Zheng He
(or Cheng Ho) (1371-1433)
A Muslim eunuch and commander-in-chief of the Ming expeditionary fleets in the early years of the 15th century.
Almost a century before Portuguese captain Vasco da Gama successfully rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached the
Malabar Coast of India in 1498, Emperor Yung-lo (1403-1424) of the Ming dynasty (1308-1644) had launched, in 1405, the
first of a series of grand-scale maritime expeditions. Over the next 28 years, the Chinese court dispatched six more large-scale
naval expeditions to Southeast Asia, India, Persia, and the east coast of Africa. These gigantic-scale expeditions involved more
than 70,000 men, hundreds of vessels, and covered thousands of nautical miles. In contrast with the goals of the European
adventurers who came to Asia several decades later, the main purpose of these undertakings was neither conquest nor trade: the
Ming government was mainly interested in spreading and enhancing its dynastic prestige and power as well as winning for
China the nominal suzerainty of those distant regions. By 1415, 19 kingdoms had sent tributes to the Ming court; however,
after nearly three decades of naval expeditions, not a single permanent overseas Ming colony was established.
Then, in 1433, the great Ming naval expeditions suddenly ceased, never to resume. Although scholars do not know the precise
reasons why China refused to embark on her own Age of Exploration, possible explanations might include: the high cost of the
naval expeditions; China's long-held tradition of anti-commercialism; and the ruling Confucian scholars' and officials'
prejudice toward the seafaring people, who neglected to observe two important Confucian virtues; namely, filial piety and
ancestor worship. Had those Chinese seafarers sustained support from a leader like Portugal's Prince Henry, the course of
world history might have been quite different; certainly China would have "discovered" such distant lands as Spain, England,
and France, A little more than six decades after the last Ming naval expedition of 1433, Vasco da Gama opened an era of
European domination of the Asian waters. The compass and gunpowder, two important gifts of China to the West, permitted
the Europeans to develop empires in Asia.
Zheng He: Ming Maritime
Expeditions
The following selection describes China's “Columbus” and
the maritime explorations that he led.
“Bayan, and his grandfather and father were both named
Hajji, which suggests that the two probably visited Mecca
and that the family had a long tradition of Islamic faith and
may have been of Mongol-Arab origin. At the beginning
of the Ming dynasty a number or generals who fought on
the frontier were in charge of recruiting eunuchs for the
court. In 1381, when Yunnan was pacified by an army
under Fu Yu-te, Cheng Ho, at that time about ten years
old, was one of the children selected to be castrated. As a trainee for eunuch service, he was assigned to the retinue
of Chu Ti [Emperor Yung-lo]. In his early twenties, he accompanied Chu Ti on a series of military campaigns and
in the course of them took up a career in the army. As his family records relate, "when he entered adulthood, he
reportedly became seven feet tall and had a waist about five feet in circumference. His cheeks and forehead were
high but his nose was small. He had glaring eyes and a voice as loud as a huge bell. He knew a great deal about
warfare and was well accustomed to battle." . . .
Cheng Ho first achieved official prominence early in 1404 when he was promoted to the position of director of
eunuch affairs and granted the surname of Cheng. Shortly afterward he received the appointment or commander-inchief of the first expedition. Meanwhile local officials of the eastern coastal regions were ordered to build ocean
going vessels. By July, 1405, some 1180 ships of various sizes and types had been constructed. The large or
treasure ships were, according to measures of that time, as much as 440 feet long and 1862 wide, and those of
medium size, or horse ships, 370 feet long and 150 wide. There were supply ships which measured 280 feet in
length and 120 in breadth, and billet ships measuring 240 feet by 94. The battleships equipped with cannon were
much smaller, measuring only 180 feet by 68. Most or the treasure ships were the product of the Lung-chiang
shipyard near Nanking. None of these has survived, but near the site of the shipyard was recently discovered (1957)
a large wooden rudder (length 11 meters) thought to have been fashioned for one of the bigger vessels. It is now
preserved in the Kiangsu provincial museum.
The first voyage began- in the summer of 1405 with a 27,800 man crew and 62 (or 63) large and 255 smaller
vessels. . . . [In the second voyage. which was launched in late autumn of 1407, the expedition sailed into the Indian
0cean]
. . . In the summer of 1409 Cheng Ho returned to Nanking to report on his mission to the emperor. Here he
built a temple in honor or Tien-fei, the goddess of the sea, to whose virtue and power he attributed the safe voyages
or his fleets. The inscription on the stele erected later (May 3, 1416) has been partly translated into French by
Claudine Lombard-Salmon; the complete Chinese text may be found in the book by Louis Gaillard.
After a brief stay in the capital, Cheng Ho was again sent overseas, accompanied by Wang Ching-hung and
Hou Hsien. His third voyage was comparable to the first and second in the number of men but with only 48 vessels;
it lasted from September 1409, to June. 1411. This expedition reached the same destination on the Malabar Coast of
India, but along the way several excursions were made, including brief visits to Siam, Malacca, Sumatra, and
Ceylon. It also undertook lumbering operations and gathered fragrant herbs in the Sembilan Islands. . . .
It was the fourth voyage, which began in 1413 and ended in August, 1415, that took the expedition far beyond
its earlier destinations. Under the same command but with a crew of 27,670 men and some 63 large vessels, the
expedition touched at a number of new places, including the Maldives, Hormuz, the Hadramaut coast, and Aden. In
Sumatra the expedition became involved in a local power struggle at Ch'iao-shan [Qiaoshan] (SamudraPasai). A
usurper by the name of Su-wa-la, after murdering the king, directed his forces against the expedition, but was
subsequently defeated and pursued as far as Lambri, where he and his family were captured. The prisoners were
taken to Nanking on the return of the fleet As a result of this voyage; nineteen countries sent envoys and tribute to
the Ming court. Chu Ti was so pleased with the results that he rewarded all participants in the expedition according
to their ranks.
In December, 1416, Cheng Ho was commissioned to escort home the envoys of the nineteen states, and
embarked, possibly in the autumn of 1417, on his fifth voyage, which lasted up to August, 1419. The returning
envoys, who had witnessed the delight of the Ming emperor at his first sight of a giraffe, spread the news to other
countries. Hence an impressive collection of strange animals, among them lions, leopards, single-humped camels,
ostriches, zebras, rhinoceroses, antelopes, and giraffes offered by rulers of several states highlighted this journey.
The spring of 1421 saw the launching of the sixth voyage, but Cheng may not have joined the fleet until later.
It returned on September 3, 1422, accompanied by a large number of envoys from such states as Hormuz, Aden,
Djofar, La-sa (Al-shsa?), Brawa, Mogadishu, Calicut, Cochin, Cail, Ceylon, the Maldive Islands, Lambri, Sumatra,
Aru, Malacca, Kan-pa-li, Sulu, Bengal, Borneo, Ku-ma-la, and Ts'eng-pa (Zanzibar). The number of countries
visited on this trip has not been listed, but the expedition reached at least as far as Aden, near the mouth of the Red
Sea, and Mogadishu and Brawa on the coast of east Africa. . . .
In the meanwhile Chu Ti had died (August 12, 1424), and almost at once the idea of another maritime
expedition came under attack. The emperor designate, Chu Kao-chih [Zhu Gaozhi], promptly (August 28) released
from prison Hsia Yuan-chi [Xia Yuanji], perhaps the most outspoken critic of the treasure fleets, and on September
7, the very day of Chu's accession to the throne as the fourth Ming emperor, other voices joined Hsia's in recommending their abolition. This protest seems to have settled the matter, for in the following February Cheng Ho
received an appointment as garrison commander of the Nanking district, and was told to maintain order in his own
expeditionary forces, and consult with Wang Ching-hung and two other eunuchs. . . .
Only a few months later the fourth emperor died and for several years the plan to launch another expedition
lay dormant Finally in June, 1430, his successor, the fifth emperor, Chu Chan-chi [Zhu Zhanji], issued an order for
the seventh (and what proved to be the last) voyage, but it was not to leave the Fukien [Fujian] coast until a year
and a half later. It returned in July, 1433. The mission was intended to regenerate the
tributary relationships once maintained under Chu Ti, which had significantly weakened
since his death. A score of states were revisited, including those along the coasts of the
Arabian Peninsula and eastern Africa. In this instance too ambassadors returned with the
fleet, bringing such gifts as giraffes, elephants, and horses. Cheng Ho, who was already in
his sixties, did not perhaps visit all of them in person, and some of the side missions were
conducted by his aides. . . .
What happened to Cheng Ho from this point is not clear. It has customarily been said
that he died in 1435 or 1436 at the age of sixty-five, no specific date or site of burial being
indicated in contemporary sources. A later source, the T'ung-chih Shang Chiang Iianghsien chih [Tongzhi Shang Jiang liangxian Zhij (preface of 1874), 3/39a, however,
maintains that Cheng Ho died at Calicut and was buried at Niushoushan outside Nanking.
If this be true, he must have passed away early in 1433.
Riley, Philip F. The Global Experience: Readings in World History to 1500. Prentice Hall. 1998.