THE SEVEN VOYAGES OF ZHENG HE (1405-1453)

Even before Zheng He embarked on his seven voyages, China already possessed a wealth of information about the world beyond the Indian Ocean. The first Ming emperor, Hongwu, commissioned a world map that has been reproduced many times since its original creation. The most famous version of it dates from 1402, a Korean rendering today known as the “Kangnido Map.”

This iteration shows a disproportionately large Korea and places China at the center of the known world, detailing its rivers and the Great Wall. Other East Asian countries are located far from their true positions and diminished in size. The archipelagoes of Indonesia and the Philippines, for example, appear as little more than a line of dots, and only the Malay Peninsula is recognizable. Mesopotamia, Europe, and much of the Middle East is likewise scrunched into a narrow band to the left.

It is worth remembering that the “Kangnido Map” was produced three years before Zheng He’s first expedition, and although Africa’s size and shape are inaccurate, the outline does show clearly that its southernmost tip is navigable. Above Africa, the Mediterranean Sea appears in compressed form, surrounded by a handful of countries. Morocco and Egypt are the most prominent in the south, and in the north, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Greece are identifiable, albeit lumped together.

While a well-equipped navy had been built up during the early years of the Song dynasty (960-1279), it was in the 12th century that the Chinese became a truly formidable naval power. The Song lost control of northern China in 1127, and with it, access to the Silk Road and the wealth of Persia and the Islamic world. The forced withdrawal to the south prompted a new capital to be established at Hangzhou, a port strategically situated at the mouth of the Qiantang River, and which Marco Polo described in the course of his famous adventures in the 1200s.

For centuries, the Song had been embroiled in battles along inland waterways and had become indisputable masters of river navigation. Now, they applied their experience to building up a naval fleet. Alas, the Song’s newfound naval mastery was not enough to withstand the invasion of the mighty Mongol emperor Kublai Khan.

The Mongols and the Ming

Having toppled the Song and ascended to the Chinese imperial throne in 1279, Kublai built up a truly fear some naval force. Millions of trees were planted and new shipyards created. Soon, Kublai commanded a force numbering thousands of ships, which he deployed to attack Japan, Vietnam, and Java. And while these naval offensives failed to gain territory, China did win control over the sea-lanes from Japan to Southeast Asia. The Mongols gave a new preeminence to merchants, and maritime trade flourished as never before.

On land, however, they failed to establish a settled form of government and win the allegiance of the peoples they had conquered. In 1368, after decades of internal rebellion throughout China, the Mongol dynasty fell and was replacedby the Ming (meaning “bright”) dynasty. Its first emperor, Hongwu, was as determined as the Mongol and Song emperors before him to maintain China as a naval power. However, the new emperor limited overseas contact to naval ambassadors who were charged with securing tribute from an increasingly long list of China’s vassal states, among them, Brunei, Cambodia, Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines, thus ensuring that lucrative profits did not fall into private hands. Hongwu also decreed that no oceangoing vessels could have more than three masts, a dictate punishable by death.

Yongle was the third Ming emperor, and he took this restrictive maritime policy even further, banning private trade while pushing hard for Chinese control of the southern seas and the Indian Ocean. The beginning of his reign saw the conquest of Vietnam and the foundation of Malacca as a new sultanate controlling the entry point to the Indian Ocean,a supremely strategic location for China to control. In order to dominate the trade routes that united China with Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, the emperor decided to assemble an impressive fleet, whose huge treasure ships could have as many masts as necessary. The man he chose as its commander was Zheng He.

Epic Voyages

Although he is often described as an explorer, Zheng He did not set out primarily on voyages of discovery. During the Song dynasty, the Chinese had already reached as far as India, the Persian Gulf, and Africa. Rather, his voyages were designed as a display of Chinese might, as well as a way of rekindling trade with vassal states and guaranteeing the flow of vital provisions, including medicines, pepper, sulfur, tin, and horses. The fleets that Zheng He commanded on his seven great expeditions between 1405 and 1433 were suitably ostentatious. On the first voyage, the fleet numbered 255 ships, 62 of which were vast treasure ships or baochuan. There were also mid-size ships such as the machuan, used for transporting horses, and a multitude of others vessels carrying soldiers, sailor and assorted personnel. Some 600 officials made the voyage, among them doctors, astrologers, and cartographers.

Charting Distant Waters

The ships left Nanjing (Nanking), Hangzhou, and other major ports, from there veering south to Fujian, where they swelled their crews with expert sailors. They then made a show of force by anchoring in Quy Nhon, Vietnam, which China had recently conquered. None of the seven expeditions headed north; most made their way to Java and Sumatra, resting for a spell in Malacca, where they waited for the winter monsoon winds that blow toward the west.

They then proceeded to Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) and Calicut in southern India, where the first three expeditions terminated. The fourth expedition reached Hormuz in the Persian Gulf,and the final voyages expanded westward entering the waters of the Red Sea, then turning and sailing as far as Kenya, and perhaps farther still. A caption on a copy of the Fra Mauro map-the original, now lost, was completed in Venice in 1459, more than 25 years after Zheng. He's final voyage— implies that Chinese ships rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1420 before being forced to turn back for lack of wind. Chinese ships had always been noted for their size.

More than a century before Zheng He, explorer Marco Polo described their awesome dimensions: Between four and six masts, a crew of up to 300 sailors, 60 cabins, and a deck for the merchants. Chinese vessels with five masts are shown on the 14th-century “Catalan Atlas” from the island of Mallorca. Still, claims in a 1597adventuretale that Zheng He’s treasure ships reached 460 feet long do sound exaggerated. Most marine archaeological finds suggest that Chinese ships of the 14th and 15th centuries usually were not longer than 100 feet. Even so, a recent discovery by archaeologists of a 36-foot-long rudder raises the possibility that some ships may have been as large as claimed.

End of an Odyssey

Zheng He’s voyages ended abruptly in 1433 on the command of Emperor Xuande. Historians have long speculated as to why the Ming would have abandoned the naval power that China had nurtured since the Song. The problems were certainly not economic: China was collecting enormous tax revenues, and the voyages likely cost a fraction of that income.

The problem, it seems, was political. The Ming victory over the Mongols caused the empire’s focus to shift from the ports of the south to deal with tensions in the north. The voyages were also viewed with suspicion by the very powerful bureaucratic class,who worried about the influence of the military.This fear had reared its head before: In 1424, between the sixth and seventh voyages, the expedition program was briefly suspended,and Zheng He was temporarily appointed defender of the co-capital Nanjing, where he oversaw construction of the famous Bao’en Pagoda, built with porcelain bricks.

The great admiral died either during,or shortly after, the seventh and last of the historic expeditions, and with the great mariner’s death his fleet was largely dismantled.China’s naval power would recede until the 21st-century.With the nation’s current resurgence, it is no surprise that the figure of Zheng He stands once again at the center of China’s maritime ambitions.Today the country’s highly disputed “nine-dash line”— which China claims demarcates its control of the South China Sea— almost exactly maps the route taken six centuries ago by Zheng He and his remarkable fleet.

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THE VOYAGES 

Between 1405 and 1433 the seven voyages of Zheng He touched 30 modern-day countries in Africa and Asia. The fleet sailed to East Africa on Zheng He’s sixth and seventh voyages, and an advance party may have gone farther, reaching Mozambique or even the Cape of Good Hope. A total of 100,000 people—passengers, troops, and crew—participated in these trips, which were intended as diplomatic missions rather than voyages of discovery.

Over 300 foreign envoys, including nine kings, were brought back to China on Zheng He’s ships, facilitating commerce across a huge swath of Asia and kindling new relationships with Islamic and African lands.

1. (1405-07) In July 1405 Zheng He’s fleet—as many as 255 ships, including 62 vast treasure ships—set sail from Nanjing, carrying a cargo of silks, porcelain, and spices. Zheng He patrolled the southern seas and destroyed a gang of pirates in Sumatra before dropping anchor in Malacca. The fleet then proceeded to Ceylon and India.

2. (1407-09) The fleet returned to their homes the foreign ambassadors who had been brought to China on the first voyage. The expeditions served to strengthen the Ming empire’s trade links and communications across the Indian Ocean.

3. (1409-1411) This voyage gained notoriety for having sparked a major battle in Ceylon in order to secure the throne for an ally of the Ming. Zheng He flew a trilingual flag: in Chinese to honor the Buddha, in Tamil to pay homage to Vishnu, and in Persian in praise of Allah. It was but one example of his ecumenism.

4. (1413-15) The fourth expedition was the first to venture beyond the Indian Ocean and reach the Persian Gulf. Some 18 states sent tribute and delegations to China, emphasizing the growing influence of China beyond the frontiers of its territory.

5. (1417-19) The Treasure Fleet arrived at the Arabian Peninsula and embarked on its first expedition to Africa. In Aden the sultan showered Zheng He with exotic gifts, including lions, zebras, and ostriches.

6. (1421-22) Zheng He continued with a “there and back” version of diplomacy, returning some of the foreign ambassadors to their countries after staying several years in China, and bringing back new delegations of foreign dignitaries.

7. (1431-33) On Zheng He’s final voyage, he stayed on in India, while part of the fleet continued to the Swahili coast of Africa. The chronicler Ma Huan disembarked beforehand to visit Mecca. Zheng He died sometime between 1433 and 1435.

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KUBLAI KHAN 'KAMIKAZED'

Grandson of the great Genghis Khan, the Mongol Kublai Khan built an empire for himself in the 13th century, famously conquering China in 1279. He also had his sights set on Japan and tried to invade, not once, but twice: first in 1274 and again in 1281. Chroniclers of the time report that he sent thousands of Chinese and Korean ships and as many as 140,000 men to seize the islands of Japan.

Twice his massive forces sailed across the Korea Strait, and twice his fleet was turned away; legend says that two kamikazes, massive typhoons whose name means “divine wind,” were summoned by the Japanese emperor to sink the invading vessels. Historians believed the stories to be legendary, but recent archaeological finds support the story of giant storms saving Japan. A century and a half after Khan’s attempted invasions, Zheng He’s treasure ships would resemble the vessels of Kublai Khan. His ships were numerous and notably large — approximately 230 feet long. It seems both Zheng He and the Ming emperor clearly appreciated impressive size, both in terms of the vessels and the fleet, and made it an important factor in spreading Chinese prestige and dominance throughout the Indian Ocean.

By Dolors Folch in "National Geographic History", USA, August 2018, excerpts pp. 46-53. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.