be useful to you. The latter includes some excerpts, but the problem with primary sources is that you might have an issue tracking down translations of works.