Zheng He & Chinas Treasure Fleet

Between 1405 and 1433, the Ming government sponsored a series

of seven naval expeditions. Ming Emperor Yongle designed them
for two main purposes: to impose imperial control over trade in the
Indian Ocean Basin, and impress foreign peoples with the power
and might of the Ming dynasty. Not surprisingly then, the armada
prepared by the emperor was the largest and most impressive the
world had ever seen.
Zheng He, A Muslim Eunuch from the southern Chinese province
of Yunnan, was placed as the admiral in control of the massive fleet that undertook these expeditions. Zheng He's first
voyage consisted of a fleet of around 300 massive ships, holding almost 28,000 sailors & soldiers. The flagship was at
least five times larger than most ships of its time and still holds the record for the worlds largest wooden ship. Because
these ships were also loaded with extensive amounts of Chinese manufactured products such as porcelain, lacquer, silk,
they were called treasure ships.
To fulfill the wishes of the Ming Emperor, Zheng He's fleets visited virtually all of Indian Ocean: Arabia, East Africa,
India, Indonesia and Thailand (at the time called Siam), dispensing and receiving goods along the way. Some historians
even argue that the Zheng He treasure ships made their way around the Cape of Good Hope into the Atlantic Ocean and
even visited Australia and the Americas years before any Europeans had been to either place, however the sources cited
by such claims are questionable.
Zheng He generally sought to assert Chinese supremacy throughout the Indian Ocean through diplomacy, and his large
army awed most would-be enemies into submission. But a contemporary reported that Zheng He "walked like a tiger" and
did not shrink from violence when he considered it necessary to impress foreign peoples with China's military might. He
ruthlessly suppressed pirates who had long plagued Chinese and southeast Asian waters. He also intervened in a civil
disturbance in order to establish his authority in Ceylon, and he made displays of military force when local officials
threatened his fleet in Arabia and East Africa.
Zheng He returned to China from his voyages with a bounty of trade goods and
ideas. Before he set out on his voyage he first traveled to Japan where he
gained vast knowledge of wind and ocean currents. Also, since plague had
recently decimated the Chinese population Zheng He took note of the various
plague remedies of the Indian Ocean Basin and returned to China with various
pharmaceuticals and medical texts. He also returned with luxurious items like a
giraffe from Africa and 300 Korean virgins as tribute for the Emperor (Many
Chinese thought that Korean women were the most beautiful in the world).
By the mid-1400s however, Zheng Hes expeditions came abruptly to an end.
Many Confucian scholars who distrusted the privileged position of the Eunuchs
argued that the resources used for the voyages would be better utilized spent on
domestic issues such as agriculture. Ming Emperors agreed: they too favored
domestic order over expensive foreign adventures. China slowly began to
isolate itself from the rest of the world.
In conclusion, while the Zheng He missions of the Ming dynasty showed impressive demonstrations of organizational
capability and technological might, they did not have a long lasting impact. Since Zheng He was an admiral and an
official, not a merchant, they did not lead to a significant in increase in trade. Chinese merchants continued to trade in
Japan and Southeast Asia, but Imperial officials gave up any plans to maintain a Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean and
even destroyed most of the nautical charts that Zheng He had carefully prepared. The decommissioned treasure ships sat
in harbors until they rotted away, and Chinese craftsmen forgot the technology of building such large vessels.