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The Treasure-Ships of Zheng HeChinese Maritime Imperialism in the

Age of Discovery

Robert Finlay

On May 20 1498 four Portuguese ships dropped anchor near the port of Calicut onthe Malabar coast of India The event marked a turning-point in the history of theworld the beginning of what has been called the Vasco da Gama epoch of Asianhistoryl For the first time vessels from the European peninsula of Asia sailed to theEast thus making it possible for Western powers to establish themselves overseas Theancient balance of cultures in Asia was shattered and within a remarkably short timemaritime routes under European control-Portuguese Spanish Dutch and Eng-lish-bound the world together The age of European dominion had begun2

When Vasco da Gama arrived back in Lisbon in September 1499 the epoch-makingsignificance of his accomplishment was recognized immediately He was hailed as ahero a second Alexander the Great while his voyage seemed to promise unlimitedpolitical and economic advantages for the Portuguese kingdom3 Anticipating a gloriousfuture for his dynasty King Manuel (1495-1521) bestowed upon himself the title ofKing of the Conquest Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia Arabia Persia andIndia4

The Portuguese were very conscious of being in a race with other European powersfor discovery of a sea route to the Indies Only a few years before da Gamas triumphChristopher Columbus who once haunted the Portuguese court seeking support for avoyage to the west had discovered land across the Atlantic that promised to lead Spain

The author wishes to thank Ms Jiang Jin for her assistance in dealing with Chinese-language materialslKavalain Madhava Pannikar Asia and Western Dominance A Survey of the Vasco da Gama Epoch ofAsian History (London G Allen amp Unwin 1953)

2William H McNeill The Rise of the West (Chicago University of Chicago Press 1963) p 619SA Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama 1497-1499 trans and ed E G Ravenstein (LondonHakluyt Society 1899) pp 225-37 Donald F Lach Asia in the Making of Europe Vol 1 (ChicagoUniversity of Chicago Press 1965) 102 Bailey W Diffie and George D Winius Foundations of thePortuguese Empire 1415-1580 (Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press 1977) pp 175-84

On Manuels title see K S Mathew Trade in the Indian Ocean and the Portuguese System ofCartazes in The First Portuguese Colonial Empire ed Malyn Newitt (Exeter University of ExeterPress 1986) pp 75-77

Terrae Incognitae 23 1991 pp 1-12 copy The Society for the History of Discoveries 1991

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to the riches of Asia6 Unbeknownst to the Portuguese however their greatest competi-tors in the Age of Discovery had already retreated from the seas by the time da Gamadoubled the Cape of Good Hope In fact the Portuguese had the merest hint of this fora Florentine merchant in Lisbon writing on the basis of information that immediatelypreceded the return of da Gama records that the explorer was bringing troubling newsback to Portugal

It is now 80 years since there arrived in this city of Chalicut certain vessels ofwhite Christians who wore their hair long like Germans and had no beardsexcept around the mouth such as are worn at Constantinople by cavaliers andcourtiers They landed wearing a cuirass helmet and vizor and carrying a cer-tain weapon [or sword] attached to a spear Their vessels are armed with bom-bards shorter than those in use with us Once every two years they return with20 or 25 vessels They are unable to tell us what people they are nor whatmerchandise they bring to this city save that it includes very fine linen-cloth andbrass-ware They load spices Their vessels have four masts like those of Spain Ifthey were Germans it seems to me that we should have some notice about thempossibly they may be Russians if they have a port there On the arrival of thecaptain [da Gama] we may learn who these people are 6

As the Portuguese eventually discovered their achievement was secure their mysteri-ous forerunners were Chinese not European A sixteenth-century Portuguese writerrecorded that less than a century before more than eight hundred sail of large andsmall ships had come to India from the ports of Malacca and China and the Leq ueos[the Ryukyu Islands] with people of many nations and all laden with merchandise ofgreat value which they brought for sale they were so numerous that they filled thecountry and settled as dwellers in all the towns of the sea-coast7 A Spaniard wrote atthe same time that it is plainly seene that they did come with shipping into the Indieshaving conquered al that is from China unto the farthest part thereof So that atthis day there is great memory of them in the Hands Philippinas and on the coast ofCoromande and the like notice and memory there is in the kingdom of Calicutwhere be so many trees and fruits were brought thither by the Chinos when thatthey were lords and governours of that countrie8

Sixteenth-century Iberians were notoriously prone to make little distinction betweencommerce and conquest exploration and exploitation so it is natural that they viewedthe tradition of a Chinese presence on the Indian coast as evidence of imperial domina-tion In fact the rumors that da Gama heard on the Malabar coast were a faint con-fused echo of events from some eighty years before when Calicut was a port of call for

liOn Columbuss Portuguese background see A Rumeu de Armas El portugues Cristobal CoLOn en Cas-tilla (Madrid Ediciones cultura hispanica del instituto de cooperaci6n iberoamericana 1982)

6 Journal of the First Voyage p 1317Quoted by K N Chaudhuri Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean (Cambridge Cambridge Uni-versity Press 1985) p 154

sJuan Gonzales de Mendoza The Historie of the Great and Mightie Kingdome of China and the Situationthereof trans Robert Parke (1588) ed G T Staunton (London Hakluyt Society 1853-54) pp 92-95

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armadas from the Ming Empire (1368-1644)9 Between 1405 and 1433 the Chineseemperors Yongle (1402-24) and Xuande (1425-1435) dispatched seven maritime expe-ditions to western Asia commanded by Zheng He sometimes called the Vasco daGama of China and the Chinese Columbus 10 They were the largest long-distanceenterprises before the modern age dwarfing anything that the most powerful Europeanstate could produce Da Gamas square-rigged ships (or naos) ranged from seventy to300 tons were no more than eighty-five feet long had three masts and carried seventymen at most about 170 men sailed in the voyage of 1497-1498 of whom more thanone-half died en route The largest of Zheng Hes vessels called Treasure-ships(baochuan) were as much as 3000 tons in capacity and carried at least 600 men theywere about 400 feet in length and boasted nine mastsll

The Ming expeditions numbered as many as 300 ships and 28000 men figures thatcan be appreciated only when placed within a contemporary European perspective In1415 Prince Henry of Portugal (the Navigator) led some 12000 men and 200 ves-sels in taking the city of Ceuta in Morocco the event which is usually taken to markthe beginning of Portuguese expansion12 At that time however European states didnot have standing forces of more than a few thousand men By the mid-fifteenth cen-tury France and Venice maintained armies of about 20000 soldiers and oy the firstdecades of the sixteenth century major field armies were generally between 25000 and30000 men13 The army that Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain used to conquer thekingdom of Granada in 1492 was about 20000 men while the force with whichCharles VIII of France invaded Italy in 1494 was 28000 strong14

9See Roderich Ptak China and Calicut in the Early Ming Period Envoys and Tribute Embassies Jour-nal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1989) 81-111

lOZheng He is first called the Vasco da Gama of China in Frank Debenham Discovery and ExplorationAn Atlas of Mans Journey into the Unknown (London P Hamlin 1960) p 121 he is called the Chi-nese Columbus in Philip Snow The Star Raft Chinas Encounters with Africa (London Cornell Univer-sity Press 1988) p 21 see also Qiu Kehui Zhouji hanghai de jiechu xianxingzhe Zheng He [Zheng Hethe great forerunner of intercontinental navigation] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji [Essays on ZhengHes voyages] (Beijing Peoples Communication Publishing House 1985) p 342 The most thorough dis-cussion in English of Zheng Hes voyages with emphasis on nautical technology is in joseph NeedhamScience and Civilization in China vol 4 pt 3 Civil Engineering and Nautics (Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1971) pp 389-699 see also J V G Millss introduction to Ma Huan Ying- Yai Sheng-Lan The Overall Survey of the Oceans Shores [l433 J trans and ed Feng Cheng-Chun (CambridgeCambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society 1970) pp 1-66 Pao Tsen-peng On the ships ofCheng Ho Proceedings of the International Association of Historians of Asia Second Biennial Confer-ence (Tapei Taiwan 1962) pp 409-28 P Pelliot Les grands voyages maritimes chinois au debut duXVe siecle Toung Pao 30 (1933) 237-452 and Notes additionnelles sur Tcheng Houo et sur sesvoyages Toung Pao 31 (1935) 274-314 The sources on the life and voyages of Zheng He are gatheredin Zheng Hesheng and Zheng Yijun Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian [Collected sources on Zheng Hesvoyages] 2 vols (jinan Qilu Book Company 1980)

llThere has been considerable controversy over the size of Zheng Hes ships see Needham Science andCivilization 4 481-82 Zhung Weiji and Zhuang jinhui Zheng He baochuan chidu de tan suo [A briefaccount of Zheng Hes fleet] and Qui Ke Zheng He baochuan chicun jizai de kekaoxin [On the reliabil-ity of the records on Zheng Hes Treasure-ship] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji pp 3-9 119-32

12Fernand Salentiny Aufsteig und Fall des portugiesischen Imperiums (Vienna H Bohlaus 1977) p 39H V Livermore On the Conquest of Ceuta Luso-Brazilian Review 2 (1965) 3-14

13john Rigby Hale War and Society in Renaissance Europe 1450-1620 (New York 1985) pp 62-63Michael Edward Mallett and john Rigby Hale The Military Organization of a Renaissance State Ven-ice c 1400 to 1617 (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1984) p 41

14Geoffrey Parker The Military Revolution Military Innovation and the Rise of the West 1500-1800(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988) pp 9 24

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to the riches of Asia6 Unbeknownst to the Portuguese however their greatest competi-tors in the Age of Discovery had already retreated from the seas by the time da Gamadoubled the Cape of Good Hope In fact the Portuguese had the merest hint of this fora Florentine merchant in Lisbon writing on the basis of information that immediatelypreceded the return of da Gama records that the explorer was bringing troubling newsback to Portugal

It is now 80 years since there arrived in this city of Chalicut certain vessels ofwhite Christians who wore their hair long like Germans and had no beardsexcept around the mouth such as are worn at Constantinople by cavaliers andcourtiers They landed wearing a cuirass helmet and vizor and carrying a cer-tain weapon [or sword] attached to a spear Their vessels are armed with bom-bards shorter than those in use with us Once every two years they return with20 or 25 vessels They are unable to tell us what people they are nor whatmerchandise they bring to this city save that it includes very fine linen-cloth andbrass-ware They load spices Their vessels have four masts like those of Spain Ifthey were Germans it seems to me that we should have some notice about thempossibly they may be Russians if they have a port there On the arrival of thecaptain [da Gama] we may learn who these people are 6

As the Portuguese eventually discovered their achievement was secure their mysteri-ous forerunners were Chinese not European A sixteenth-century Portuguese writerrecorded that less than a century before more than eight hundred sail of large andsmall ships had come to India from the ports of Malacca and China and the Leq ueos[the Ryukyu Islands] with people of many nations and all laden with merchandise ofgreat value which they brought for sale they were so numerous that they filled thecountry and settled as dwellers in all the towns of the sea-coast7 A Spaniard wrote atthe same time that it is plainly seene that they did come with shipping into the Indieshaving conquered al that is from China unto the farthest part thereof So that atthis day there is great memory of them in the Hands Philippinas and on the coast ofCoromande and the like notice and memory there is in the kingdom of Calicutwhere be so many trees and fruits were brought thither by the Chinos when thatthey were lords and governours of that countrie8

Sixteenth-century Iberians were notoriously prone to make little distinction betweencommerce and conquest exploration and exploitation so it is natural that they viewedthe tradition of a Chinese presence on the Indian coast as evidence of imperial domina-tion In fact the rumors that da Gama heard on the Malabar coast were a faint con-fused echo of events from some eighty years before when Calicut was a port of call for

liOn Columbuss Portuguese background see A Rumeu de Armas El portugues Cristobal CoLOn en Cas-tilla (Madrid Ediciones cultura hispanica del instituto de cooperaci6n iberoamericana 1982)

6 Journal of the First Voyage p 1317Quoted by K N Chaudhuri Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean (Cambridge Cambridge Uni-versity Press 1985) p 154

sJuan Gonzales de Mendoza The Historie of the Great and Mightie Kingdome of China and the Situationthereof trans Robert Parke (1588) ed G T Staunton (London Hakluyt Society 1853-54) pp 92-95

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armadas from the Ming Empire (1368-1644)9 Between 1405 and 1433 the Chineseemperors Yongle (1402-24) and Xuande (1425-1435) dispatched seven maritime expe-ditions to western Asia commanded by Zheng He sometimes called the Vasco daGama of China and the Chinese Columbus 10 They were the largest long-distanceenterprises before the modern age dwarfing anything that the most powerful Europeanstate could produce Da Gamas square-rigged ships (or naos) ranged from seventy to300 tons were no more than eighty-five feet long had three masts and carried seventymen at most about 170 men sailed in the voyage of 1497-1498 of whom more thanone-half died en route The largest of Zheng Hes vessels called Treasure-ships(baochuan) were as much as 3000 tons in capacity and carried at least 600 men theywere about 400 feet in length and boasted nine mastsll

The Ming expeditions numbered as many as 300 ships and 28000 men figures thatcan be appreciated only when placed within a contemporary European perspective In1415 Prince Henry of Portugal (the Navigator) led some 12000 men and 200 ves-sels in taking the city of Ceuta in Morocco the event which is usually taken to markthe beginning of Portuguese expansion12 At that time however European states didnot have standing forces of more than a few thousand men By the mid-fifteenth cen-tury France and Venice maintained armies of about 20000 soldiers and oy the firstdecades of the sixteenth century major field armies were generally between 25000 and30000 men13 The army that Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain used to conquer thekingdom of Granada in 1492 was about 20000 men while the force with whichCharles VIII of France invaded Italy in 1494 was 28000 strong14

9See Roderich Ptak China and Calicut in the Early Ming Period Envoys and Tribute Embassies Jour-nal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1989) 81-111

lOZheng He is first called the Vasco da Gama of China in Frank Debenham Discovery and ExplorationAn Atlas of Mans Journey into the Unknown (London P Hamlin 1960) p 121 he is called the Chi-nese Columbus in Philip Snow The Star Raft Chinas Encounters with Africa (London Cornell Univer-sity Press 1988) p 21 see also Qiu Kehui Zhouji hanghai de jiechu xianxingzhe Zheng He [Zheng Hethe great forerunner of intercontinental navigation] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji [Essays on ZhengHes voyages] (Beijing Peoples Communication Publishing House 1985) p 342 The most thorough dis-cussion in English of Zheng Hes voyages with emphasis on nautical technology is in joseph NeedhamScience and Civilization in China vol 4 pt 3 Civil Engineering and Nautics (Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1971) pp 389-699 see also J V G Millss introduction to Ma Huan Ying- Yai Sheng-Lan The Overall Survey of the Oceans Shores [l433 J trans and ed Feng Cheng-Chun (CambridgeCambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society 1970) pp 1-66 Pao Tsen-peng On the ships ofCheng Ho Proceedings of the International Association of Historians of Asia Second Biennial Confer-ence (Tapei Taiwan 1962) pp 409-28 P Pelliot Les grands voyages maritimes chinois au debut duXVe siecle Toung Pao 30 (1933) 237-452 and Notes additionnelles sur Tcheng Houo et sur sesvoyages Toung Pao 31 (1935) 274-314 The sources on the life and voyages of Zheng He are gatheredin Zheng Hesheng and Zheng Yijun Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian [Collected sources on Zheng Hesvoyages] 2 vols (jinan Qilu Book Company 1980)

llThere has been considerable controversy over the size of Zheng Hes ships see Needham Science andCivilization 4 481-82 Zhung Weiji and Zhuang jinhui Zheng He baochuan chidu de tan suo [A briefaccount of Zheng Hes fleet] and Qui Ke Zheng He baochuan chicun jizai de kekaoxin [On the reliabil-ity of the records on Zheng Hes Treasure-ship] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji pp 3-9 119-32

12Fernand Salentiny Aufsteig und Fall des portugiesischen Imperiums (Vienna H Bohlaus 1977) p 39H V Livermore On the Conquest of Ceuta Luso-Brazilian Review 2 (1965) 3-14

13john Rigby Hale War and Society in Renaissance Europe 1450-1620 (New York 1985) pp 62-63Michael Edward Mallett and john Rigby Hale The Military Organization of a Renaissance State Ven-ice c 1400 to 1617 (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1984) p 41

14Geoffrey Parker The Military Revolution Military Innovation and the Rise of the West 1500-1800(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988) pp 9 24

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armadas from the Ming Empire (1368-1644)9 Between 1405 and 1433 the Chineseemperors Yongle (1402-24) and Xuande (1425-1435) dispatched seven maritime expe-ditions to western Asia commanded by Zheng He sometimes called the Vasco daGama of China and the Chinese Columbus 10 They were the largest long-distanceenterprises before the modern age dwarfing anything that the most powerful Europeanstate could produce Da Gamas square-rigged ships (or naos) ranged from seventy to300 tons were no more than eighty-five feet long had three masts and carried seventymen at most about 170 men sailed in the voyage of 1497-1498 of whom more thanone-half died en route The largest of Zheng Hes vessels called Treasure-ships(baochuan) were as much as 3000 tons in capacity and carried at least 600 men theywere about 400 feet in length and boasted nine mastsll

The Ming expeditions numbered as many as 300 ships and 28000 men figures thatcan be appreciated only when placed within a contemporary European perspective In1415 Prince Henry of Portugal (the Navigator) led some 12000 men and 200 ves-sels in taking the city of Ceuta in Morocco the event which is usually taken to markthe beginning of Portuguese expansion12 At that time however European states didnot have standing forces of more than a few thousand men By the mid-fifteenth cen-tury France and Venice maintained armies of about 20000 soldiers and oy the firstdecades of the sixteenth century major field armies were generally between 25000 and30000 men13 The army that Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain used to conquer thekingdom of Granada in 1492 was about 20000 men while the force with whichCharles VIII of France invaded Italy in 1494 was 28000 strong14

9See Roderich Ptak China and Calicut in the Early Ming Period Envoys and Tribute Embassies Jour-nal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1989) 81-111

lOZheng He is first called the Vasco da Gama of China in Frank Debenham Discovery and ExplorationAn Atlas of Mans Journey into the Unknown (London P Hamlin 1960) p 121 he is called the Chi-nese Columbus in Philip Snow The Star Raft Chinas Encounters with Africa (London Cornell Univer-sity Press 1988) p 21 see also Qiu Kehui Zhouji hanghai de jiechu xianxingzhe Zheng He [Zheng Hethe great forerunner of intercontinental navigation] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji [Essays on ZhengHes voyages] (Beijing Peoples Communication Publishing House 1985) p 342 The most thorough dis-cussion in English of Zheng Hes voyages with emphasis on nautical technology is in joseph NeedhamScience and Civilization in China vol 4 pt 3 Civil Engineering and Nautics (Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1971) pp 389-699 see also J V G Millss introduction to Ma Huan Ying- Yai Sheng-Lan The Overall Survey of the Oceans Shores [l433 J trans and ed Feng Cheng-Chun (CambridgeCambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society 1970) pp 1-66 Pao Tsen-peng On the ships ofCheng Ho Proceedings of the International Association of Historians of Asia Second Biennial Confer-ence (Tapei Taiwan 1962) pp 409-28 P Pelliot Les grands voyages maritimes chinois au debut duXVe siecle Toung Pao 30 (1933) 237-452 and Notes additionnelles sur Tcheng Houo et sur sesvoyages Toung Pao 31 (1935) 274-314 The sources on the life and voyages of Zheng He are gatheredin Zheng Hesheng and Zheng Yijun Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian [Collected sources on Zheng Hesvoyages] 2 vols (jinan Qilu Book Company 1980)

llThere has been considerable controversy over the size of Zheng Hes ships see Needham Science andCivilization 4 481-82 Zhung Weiji and Zhuang jinhui Zheng He baochuan chidu de tan suo [A briefaccount of Zheng Hes fleet] and Qui Ke Zheng He baochuan chicun jizai de kekaoxin [On the reliabil-ity of the records on Zheng Hes Treasure-ship] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji pp 3-9 119-32

12Fernand Salentiny Aufsteig und Fall des portugiesischen Imperiums (Vienna H Bohlaus 1977) p 39H V Livermore On the Conquest of Ceuta Luso-Brazilian Review 2 (1965) 3-14

13john Rigby Hale War and Society in Renaissance Europe 1450-1620 (New York 1985) pp 62-63Michael Edward Mallett and john Rigby Hale The Military Organization of a Renaissance State Ven-ice c 1400 to 1617 (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1984) p 41

14Geoffrey Parker The Military Revolution Military Innovation and the Rise of the West 1500-1800(Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988) pp 9 24

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King Manuel of Portugal besieged a stronghold in Morocco in 1513 with 18000men and in 1578 his grandson King Sebastian consumed more than one-half of hiskingdoms annual budget in leading 17000 men to disaster in Morocco at the battle ofEI-Ksar el-Kebir (By contrast China in the 1570s had an army of 845000 men)15 Inthe great battle of Lepanto in 1571 between the Christian Holy League and the Otto-man Turks each side amassed a fleet of slightly more than 200 ships16 The Englishroyal navy in 1588 comprised thirty-four ships and 6225 men although Queen Eliza-beth scraped together 197 vessels and 15925 men to counter Philip IIs Spanish Ar-mada of 130 ships and 29453 menl7 European maritime forces deployed in Asia werefar smaller The most powerful fleet sent to the Indian Ocean since Zheng Hes expedi-tions was the force of twenty vessels commanded by Vasco da Gama in his secondvoyage to India in 1502 The largest fleet ever assembled in Portuguese Asia was theforce of forty-three ships sent to raise a siege of Melaka in 1606 about the same num-ber as the junks in the Ming expeditions that supplied Zheng Hes 28000 men withrice and waterI8 Indeed the number of men in one of Zheng Hes Treasure-fleets wasabout two-thirds more than the total European and Eurasian population of Asia Por-tuguesa a~ any time in the sixteenth century 19 Clearly the Ming expeditions werebacked by logistical resources and wealth that were far beyond the capacity of Euro-pean states Moreover the Treasure-fleet of 300 ships was only the most far-rangingconstituent of Chinese maritime power for the Ming Empire also maintained 400 shipsnear N anjing coastal defense squadrons of 2800 ships and a transport fleet (mainlyfor grain) of 3000 vessels-a total of 6500 ships20

Still the great Treasure-ships of Zheng He were gone from the seas of Asia whenthe Portuguese arrived two generations later A precondition for da Gamas voyagemarking an epochal turning-point was the prior retreat of the Chinese navy from theIndian Ocean an unwitting withdrawal from a contest for world dominion21 Much ofsubsequent world history may be said to revolve around this Chinese retreat and West-ern advance hence there have been numerous attempts to explain the dispatch andrecall of the Ming expeditions22

lampDiffie and Winius Foundations of the Portuguese Empire pp 279 478 Ray Huang Military Expendi-tures in Sixteenth-Century Ming China Oriens Extremus 17 (1970) 53

l6Frederic C Lane Venice A Maritime Republic (Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 1973) pp369-70

l1parker Military Revolution p 93 Colin Martin and Geoffrey Parker The Spanish Armada (New York1988) pp 61-65 The largest Spanish vessel in the Armada campaign was 1294 tons while the largestEnglish ship was 1100 tons

l8Diffie and Winius Foundations of the Portuguese Empire p 223 Charles Ralph Boxer The PortugueseSeaborne Empire 1415-1825 (London Hutchinson 1969) pp 52-53 On Zheng Hes supply junks seeZhung Weiji and Zhuang Jinhui Zheng He baochuan chidu de tansuo pp 67-69

leThe European and Eurasian population of the Portuguese Asian empire has been estimated at about10000 in the sixteenth century in Charles Ralph Boxer Four Centuries of Portuguese Expansion 1415-1825 (Johannesburg Witwaterstrand University Press 1961) pp 19-20

20Jung-pang Lo The Emergence of China as a Sea Power during the Late Sung and Early Yuan PeriodsThe Far Eastern Quarterly 11 (1952) 95

2lFernand Braudel Civilization and Capitalism vol 3 The Perspective of the World trans Sian Reynolds(New York Harper amp Row 1984) p 32

22For summaries of various explanations see Roderich Ptak Cheng Hos Abenteuer im Drama und Romander Ming-Zeit (Stuttgart Franz 1986) pp 13-16 and Millss introduction to Ma Huan Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan pp 1-2

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It has been suggested that the Treasure-ships were sent to search for the emperordeposed by Yongle in 1402 although almost certainly that unfortunate monarch per-ished in a fire in Nanjing23 The voyages have also been seen as an attempt to outflankthe army of Timur (Tamerlane) poised for invasion of China in 1404 and as a meansof suppressing piracy in the Straits of Melaka24 They have been viewed as immensepropaganda displays demonstrations of Chinese majesty aimed at cultivating goodwilland respect a way of gently folding barbaric (that is non-Chinese) peoples into thecultural embrace of the Middle Kingdom25 A contrasting interpretation holds that thevoyages were essentially political and that Zheng He imposed Chinese power fromVietnam to Madagascar requiring acceptance of vassalage from over thirty states26

Finally the expeditions have been seen as motivated by commercial policy by the am-bition of civil bureaucrats and merchants to profit from the export of Chinese handi-crafts and the import of foreign goods27 A variant on this interpretation maintains thatthe mission of the voyages was to procure treasures for the Ming court such as

2SThere were rumors at the time that the emperor jianwen had not died in his burning palace but had fledoverseas by the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) the notion was generally accepted that the maritime expeditionswent in search of the emperor see Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2 889-99 Thisview still has wide currency see Wang Zhaosheng Shixi Zheng He xia xiyang zhong de jige wenti [Ananalysis of Zheng Hes voyages] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji pp 145-54 see also Edward DreyerEarly Ming China A Political History 1355-1435 (Stanford Stanford University Press 1982) pp 198-99

240n the voyages as a reaction to Timur see Zhou juseng Zheng He hanglu hao [The routes of Zheng Hesvoyages) (Tapei Taiwan 1959) pp 57-66 and Bruce Swanson Eighth Voyage of the Dragon A Historyof Chinas Ouest for Seapower (Annapolis Naval Institute Press 1982) pp 31-33 For criticism of aconnection between Timurs plans and the Ming fleet see Morris Rossabi Cheng Ho and Timur AnyRelation Oriens Extremus 20 (1973) 129-136 On the voyages and piracy see Han Zhenhua LunZheng He xia xiyang de xinzhi [On the nature of Zheng Hes voyages to the Western Ocean] in Zhengheyanjiu ziliao xuanbian [Selected essays on Zheng He (Beijing Peoples Communication PublishingHouse 1985) pp 308-18

25Most Ming and Qing historians assert that the voyages were intended to civilize barbarian peoples seeZheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2 860-90

260n the political interpretation of the voyages see Wang Gungwu China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 in Studies in the Social History of China and South-East Asia Essays in Memory of Victor Purcelled jerome Chen and Nicholas Tarling (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1970) pp 375-401 and Public and Private Overseas Trade in Chinese History in Societies et compagnies de commerce enorient et dans lOcean Indien (Paris 1970) pp 167-76 jung-pang Lo Intervention in Vietnam A CaseStudy of the Foreign Policy of the Early Ming Government Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 8(1970) 154-82 These works however take too narrow a view of the political purposes of the expeditions

270n the commercial or economic interpretation of the voyages see jung-pang Lo Chinese Shipping andEast-West Trade from the Tenth to the Fourteenth Century in Societes et compagnies de commerce enorient et dans lOcean Indien pp 167-76 idem The Decline of the Early Ming Navy Oriens Ex-tremus 5 (1958) 149-57 Bodo Wiethoff Die chinesische seeverbotspolitih und der private uberseehandelvon 1368 bis 1567 (Hamburg Gesellschaft fUr Natur- und VOlkerkunde Ostasiens Wiesbaden o Har-rassowitz 1963) pp 52-57 john King Fairbank Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast (CambridgeHarvard University Press 1953) pp 34-37 Lin Shimin Zheng He xia xiyang yu ciqi waixiao [ZhengHes expeditions to the Western Ocean and the export of chinaware] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji pp42-49 Tien ju-kang Cheng Hos Voyages and the Distribution of Pepper in China The Journal of theRoyal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland pt 2 (1981) 186-97 Tong Shuye Chonglun ZhengHe xia xiyang shijian zhi maoyi xinzhe [A response regarding the trading nature of Zheng Hes voyages]in Mingdai guoji maoyi [International trade in the Ming dynasty (Tapei Taiwan 1968) pp 97-108Zhang Weihua Mingdai haiwai maoyi jianlun [An essay on overseas trade in the Ming dynasty (Shang-hai 1956) Chen Dezhi Shilun Zheng He xia xiyang de liangchong renwu [On the dual purpose ofZheng Hes voyages to the Western Ocean] in Mingdai shehui jinjishi lunji [Collection on social-eco-nomic history of the Ming dynasty vol 3 (Hong Kong 1975) 355-57

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precious stones pearls ivory and giraffes-or in the lapidary phrase of one historianthat Zheng He went a-shopping for the ladies of the Imperial harem28

When viewed from a fifteenth-century Chinese perspective however some of theseapproaches to explaining the Ming expeditions are complementary rather than contra-dictory Seeing the expeditions as the instrument of a narrowly defined purpose ob-scures the complexity of Chinese maritime imperialism Thus selling desired productssuch as silk porcelain and lacquerware to barbaric peoples was viewed by the Chineseas a manifest demonstration of cultural superiority however much individualmerchants and bureaucrats also profited from the trade Chinese culture itself wasChinas greatest commodity while valued wares were testimony to that cultures excel-lence29 Importing goods from abroad such as precious stones gums resins and spiceswas regarded not as an act of unadulterated commerce but was understood within theframework of the tribute system in which foreign rulers gave gifts to the Chinese em-peror tokens of submission in the form of native products and in return were allowedcertain trading privileges3o

In addition the cultural and commercial aspects of the Ming expeditions cannotneatly be distinguished from political and military aims when Chinese perception offoreign relations and world order is taken into account The expansion of Chinesetrade under government control was effectively the same thing as the expansion ofChinese power31 At the same time the military objective of suppressing piracy inSoutheast Asia was integral to notions of diplomatic and cultural prestige for disrup-tion of tribute and embassies to the Middle Kingdom impugned Chinas sense of rightorder in the world That sense was spelled out by the tribute system which developedas the institutional expression in foreign relations of the centrality of the Middle King-dom The tribute system was a mechanism whereby intercourse with alien peoplescould be translated into traditional Confucian terms of respect and deference from in-ferior to superior From the Chinese perspective no sharp line divided the conditionsfor maintaining international harmony from those for insuring social and political orderwithin the Middle Kingdom The tribute system mediated between international anddomestic harmony hence it was perceived as extending the emperors power as well asChinese civilization to distant realms while external threats to the empire such asbarbarian attack or mistreatment of an imperial embassy were taken as evidence ofdomestic weakness32 The tribute system was a uniquely Chinese instrument of govern-ment combining aspects of cultural propaganda commercial exchange state securityand diplomatic policy that generally were treated as separate and distinct in the West

28Jan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak Chinas Discovery of Africa (London A Probsthain 1949) p 2729Mark Mancall China at the Center 300 Years of Foreign Policy (New York The Free Press 1984) p

10300n the tribute system see the essays in Morris Rossabi ed China Among Equals The Middle Kingdom

and Its Neighbors 10th-14th Centuries (Berkeley University of California Press 1983) and John KingFairbank ed The Chinese World Order Traditional Chinas Foreign Relations (Cambridge HarvardUniversity Press 1968)

31Zhang Weihua Mingdai haiwai maoyi jianlun p 3032Mark Mancall The Ching Tribute System An Interpretive Essay in Fairbank ed The Chinese World

Order p 65 Tao Jingshen Barbarians or Northerners Northern Sung Images of the Khitans in Ros-sabi ed China Among Equals pp 75-76 see also Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian2 854

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The Portuguese (like other Westerners) conceived of an extension of their powerabroad in terms of control of territory planting of colonies and domination of com-merce they thought in terms of sovereignty conquest and mastery as experienced forgenerations within the context of a system of competing states In areas immediatelybordering the empire such as the northern steppe frontier Korea and Vietnam theChinese were also concerned periodically with conquest and direct control albeit notwith tribes or kingdoms that offered much competition with the empire The Chineseotherwise saw the extension of power as a matter of incorporating peoples and rulerswithin a system of hierarchical relationships centering on the emperor they thought interms of ritual submission ceremonial barter and formal recognition as developed forcenturies within the context of a superior powerful civilization condescending to a hostof distant petty and relatively undeveloped principalities33 The Portuguese experiencein Asia was shaped by notions of power politics religious exclusivity and state rivalrywhile the Chinese experience in the same area was molded by ideas of cultural assimi-lation religious indifference and imperial self-satisfaction

Given their background and ambitions it is natural that the Portuguese at first re-garded the reports of a Chinese presence on the Malabar coast as evidence of imperialdomination In fact the Ming expeditions entered the Indian Ocean with vastly moremilitary force than the Portuguese were ever capable of assembling Since that forcewas in the service of a maritime imperialism that was very different from the Westernvariety the intentions behind the voyages of Zheng He have appeared mysterious Onehistorian has even asserted the stark impossibility of knowing the reasons for the Chi-nese expansion or for the collective abandoning of the enterprise at the peak of suc-cess34 The problem however is not that the voyages of Zheng He present a conun-drum but that explanations for the voyages have seemed incommensurate with theirgrandeur and duration The notion that the Treasure-ships were sent as far as the EastAfrican coast and the Red Sea just to peddle porcelain and iron pots or to fetch os-triches and tortoise shell is somehow deflating And it is obvious that chasing down adeposed emperor collecting coral and beeswax and eliminating a few piratestrongholds did not require the dispatch of mammoth fleets for a generation Moreoverif the 1405 expedition had been sent out to prevent Timurs invasion of China it isunclear why six more voyages were necessary inasmuch as the threat of invasion endedwith the death of Timur in the same year35

The 27800 men in the first Ming expedition of 1405 included seven eunuch ambas-sadors ten deputy eunuch ambassadors fifty-three supervisory eunuchs several divina-tion experts 180 medical personnel 300 military officers and 26000 common soldiersas well as about 800 sailors cooks oarsmen secretaries artisans and miscellaneous

33See the characterization (in the context of Zheng Hes voyages) of the differences between the Europeansystem of state rivalry and Chinas imperial domination in Eric Lionel Jones The European MiracleEnvironments Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia (Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1981) pp 203 205 see also Mark Elvin The Pattern of the Chinese Past (StanfordStanford University Press 1973) pp 177 225

34Pierre Chaunu European Expansion in the Later Middle Ages trans Katharine Bertram (AmsterdamNorth Holland Publishing Company 1979) p 228 n 105 see also Janet LAbu-Lughod Before Euro-pean Hegemony The World System AD 1250-1350 (Oxford Oxford University Press 1989) p 321

3l1Rossabi Cheng Ho and Timur p 135

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functionaries36 The Treasure-fleet of Zheng He then was overwhelmingly military incomposition Unlike the Portuguese fleets the Ming expeditions were not seeking terri-tory to conquer or sea lanes to monopolize Nevertheless the Chinese armadas had aclear political mission that called for an overpowering military force-to incorporatethe countries of maritime Asia within the tribute system of the empire with the Son ofHeaven as the guarantor of political legitimacy and commercial mobility in the greatarea formally subject to him For local rulers the prospect of access to Chinese goodswithin the tribute system was the emperors carrot while the army aboard the Trea-sure-ships was his stick Chinese wares usually were sufficiently attractive to localpotentates to convince them to put their names on the tribute roster but it was essentialfor Zheng He to possess a large enough stick if only to be certain of using it sparinglyThe Treasure-ships were intended not only to dazzle foreign peoples with their wealthand majesty but to overawe potential opposition with their might and firepower

This view of the Ming expeditions runs counter to a long tradition of emphasizingthe pacific behavior of the Chinese The cultivation of the goodwill of foreign rulers byZheng He has often been contrasted with Portuguese atrocities such as Pedro AlvaresCabrals bombardment of Calicut in 1501 and da Gamas butchery of several hundredfishermen and Muslim pilgrims off Calicut in 1502 Seen in this light it seems clearthat Zheng He was not sent to conquer or colonize but to make friends and allies37The Chinese were peaceful by nature and therefore refused to make a bid for impe-rial power as did the Portuguese and the Spanish38 The Chinese had no sense ofmission and they were not empire-builders they had no conception of the horrors ofrealpolitik inseparable from a colonial regime39 They were it is said calm andpacific unencumbered by a heritage of enmities in panoply of arms yet conqueringno colonies and setting up no strongholds 40

Reading such encomiums one would do well to remember that the Treasure-shipscontained an experienced and well-trained force that was armed to the teeth one that

SeZheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 1143 A 1406 source states that there were 37000 men in the firstvoyage see also Xu Yuhu Ming Zheng He zhi yanjiu [Research on the Zheng He of the Ming dynasty(Gao Xiong Taiwan De Qinshi 1980) pp 18-41 espec p 20 Ming maritime and land forces were notsharply distinguished (see Dreyer Early Ming China p 202) and it is likely that some of the troopsmanned the ships as well

S7SU Chung-jen Places in South-East Asia the Middle East and Africa visited by Cheng Ho and HisCompanions (AD 1405-1433) in Symposium on Historical Archaeological and Linguistic Studies onSouthern China South-East Asia and the Hong Kong Region Frederick Seguier Drake ed (Hong KongHong Kong University Press 1967) p 207

s8Chiu Ling-yeong Chinese Maritime Expansion 1368-1644 The Journal of the Oriental Society of Aus-tralia 3 (1965) 44

s9William Willetts The Maritime Adventures of Grand Eunuch Ho Journal of Southeast Asian-History5 (1964) 20-21

4degNeedham Science and Civilization 4535 The view of the Chinese as a uniquely peaceful people goesback to the idealization of China found in Jesuit relations of the seventeenth century see Jacques Gernet AHistory of Chinese Civilization trans J R Foster (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1982) pp521-23 In turn this positive image is related to an earlier negative one of the Chinese as cowardly andlacking in martial vigor a view that stemmed from Chinas inability to protect its southeastern coast frompirate attacks in the sixteenth century at the very time that the first Portuguese ships reached China SeeLea E Williams Inauspicious Ambience The Historical Setting of Early Luso-Chinese Contacts inIndo-Portuguese History Old Issues New Questions ed Teotonio de Souza (New Delhi Concept 1985)pp 32-39 and Luis Gonzaga Gomes Os primeiros contactos entre Portugeses e Chineses Boletim doInstituto Luis de Camoes 2 (1966) 159-74

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was larger than the population of most port-cities between Canton and Mombasa Cer-tainly the impression made by Zheng Hes troops was forceful and lasting as wasconveyed by the people of Calicut telling da Gamas men about the helmets spears andbombards of their mysterious predecessors When Zheng Hes 26000 troops marchedoff his ships and built their fortified warehouses it surely inclined their hosts to con-sider that a client relationship with the Ming emperor was an offer that they could notrefuse

Given the overwhelming force in the hands of Zheng He it is less remarkable thatthe Ming expeditions were generally peaceful than that they met opposition at allDuring the second voyage in 1407 some 170 men of the fleet were killed in a Javanesemarket-town the victims of a struggle for power in the Majapahit kingdom of JavaZheng He collected an indemnity in gold from the king41 Later during the same voy-age Zheng Hes soldiers destroyed ten pirate ships and killed several thousand follow-ers of Chen Zuyi the Fujianese pirate-chieftain of Palembang in Sumatra who wastaken to China and beheaded42 In 1411 on the third expedition Vira Alakasvara thede facto monarch of Ceylon attacked a contingent of Zheng Hes forces with (it isalleged) 50000 troops and attempted to burn the Treasure-fleet Zheng He broke outof the ambush invaded the capital city with 2000 men captured the king and hiscourt and then spent six days fighting his way back to his ships Vira Alakasvara wastaken back to China as a prisoner but the emperor Yongle declined to order his execu-tion saying Barbarians are like animals and dont deserve to be put to death43

Heroics such as the so-called Battle of Ceylon Mountain were rarely necessary how-ever A panoply of arms was usually sufficient to cow opposition although it is intrin-sic to the sources that such events go unrecorded A 1597 Ming novel on the voyageswhich extensively used original sources relates that the king of Mogadisho on the EastAfrican coast was persuaded to welcome the Treasure-fleet after bombards simultane-ously blasted the four gates of his city44 The event is played for comic relief in thenovel and smacks of the condescension that the Chinese habitually displayed toward theoutside barbarians Condescension however seems a mild vice when compared to thecruel behavior of the Portuguese Certainly none of the military actions of the Mingfleets can compare with the atrocities of the Portuguese Of course the latter sufferedthe liabilities of being small in number and poor in resources As they saw it a policy

41Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2932 Chiu Ling-yeong Sino-Javanese Relationsin the Early Ming Period Symposium on Historical Archaeological and Linguistic Studies on SouthernChina South-East Asia and the Hong Kong Region ed F S Drake (Hong Kong 1967) p 218 JNoorduyn The Eastern Kings in Majapahit Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde 131(1975) 479-89

42Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2936-38 Chiu Ling-yeong Sino Javanese Rela-tions in the Early Ming Period p 217

4SZheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2949-52 On the confusion surrounding the Cey-lon events see Gintota Parana Vidanage Somaratne The Political History of the Kingdom of Kotte1400-1521 (PhD thesis University of London 1975) pp 65-73 and Willetts The Maritime Adven-tures of Grand Eunuch Ho pp 31-36

44Luo Maodeng San Bao taijian xia xiyang [The voyage of the San Bao Eunuch to the Western Ocean edShen Yunjia (Shanghai nd) chapter 72 see J J L Duyvendak Desultory Notes on the Hsi-Yang ChiToung Pao 42 (1954) 18-19 On Zheng Hes bombards see Joseph Needham Science and Civilization inChina vol 5 pt 7 Military Technology The Gunpowder Epic (Cambridge Cambridge University Press1986) p 296

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of rapacious aggression seasoned with terror was the only means of gaining a footholdin Asia This was recognized by an Indian merchant in Calicut who told the citysruler when Vasco da Gama arrived in 1498 that the Portuguese had nothing to givebut would rather take away and that thus his country would be ruined45

Wealthy and heavily armed the Chinese overawed potential opposition and crushedthose unwise enough not to be willing to submit to a dependent status ComparingMing and Portuguese behavior in Asia and recognizing that the former neither ac-quired colonies nor spread terror on the seas should not obscure the reality of theChinese use of massive military power to impose their will throughout Southeast Asiaand the Indian Ocean In the course of the seven Ming expeditions forty-eight statesbecame tributary clients of the Chinese emperor many of them for the first time46

China became the arbiter of the rise and fall of distant kingdoms Majapahit Javadeclined as it was supplanted by China as the major power in maritime SoutheastAsia47 The city-state of Melaka like Palembang and Brunei renounced allegiance toJava under the protection of Zheng Hes fleet Indeed Melakas rise to eminence in theearly fifteenth century was solely a consequence of Chinese maritime imperialism forthe Ming armadas relied on Melaka for its port facilities and provided an umbrella ofprotection for the fledging state against both Java and Siam48 Ports along the northcoast of Java such as Demak Tuban Gresik Giri and J apara also began to establishtheir political autonomy from the inland Javanese kingdom after Zheng Hes fleet ap-peared on the scene49

Regarding the Treasure-fleet as a military force-albeit infrequently involved incombat-helps clarify the much-debated questions of the motive for the expeditions andthe reason for their disappearance As a military instrument the Ming armadas were adirect expression of the values and ambitions of Yongle the emperor behind the firstsix voyages 50 Before becoming emperor Yongle spent twenty years fighting Mongoltribes on the northern frontier After three years of civil war he wrested the thronefrom his nephew the emperor Jianwen (1398-1402)1gt1 Throughout his reign Yonglecontinued to lead numerous campaigns deep into the northern plains An out-and-out

usJournal of the First Voyage p 7248Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian vol 2 pt 2 pp 1297-1353 see also Hiroshi

Watanabe An Index of Embassies and Tribute Missions from Islamic Countries to Ming China (1368 -1466) as recorded in the Ming Shih-lu classified according to Geographic Area Memoirs of the ResearchDepartment of the Toyo Bunko 33 (1975) 285-349

47G Ceodes The Indianized States of Southeast Asia trans Susan Brown Cowing ed Walter F Vella(Honolulu East-West Center Press 1968) pp 241-42 J Noorduyn Majapahit in the Fifteenth Cen-tury Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde 134 (1978) 208 255-56

48See Wang Gungwu The Opening of Relations between China and Malacca 1403-5 in Malayan andIndonesian Studies Essays Presented to Sir Richard Winstedt ed John Bastin and R Roolvink (OxfordClarendon Press 1964) pp 87-104 D G E Hall A History of South-East Asia 4th ed (New York1981) pp 225-26 Christopher Wake Malaccas Early Kings and the Reception of Islam Journal ofSoutheast Asian History 5 (1964) 117 Shu Shizeng Zheng He xia xiyang zhi jiazhi [Contributions ofZheng Hes voyages to the Western Ocean] in Zhenghe yanjiu ziliao xuanbian p 182

49Kenneth R Hall Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia (Honolulu Universityof Hawaii Press 1985) p 254 see also Theodore G Th Pigeaud and H J de Graaf Islamic States inJava 1500-1700 (The Hague Martinus Nijhoff 1976) p 5

aOOn Yongles personal involvement in decision-making especially regarding the voyages and Vietnam seeWang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 p 376 and Dreyer Early Ming China p 220

alOn the civil war see David B Chan The Usurpation of the Prince of Yen 1398-1402 (San FranciscoChinese Materials Center 1976)

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militarist he ordered the assembly of the first Treasure-fleet within three years ofcoming to power52 About a year later in 1406 he ordered armies totalling 215000men into Vietnam (Annan) the beginning of a twenty-year debacle that drained Chi-nese resources and determination 53

To some extent Yongles commands were in the tradition of the Mongol emperorKubilai Khan (d1294) who also invaded Vietnam and in 1292 sent a huge fleet topunish the kingdom of Java for insubordination 54 Both emperors aspired to dominatethe world outside China although in regard to maritime Asia the means they em-ployed toward that end were very different Playing the role of a Mongol conquerorKubilai Khan used his fleets to punish and defeat his enemies while YongIe within thecontext of the traditional tribute system made an unorthodox use of maritime power toenforce and extend his authority Both men thought in military terms and relied onforce When some of Zheng Hes men were killed in Java and some Chinese diplomatswere robbed in Thailand Yongle warned the respective states that he might deal withthem as he had with Vietnam Similarly those who opposed Yongles aggressive poli-cies also linked the voyages with Vietnam as when a Confucian official addressed asuccessor to Yongle in 1426 Your minister hopes that your majesty would notindulge in military pursuits nor glorify the sending of expeditions to distantcountries 55

The Ming armadas were a personal project of the militaristic emperor and they allbut died with him in 1424 The new emperor Hongxi (1424) cancelled Zheng Hesscheduled seventh voyage on the very day he assumed the throne and he began cuttingback in Vietnam Yongle had imprisoned his long-time Minister of Finance XiaYuanji after he had protested the cost of the expeditions Hongxi personally releasedthe disgraced minister from jail and restored him to office66 Unlike Yongle Hongxihad received an impeccably Confucian education and he fully supported the civil bu-reaucrats who opposed both the Ming voyages and the eunuchs who organized themHongxi died within the year although Confucian officials especially the powerful XiaYuanji generally retained their hold over policy under Xuande (1424-1435) But whenXia Yuanji the foremost opponent of the voyages died in 1430 Xuande ordered thedispatch of the seventh voyage which sailed in 143357

It was the final maritime expedition of the Ming Empire as well as for Zheng Hewho probably died in Calicut and was taken back to China on the last Treasure-fleet 58

1I2The phrase is from Dreyer Early Ming China p 8IIs0n the invasion of Vietnam see Lo Intervention in Vietnam1I4SeeJ V G Mills Notes on early Chinese voyages The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great

Britain and Ireland 3 (1951) 13 Morris Rossabi Kubilai Khan His Life and Times (Berkeley Univer-sity California Press 1988) pp 218-19 Hall A History of South-East Asia pp 88-90

III1LoIntervention in Vietnam p 174 Wang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 pp 391-92 Thequotation is from Wang Gungwu The Decline of the Early Ming Navy Oriens Extremus 5 (1958)167

1I6Dreyer Early Ming China pp 221-25230-33 Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expedi-tions pp 134-35

1I7Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expeditions p 139 Dreyer Early Ming China pp225 233

1I80n the death of Zheng He see Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 1 137-38 XuAoren Zheng He mu yu Huli wa [Zheng Hes tomb and glazed tile] in Zhenghe yanjui ziliao xuanbianpp 351-54

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Xuande was succeeded by his eight-year-old son in 1435 and the Confucian bureau-crats came to dominate policy even more The Treasure-ships were allowed to deterio-rate and the shipyards were starved of labor Timber set aside for the Treasure-shipswas sold cheaply as fuel to the people of Nanjing The men of the fleet were reassignedto repair the royal palace in N anjing to build Yongles mausoleum to load grain onthe Grand Canal and to fight in Vietnam Within a generation the Chinese lost theknowledge of how to build Treasure-ships and private Chinese vessels ceased ventur-ing beyond the Straits of Melaka~9

About 1477 the eunuch Wang Zhi the Inspector of the Frontiers requested therecords of Zheng Hes voyages apparently with the intention of reasserting Chineseauthority in the seas of Asia In response Liu Daxia a high official in the Ministry ofWar destroyed the archives of the expeditions because of his conviction that Chinesepreoccupation with the world outside China was damaging to the empire As he toldhis superior The expeditions [of Zheng He] to the Western Ocean wasted tens ofmyriads of money and grain and moreover the people who met their deaths [because ofthem] may be counted in the myriads Although he returned with wonderful thingswhat benefit was it to the state This was merely an action of bad government of whichministers should severely disapprove Destroying Zheng Hes documents he declaredwas the only way to be certain that future maritime expeditions would be impossibleGO

The Confucian officials who administered the Ming Empire disdained commercemilitarism and naval adventure in favor of self-sufficiency agrarian virtue and impe-rial isolation In their eyes the Middle Kingdom did not need the wider world and themaritime imperialism of Zheng Hes voyages was an embarrassment as well as a dan-ger But twenty years after the records of the Ming expeditions were destroyed Vascoda Gamas four ships reached Calicut Perhaps inspired by the rumors that they heardthere about Zheng Hes Treasure-ships and the riches in them the Portuguese at oncebegan casting their eyes toward the eastern seaways The world was going to come toChina whether China liked it or not

G9Wang The Decline of the Early Ming Navy pp 160-161 Yang Xi Zheng He xia xiyang de mudi jiqibei tinghang de yuanyin [The purpose of Zheng Hes expeditions to the Western Ocean and the reasons fortheir termination] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji p 34 Needham Science and Civilization 4 524-25The decline in shipbuilding techniques and knowledge especially regarding the Treasure-ships is evidentin the 1553 report by the manager of the Nanjing shipyards where most of the Treasure-ships had beenbuilt Li Zhaoxiang Longquan chuan chang zhi [Record of the shipbuilding yards on the Dragon River4 9 611 837-38 (consulted in a sixteenth-century printed edition at Harvard-Yenching Library HarvardUniversity)

BOJan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak The True Dates of the Chinese Maritime Expeditions in the EarlyFifteenth Century Toung Pao 34 (1938) 396

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It has been suggested that the Treasure-ships were sent to search for the emperordeposed by Yongle in 1402 although almost certainly that unfortunate monarch per-ished in a fire in Nanjing23 The voyages have also been seen as an attempt to outflankthe army of Timur (Tamerlane) poised for invasion of China in 1404 and as a meansof suppressing piracy in the Straits of Melaka24 They have been viewed as immensepropaganda displays demonstrations of Chinese majesty aimed at cultivating goodwilland respect a way of gently folding barbaric (that is non-Chinese) peoples into thecultural embrace of the Middle Kingdom25 A contrasting interpretation holds that thevoyages were essentially political and that Zheng He imposed Chinese power fromVietnam to Madagascar requiring acceptance of vassalage from over thirty states26

Finally the expeditions have been seen as motivated by commercial policy by the am-bition of civil bureaucrats and merchants to profit from the export of Chinese handi-crafts and the import of foreign goods27 A variant on this interpretation maintains thatthe mission of the voyages was to procure treasures for the Ming court such as

2SThere were rumors at the time that the emperor jianwen had not died in his burning palace but had fledoverseas by the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) the notion was generally accepted that the maritime expeditionswent in search of the emperor see Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2 889-99 Thisview still has wide currency see Wang Zhaosheng Shixi Zheng He xia xiyang zhong de jige wenti [Ananalysis of Zheng Hes voyages] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji pp 145-54 see also Edward DreyerEarly Ming China A Political History 1355-1435 (Stanford Stanford University Press 1982) pp 198-99

240n the voyages as a reaction to Timur see Zhou juseng Zheng He hanglu hao [The routes of Zheng Hesvoyages) (Tapei Taiwan 1959) pp 57-66 and Bruce Swanson Eighth Voyage of the Dragon A Historyof Chinas Ouest for Seapower (Annapolis Naval Institute Press 1982) pp 31-33 For criticism of aconnection between Timurs plans and the Ming fleet see Morris Rossabi Cheng Ho and Timur AnyRelation Oriens Extremus 20 (1973) 129-136 On the voyages and piracy see Han Zhenhua LunZheng He xia xiyang de xinzhi [On the nature of Zheng Hes voyages to the Western Ocean] in Zhengheyanjiu ziliao xuanbian [Selected essays on Zheng He (Beijing Peoples Communication PublishingHouse 1985) pp 308-18

25Most Ming and Qing historians assert that the voyages were intended to civilize barbarian peoples seeZheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2 860-90

260n the political interpretation of the voyages see Wang Gungwu China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 in Studies in the Social History of China and South-East Asia Essays in Memory of Victor Purcelled jerome Chen and Nicholas Tarling (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1970) pp 375-401 and Public and Private Overseas Trade in Chinese History in Societies et compagnies de commerce enorient et dans lOcean Indien (Paris 1970) pp 167-76 jung-pang Lo Intervention in Vietnam A CaseStudy of the Foreign Policy of the Early Ming Government Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 8(1970) 154-82 These works however take too narrow a view of the political purposes of the expeditions

270n the commercial or economic interpretation of the voyages see jung-pang Lo Chinese Shipping andEast-West Trade from the Tenth to the Fourteenth Century in Societes et compagnies de commerce enorient et dans lOcean Indien pp 167-76 idem The Decline of the Early Ming Navy Oriens Ex-tremus 5 (1958) 149-57 Bodo Wiethoff Die chinesische seeverbotspolitih und der private uberseehandelvon 1368 bis 1567 (Hamburg Gesellschaft fUr Natur- und VOlkerkunde Ostasiens Wiesbaden o Har-rassowitz 1963) pp 52-57 john King Fairbank Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast (CambridgeHarvard University Press 1953) pp 34-37 Lin Shimin Zheng He xia xiyang yu ciqi waixiao [ZhengHes expeditions to the Western Ocean and the export of chinaware] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji pp42-49 Tien ju-kang Cheng Hos Voyages and the Distribution of Pepper in China The Journal of theRoyal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland pt 2 (1981) 186-97 Tong Shuye Chonglun ZhengHe xia xiyang shijian zhi maoyi xinzhe [A response regarding the trading nature of Zheng Hes voyages]in Mingdai guoji maoyi [International trade in the Ming dynasty (Tapei Taiwan 1968) pp 97-108Zhang Weihua Mingdai haiwai maoyi jianlun [An essay on overseas trade in the Ming dynasty (Shang-hai 1956) Chen Dezhi Shilun Zheng He xia xiyang de liangchong renwu [On the dual purpose ofZheng Hes voyages to the Western Ocean] in Mingdai shehui jinjishi lunji [Collection on social-eco-nomic history of the Ming dynasty vol 3 (Hong Kong 1975) 355-57

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precious stones pearls ivory and giraffes-or in the lapidary phrase of one historianthat Zheng He went a-shopping for the ladies of the Imperial harem28

When viewed from a fifteenth-century Chinese perspective however some of theseapproaches to explaining the Ming expeditions are complementary rather than contra-dictory Seeing the expeditions as the instrument of a narrowly defined purpose ob-scures the complexity of Chinese maritime imperialism Thus selling desired productssuch as silk porcelain and lacquerware to barbaric peoples was viewed by the Chineseas a manifest demonstration of cultural superiority however much individualmerchants and bureaucrats also profited from the trade Chinese culture itself wasChinas greatest commodity while valued wares were testimony to that cultures excel-lence29 Importing goods from abroad such as precious stones gums resins and spiceswas regarded not as an act of unadulterated commerce but was understood within theframework of the tribute system in which foreign rulers gave gifts to the Chinese em-peror tokens of submission in the form of native products and in return were allowedcertain trading privileges3o

In addition the cultural and commercial aspects of the Ming expeditions cannotneatly be distinguished from political and military aims when Chinese perception offoreign relations and world order is taken into account The expansion of Chinesetrade under government control was effectively the same thing as the expansion ofChinese power31 At the same time the military objective of suppressing piracy inSoutheast Asia was integral to notions of diplomatic and cultural prestige for disrup-tion of tribute and embassies to the Middle Kingdom impugned Chinas sense of rightorder in the world That sense was spelled out by the tribute system which developedas the institutional expression in foreign relations of the centrality of the Middle King-dom The tribute system was a mechanism whereby intercourse with alien peoplescould be translated into traditional Confucian terms of respect and deference from in-ferior to superior From the Chinese perspective no sharp line divided the conditionsfor maintaining international harmony from those for insuring social and political orderwithin the Middle Kingdom The tribute system mediated between international anddomestic harmony hence it was perceived as extending the emperors power as well asChinese civilization to distant realms while external threats to the empire such asbarbarian attack or mistreatment of an imperial embassy were taken as evidence ofdomestic weakness32 The tribute system was a uniquely Chinese instrument of govern-ment combining aspects of cultural propaganda commercial exchange state securityand diplomatic policy that generally were treated as separate and distinct in the West

28Jan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak Chinas Discovery of Africa (London A Probsthain 1949) p 2729Mark Mancall China at the Center 300 Years of Foreign Policy (New York The Free Press 1984) p

10300n the tribute system see the essays in Morris Rossabi ed China Among Equals The Middle Kingdom

and Its Neighbors 10th-14th Centuries (Berkeley University of California Press 1983) and John KingFairbank ed The Chinese World Order Traditional Chinas Foreign Relations (Cambridge HarvardUniversity Press 1968)

31Zhang Weihua Mingdai haiwai maoyi jianlun p 3032Mark Mancall The Ching Tribute System An Interpretive Essay in Fairbank ed The Chinese World

Order p 65 Tao Jingshen Barbarians or Northerners Northern Sung Images of the Khitans in Ros-sabi ed China Among Equals pp 75-76 see also Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian2 854

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The Portuguese (like other Westerners) conceived of an extension of their powerabroad in terms of control of territory planting of colonies and domination of com-merce they thought in terms of sovereignty conquest and mastery as experienced forgenerations within the context of a system of competing states In areas immediatelybordering the empire such as the northern steppe frontier Korea and Vietnam theChinese were also concerned periodically with conquest and direct control albeit notwith tribes or kingdoms that offered much competition with the empire The Chineseotherwise saw the extension of power as a matter of incorporating peoples and rulerswithin a system of hierarchical relationships centering on the emperor they thought interms of ritual submission ceremonial barter and formal recognition as developed forcenturies within the context of a superior powerful civilization condescending to a hostof distant petty and relatively undeveloped principalities33 The Portuguese experiencein Asia was shaped by notions of power politics religious exclusivity and state rivalrywhile the Chinese experience in the same area was molded by ideas of cultural assimi-lation religious indifference and imperial self-satisfaction

Given their background and ambitions it is natural that the Portuguese at first re-garded the reports of a Chinese presence on the Malabar coast as evidence of imperialdomination In fact the Ming expeditions entered the Indian Ocean with vastly moremilitary force than the Portuguese were ever capable of assembling Since that forcewas in the service of a maritime imperialism that was very different from the Westernvariety the intentions behind the voyages of Zheng He have appeared mysterious Onehistorian has even asserted the stark impossibility of knowing the reasons for the Chi-nese expansion or for the collective abandoning of the enterprise at the peak of suc-cess34 The problem however is not that the voyages of Zheng He present a conun-drum but that explanations for the voyages have seemed incommensurate with theirgrandeur and duration The notion that the Treasure-ships were sent as far as the EastAfrican coast and the Red Sea just to peddle porcelain and iron pots or to fetch os-triches and tortoise shell is somehow deflating And it is obvious that chasing down adeposed emperor collecting coral and beeswax and eliminating a few piratestrongholds did not require the dispatch of mammoth fleets for a generation Moreoverif the 1405 expedition had been sent out to prevent Timurs invasion of China it isunclear why six more voyages were necessary inasmuch as the threat of invasion endedwith the death of Timur in the same year35

The 27800 men in the first Ming expedition of 1405 included seven eunuch ambas-sadors ten deputy eunuch ambassadors fifty-three supervisory eunuchs several divina-tion experts 180 medical personnel 300 military officers and 26000 common soldiersas well as about 800 sailors cooks oarsmen secretaries artisans and miscellaneous

33See the characterization (in the context of Zheng Hes voyages) of the differences between the Europeansystem of state rivalry and Chinas imperial domination in Eric Lionel Jones The European MiracleEnvironments Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia (Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1981) pp 203 205 see also Mark Elvin The Pattern of the Chinese Past (StanfordStanford University Press 1973) pp 177 225

34Pierre Chaunu European Expansion in the Later Middle Ages trans Katharine Bertram (AmsterdamNorth Holland Publishing Company 1979) p 228 n 105 see also Janet LAbu-Lughod Before Euro-pean Hegemony The World System AD 1250-1350 (Oxford Oxford University Press 1989) p 321

3l1Rossabi Cheng Ho and Timur p 135

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functionaries36 The Treasure-fleet of Zheng He then was overwhelmingly military incomposition Unlike the Portuguese fleets the Ming expeditions were not seeking terri-tory to conquer or sea lanes to monopolize Nevertheless the Chinese armadas had aclear political mission that called for an overpowering military force-to incorporatethe countries of maritime Asia within the tribute system of the empire with the Son ofHeaven as the guarantor of political legitimacy and commercial mobility in the greatarea formally subject to him For local rulers the prospect of access to Chinese goodswithin the tribute system was the emperors carrot while the army aboard the Trea-sure-ships was his stick Chinese wares usually were sufficiently attractive to localpotentates to convince them to put their names on the tribute roster but it was essentialfor Zheng He to possess a large enough stick if only to be certain of using it sparinglyThe Treasure-ships were intended not only to dazzle foreign peoples with their wealthand majesty but to overawe potential opposition with their might and firepower

This view of the Ming expeditions runs counter to a long tradition of emphasizingthe pacific behavior of the Chinese The cultivation of the goodwill of foreign rulers byZheng He has often been contrasted with Portuguese atrocities such as Pedro AlvaresCabrals bombardment of Calicut in 1501 and da Gamas butchery of several hundredfishermen and Muslim pilgrims off Calicut in 1502 Seen in this light it seems clearthat Zheng He was not sent to conquer or colonize but to make friends and allies37The Chinese were peaceful by nature and therefore refused to make a bid for impe-rial power as did the Portuguese and the Spanish38 The Chinese had no sense ofmission and they were not empire-builders they had no conception of the horrors ofrealpolitik inseparable from a colonial regime39 They were it is said calm andpacific unencumbered by a heritage of enmities in panoply of arms yet conqueringno colonies and setting up no strongholds 40

Reading such encomiums one would do well to remember that the Treasure-shipscontained an experienced and well-trained force that was armed to the teeth one that

SeZheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 1143 A 1406 source states that there were 37000 men in the firstvoyage see also Xu Yuhu Ming Zheng He zhi yanjiu [Research on the Zheng He of the Ming dynasty(Gao Xiong Taiwan De Qinshi 1980) pp 18-41 espec p 20 Ming maritime and land forces were notsharply distinguished (see Dreyer Early Ming China p 202) and it is likely that some of the troopsmanned the ships as well

S7SU Chung-jen Places in South-East Asia the Middle East and Africa visited by Cheng Ho and HisCompanions (AD 1405-1433) in Symposium on Historical Archaeological and Linguistic Studies onSouthern China South-East Asia and the Hong Kong Region Frederick Seguier Drake ed (Hong KongHong Kong University Press 1967) p 207

s8Chiu Ling-yeong Chinese Maritime Expansion 1368-1644 The Journal of the Oriental Society of Aus-tralia 3 (1965) 44

s9William Willetts The Maritime Adventures of Grand Eunuch Ho Journal of Southeast Asian-History5 (1964) 20-21

4degNeedham Science and Civilization 4535 The view of the Chinese as a uniquely peaceful people goesback to the idealization of China found in Jesuit relations of the seventeenth century see Jacques Gernet AHistory of Chinese Civilization trans J R Foster (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1982) pp521-23 In turn this positive image is related to an earlier negative one of the Chinese as cowardly andlacking in martial vigor a view that stemmed from Chinas inability to protect its southeastern coast frompirate attacks in the sixteenth century at the very time that the first Portuguese ships reached China SeeLea E Williams Inauspicious Ambience The Historical Setting of Early Luso-Chinese Contacts inIndo-Portuguese History Old Issues New Questions ed Teotonio de Souza (New Delhi Concept 1985)pp 32-39 and Luis Gonzaga Gomes Os primeiros contactos entre Portugeses e Chineses Boletim doInstituto Luis de Camoes 2 (1966) 159-74

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was larger than the population of most port-cities between Canton and Mombasa Cer-tainly the impression made by Zheng Hes troops was forceful and lasting as wasconveyed by the people of Calicut telling da Gamas men about the helmets spears andbombards of their mysterious predecessors When Zheng Hes 26000 troops marchedoff his ships and built their fortified warehouses it surely inclined their hosts to con-sider that a client relationship with the Ming emperor was an offer that they could notrefuse

Given the overwhelming force in the hands of Zheng He it is less remarkable thatthe Ming expeditions were generally peaceful than that they met opposition at allDuring the second voyage in 1407 some 170 men of the fleet were killed in a Javanesemarket-town the victims of a struggle for power in the Majapahit kingdom of JavaZheng He collected an indemnity in gold from the king41 Later during the same voy-age Zheng Hes soldiers destroyed ten pirate ships and killed several thousand follow-ers of Chen Zuyi the Fujianese pirate-chieftain of Palembang in Sumatra who wastaken to China and beheaded42 In 1411 on the third expedition Vira Alakasvara thede facto monarch of Ceylon attacked a contingent of Zheng Hes forces with (it isalleged) 50000 troops and attempted to burn the Treasure-fleet Zheng He broke outof the ambush invaded the capital city with 2000 men captured the king and hiscourt and then spent six days fighting his way back to his ships Vira Alakasvara wastaken back to China as a prisoner but the emperor Yongle declined to order his execu-tion saying Barbarians are like animals and dont deserve to be put to death43

Heroics such as the so-called Battle of Ceylon Mountain were rarely necessary how-ever A panoply of arms was usually sufficient to cow opposition although it is intrin-sic to the sources that such events go unrecorded A 1597 Ming novel on the voyageswhich extensively used original sources relates that the king of Mogadisho on the EastAfrican coast was persuaded to welcome the Treasure-fleet after bombards simultane-ously blasted the four gates of his city44 The event is played for comic relief in thenovel and smacks of the condescension that the Chinese habitually displayed toward theoutside barbarians Condescension however seems a mild vice when compared to thecruel behavior of the Portuguese Certainly none of the military actions of the Mingfleets can compare with the atrocities of the Portuguese Of course the latter sufferedthe liabilities of being small in number and poor in resources As they saw it a policy

41Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2932 Chiu Ling-yeong Sino-Javanese Relationsin the Early Ming Period Symposium on Historical Archaeological and Linguistic Studies on SouthernChina South-East Asia and the Hong Kong Region ed F S Drake (Hong Kong 1967) p 218 JNoorduyn The Eastern Kings in Majapahit Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde 131(1975) 479-89

42Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2936-38 Chiu Ling-yeong Sino Javanese Rela-tions in the Early Ming Period p 217

4SZheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2949-52 On the confusion surrounding the Cey-lon events see Gintota Parana Vidanage Somaratne The Political History of the Kingdom of Kotte1400-1521 (PhD thesis University of London 1975) pp 65-73 and Willetts The Maritime Adven-tures of Grand Eunuch Ho pp 31-36

44Luo Maodeng San Bao taijian xia xiyang [The voyage of the San Bao Eunuch to the Western Ocean edShen Yunjia (Shanghai nd) chapter 72 see J J L Duyvendak Desultory Notes on the Hsi-Yang ChiToung Pao 42 (1954) 18-19 On Zheng Hes bombards see Joseph Needham Science and Civilization inChina vol 5 pt 7 Military Technology The Gunpowder Epic (Cambridge Cambridge University Press1986) p 296

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of rapacious aggression seasoned with terror was the only means of gaining a footholdin Asia This was recognized by an Indian merchant in Calicut who told the citysruler when Vasco da Gama arrived in 1498 that the Portuguese had nothing to givebut would rather take away and that thus his country would be ruined45

Wealthy and heavily armed the Chinese overawed potential opposition and crushedthose unwise enough not to be willing to submit to a dependent status ComparingMing and Portuguese behavior in Asia and recognizing that the former neither ac-quired colonies nor spread terror on the seas should not obscure the reality of theChinese use of massive military power to impose their will throughout Southeast Asiaand the Indian Ocean In the course of the seven Ming expeditions forty-eight statesbecame tributary clients of the Chinese emperor many of them for the first time46

China became the arbiter of the rise and fall of distant kingdoms Majapahit Javadeclined as it was supplanted by China as the major power in maritime SoutheastAsia47 The city-state of Melaka like Palembang and Brunei renounced allegiance toJava under the protection of Zheng Hes fleet Indeed Melakas rise to eminence in theearly fifteenth century was solely a consequence of Chinese maritime imperialism forthe Ming armadas relied on Melaka for its port facilities and provided an umbrella ofprotection for the fledging state against both Java and Siam48 Ports along the northcoast of Java such as Demak Tuban Gresik Giri and J apara also began to establishtheir political autonomy from the inland Javanese kingdom after Zheng Hes fleet ap-peared on the scene49

Regarding the Treasure-fleet as a military force-albeit infrequently involved incombat-helps clarify the much-debated questions of the motive for the expeditions andthe reason for their disappearance As a military instrument the Ming armadas were adirect expression of the values and ambitions of Yongle the emperor behind the firstsix voyages 50 Before becoming emperor Yongle spent twenty years fighting Mongoltribes on the northern frontier After three years of civil war he wrested the thronefrom his nephew the emperor Jianwen (1398-1402)1gt1 Throughout his reign Yonglecontinued to lead numerous campaigns deep into the northern plains An out-and-out

usJournal of the First Voyage p 7248Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian vol 2 pt 2 pp 1297-1353 see also Hiroshi

Watanabe An Index of Embassies and Tribute Missions from Islamic Countries to Ming China (1368 -1466) as recorded in the Ming Shih-lu classified according to Geographic Area Memoirs of the ResearchDepartment of the Toyo Bunko 33 (1975) 285-349

47G Ceodes The Indianized States of Southeast Asia trans Susan Brown Cowing ed Walter F Vella(Honolulu East-West Center Press 1968) pp 241-42 J Noorduyn Majapahit in the Fifteenth Cen-tury Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde 134 (1978) 208 255-56

48See Wang Gungwu The Opening of Relations between China and Malacca 1403-5 in Malayan andIndonesian Studies Essays Presented to Sir Richard Winstedt ed John Bastin and R Roolvink (OxfordClarendon Press 1964) pp 87-104 D G E Hall A History of South-East Asia 4th ed (New York1981) pp 225-26 Christopher Wake Malaccas Early Kings and the Reception of Islam Journal ofSoutheast Asian History 5 (1964) 117 Shu Shizeng Zheng He xia xiyang zhi jiazhi [Contributions ofZheng Hes voyages to the Western Ocean] in Zhenghe yanjiu ziliao xuanbian p 182

49Kenneth R Hall Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia (Honolulu Universityof Hawaii Press 1985) p 254 see also Theodore G Th Pigeaud and H J de Graaf Islamic States inJava 1500-1700 (The Hague Martinus Nijhoff 1976) p 5

aOOn Yongles personal involvement in decision-making especially regarding the voyages and Vietnam seeWang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 p 376 and Dreyer Early Ming China p 220

alOn the civil war see David B Chan The Usurpation of the Prince of Yen 1398-1402 (San FranciscoChinese Materials Center 1976)

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militarist he ordered the assembly of the first Treasure-fleet within three years ofcoming to power52 About a year later in 1406 he ordered armies totalling 215000men into Vietnam (Annan) the beginning of a twenty-year debacle that drained Chi-nese resources and determination 53

To some extent Yongles commands were in the tradition of the Mongol emperorKubilai Khan (d1294) who also invaded Vietnam and in 1292 sent a huge fleet topunish the kingdom of Java for insubordination 54 Both emperors aspired to dominatethe world outside China although in regard to maritime Asia the means they em-ployed toward that end were very different Playing the role of a Mongol conquerorKubilai Khan used his fleets to punish and defeat his enemies while YongIe within thecontext of the traditional tribute system made an unorthodox use of maritime power toenforce and extend his authority Both men thought in military terms and relied onforce When some of Zheng Hes men were killed in Java and some Chinese diplomatswere robbed in Thailand Yongle warned the respective states that he might deal withthem as he had with Vietnam Similarly those who opposed Yongles aggressive poli-cies also linked the voyages with Vietnam as when a Confucian official addressed asuccessor to Yongle in 1426 Your minister hopes that your majesty would notindulge in military pursuits nor glorify the sending of expeditions to distantcountries 55

The Ming armadas were a personal project of the militaristic emperor and they allbut died with him in 1424 The new emperor Hongxi (1424) cancelled Zheng Hesscheduled seventh voyage on the very day he assumed the throne and he began cuttingback in Vietnam Yongle had imprisoned his long-time Minister of Finance XiaYuanji after he had protested the cost of the expeditions Hongxi personally releasedthe disgraced minister from jail and restored him to office66 Unlike Yongle Hongxihad received an impeccably Confucian education and he fully supported the civil bu-reaucrats who opposed both the Ming voyages and the eunuchs who organized themHongxi died within the year although Confucian officials especially the powerful XiaYuanji generally retained their hold over policy under Xuande (1424-1435) But whenXia Yuanji the foremost opponent of the voyages died in 1430 Xuande ordered thedispatch of the seventh voyage which sailed in 143357

It was the final maritime expedition of the Ming Empire as well as for Zheng Hewho probably died in Calicut and was taken back to China on the last Treasure-fleet 58

1I2The phrase is from Dreyer Early Ming China p 8IIs0n the invasion of Vietnam see Lo Intervention in Vietnam1I4SeeJ V G Mills Notes on early Chinese voyages The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great

Britain and Ireland 3 (1951) 13 Morris Rossabi Kubilai Khan His Life and Times (Berkeley Univer-sity California Press 1988) pp 218-19 Hall A History of South-East Asia pp 88-90

III1LoIntervention in Vietnam p 174 Wang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 pp 391-92 Thequotation is from Wang Gungwu The Decline of the Early Ming Navy Oriens Extremus 5 (1958)167

1I6Dreyer Early Ming China pp 221-25230-33 Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expedi-tions pp 134-35

1I7Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expeditions p 139 Dreyer Early Ming China pp225 233

1I80n the death of Zheng He see Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 1 137-38 XuAoren Zheng He mu yu Huli wa [Zheng Hes tomb and glazed tile] in Zhenghe yanjui ziliao xuanbianpp 351-54

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Xuande was succeeded by his eight-year-old son in 1435 and the Confucian bureau-crats came to dominate policy even more The Treasure-ships were allowed to deterio-rate and the shipyards were starved of labor Timber set aside for the Treasure-shipswas sold cheaply as fuel to the people of Nanjing The men of the fleet were reassignedto repair the royal palace in N anjing to build Yongles mausoleum to load grain onthe Grand Canal and to fight in Vietnam Within a generation the Chinese lost theknowledge of how to build Treasure-ships and private Chinese vessels ceased ventur-ing beyond the Straits of Melaka~9

About 1477 the eunuch Wang Zhi the Inspector of the Frontiers requested therecords of Zheng Hes voyages apparently with the intention of reasserting Chineseauthority in the seas of Asia In response Liu Daxia a high official in the Ministry ofWar destroyed the archives of the expeditions because of his conviction that Chinesepreoccupation with the world outside China was damaging to the empire As he toldhis superior The expeditions [of Zheng He] to the Western Ocean wasted tens ofmyriads of money and grain and moreover the people who met their deaths [because ofthem] may be counted in the myriads Although he returned with wonderful thingswhat benefit was it to the state This was merely an action of bad government of whichministers should severely disapprove Destroying Zheng Hes documents he declaredwas the only way to be certain that future maritime expeditions would be impossibleGO

The Confucian officials who administered the Ming Empire disdained commercemilitarism and naval adventure in favor of self-sufficiency agrarian virtue and impe-rial isolation In their eyes the Middle Kingdom did not need the wider world and themaritime imperialism of Zheng Hes voyages was an embarrassment as well as a dan-ger But twenty years after the records of the Ming expeditions were destroyed Vascoda Gamas four ships reached Calicut Perhaps inspired by the rumors that they heardthere about Zheng Hes Treasure-ships and the riches in them the Portuguese at oncebegan casting their eyes toward the eastern seaways The world was going to come toChina whether China liked it or not

G9Wang The Decline of the Early Ming Navy pp 160-161 Yang Xi Zheng He xia xiyang de mudi jiqibei tinghang de yuanyin [The purpose of Zheng Hes expeditions to the Western Ocean and the reasons fortheir termination] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji p 34 Needham Science and Civilization 4 524-25The decline in shipbuilding techniques and knowledge especially regarding the Treasure-ships is evidentin the 1553 report by the manager of the Nanjing shipyards where most of the Treasure-ships had beenbuilt Li Zhaoxiang Longquan chuan chang zhi [Record of the shipbuilding yards on the Dragon River4 9 611 837-38 (consulted in a sixteenth-century printed edition at Harvard-Yenching Library HarvardUniversity)

BOJan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak The True Dates of the Chinese Maritime Expeditions in the EarlyFifteenth Century Toung Pao 34 (1938) 396

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precious stones pearls ivory and giraffes-or in the lapidary phrase of one historianthat Zheng He went a-shopping for the ladies of the Imperial harem28

When viewed from a fifteenth-century Chinese perspective however some of theseapproaches to explaining the Ming expeditions are complementary rather than contra-dictory Seeing the expeditions as the instrument of a narrowly defined purpose ob-scures the complexity of Chinese maritime imperialism Thus selling desired productssuch as silk porcelain and lacquerware to barbaric peoples was viewed by the Chineseas a manifest demonstration of cultural superiority however much individualmerchants and bureaucrats also profited from the trade Chinese culture itself wasChinas greatest commodity while valued wares were testimony to that cultures excel-lence29 Importing goods from abroad such as precious stones gums resins and spiceswas regarded not as an act of unadulterated commerce but was understood within theframework of the tribute system in which foreign rulers gave gifts to the Chinese em-peror tokens of submission in the form of native products and in return were allowedcertain trading privileges3o

In addition the cultural and commercial aspects of the Ming expeditions cannotneatly be distinguished from political and military aims when Chinese perception offoreign relations and world order is taken into account The expansion of Chinesetrade under government control was effectively the same thing as the expansion ofChinese power31 At the same time the military objective of suppressing piracy inSoutheast Asia was integral to notions of diplomatic and cultural prestige for disrup-tion of tribute and embassies to the Middle Kingdom impugned Chinas sense of rightorder in the world That sense was spelled out by the tribute system which developedas the institutional expression in foreign relations of the centrality of the Middle King-dom The tribute system was a mechanism whereby intercourse with alien peoplescould be translated into traditional Confucian terms of respect and deference from in-ferior to superior From the Chinese perspective no sharp line divided the conditionsfor maintaining international harmony from those for insuring social and political orderwithin the Middle Kingdom The tribute system mediated between international anddomestic harmony hence it was perceived as extending the emperors power as well asChinese civilization to distant realms while external threats to the empire such asbarbarian attack or mistreatment of an imperial embassy were taken as evidence ofdomestic weakness32 The tribute system was a uniquely Chinese instrument of govern-ment combining aspects of cultural propaganda commercial exchange state securityand diplomatic policy that generally were treated as separate and distinct in the West

28Jan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak Chinas Discovery of Africa (London A Probsthain 1949) p 2729Mark Mancall China at the Center 300 Years of Foreign Policy (New York The Free Press 1984) p

10300n the tribute system see the essays in Morris Rossabi ed China Among Equals The Middle Kingdom

and Its Neighbors 10th-14th Centuries (Berkeley University of California Press 1983) and John KingFairbank ed The Chinese World Order Traditional Chinas Foreign Relations (Cambridge HarvardUniversity Press 1968)

31Zhang Weihua Mingdai haiwai maoyi jianlun p 3032Mark Mancall The Ching Tribute System An Interpretive Essay in Fairbank ed The Chinese World

Order p 65 Tao Jingshen Barbarians or Northerners Northern Sung Images of the Khitans in Ros-sabi ed China Among Equals pp 75-76 see also Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian2 854

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The Portuguese (like other Westerners) conceived of an extension of their powerabroad in terms of control of territory planting of colonies and domination of com-merce they thought in terms of sovereignty conquest and mastery as experienced forgenerations within the context of a system of competing states In areas immediatelybordering the empire such as the northern steppe frontier Korea and Vietnam theChinese were also concerned periodically with conquest and direct control albeit notwith tribes or kingdoms that offered much competition with the empire The Chineseotherwise saw the extension of power as a matter of incorporating peoples and rulerswithin a system of hierarchical relationships centering on the emperor they thought interms of ritual submission ceremonial barter and formal recognition as developed forcenturies within the context of a superior powerful civilization condescending to a hostof distant petty and relatively undeveloped principalities33 The Portuguese experiencein Asia was shaped by notions of power politics religious exclusivity and state rivalrywhile the Chinese experience in the same area was molded by ideas of cultural assimi-lation religious indifference and imperial self-satisfaction

Given their background and ambitions it is natural that the Portuguese at first re-garded the reports of a Chinese presence on the Malabar coast as evidence of imperialdomination In fact the Ming expeditions entered the Indian Ocean with vastly moremilitary force than the Portuguese were ever capable of assembling Since that forcewas in the service of a maritime imperialism that was very different from the Westernvariety the intentions behind the voyages of Zheng He have appeared mysterious Onehistorian has even asserted the stark impossibility of knowing the reasons for the Chi-nese expansion or for the collective abandoning of the enterprise at the peak of suc-cess34 The problem however is not that the voyages of Zheng He present a conun-drum but that explanations for the voyages have seemed incommensurate with theirgrandeur and duration The notion that the Treasure-ships were sent as far as the EastAfrican coast and the Red Sea just to peddle porcelain and iron pots or to fetch os-triches and tortoise shell is somehow deflating And it is obvious that chasing down adeposed emperor collecting coral and beeswax and eliminating a few piratestrongholds did not require the dispatch of mammoth fleets for a generation Moreoverif the 1405 expedition had been sent out to prevent Timurs invasion of China it isunclear why six more voyages were necessary inasmuch as the threat of invasion endedwith the death of Timur in the same year35

The 27800 men in the first Ming expedition of 1405 included seven eunuch ambas-sadors ten deputy eunuch ambassadors fifty-three supervisory eunuchs several divina-tion experts 180 medical personnel 300 military officers and 26000 common soldiersas well as about 800 sailors cooks oarsmen secretaries artisans and miscellaneous

33See the characterization (in the context of Zheng Hes voyages) of the differences between the Europeansystem of state rivalry and Chinas imperial domination in Eric Lionel Jones The European MiracleEnvironments Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia (Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1981) pp 203 205 see also Mark Elvin The Pattern of the Chinese Past (StanfordStanford University Press 1973) pp 177 225

34Pierre Chaunu European Expansion in the Later Middle Ages trans Katharine Bertram (AmsterdamNorth Holland Publishing Company 1979) p 228 n 105 see also Janet LAbu-Lughod Before Euro-pean Hegemony The World System AD 1250-1350 (Oxford Oxford University Press 1989) p 321

3l1Rossabi Cheng Ho and Timur p 135

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functionaries36 The Treasure-fleet of Zheng He then was overwhelmingly military incomposition Unlike the Portuguese fleets the Ming expeditions were not seeking terri-tory to conquer or sea lanes to monopolize Nevertheless the Chinese armadas had aclear political mission that called for an overpowering military force-to incorporatethe countries of maritime Asia within the tribute system of the empire with the Son ofHeaven as the guarantor of political legitimacy and commercial mobility in the greatarea formally subject to him For local rulers the prospect of access to Chinese goodswithin the tribute system was the emperors carrot while the army aboard the Trea-sure-ships was his stick Chinese wares usually were sufficiently attractive to localpotentates to convince them to put their names on the tribute roster but it was essentialfor Zheng He to possess a large enough stick if only to be certain of using it sparinglyThe Treasure-ships were intended not only to dazzle foreign peoples with their wealthand majesty but to overawe potential opposition with their might and firepower

This view of the Ming expeditions runs counter to a long tradition of emphasizingthe pacific behavior of the Chinese The cultivation of the goodwill of foreign rulers byZheng He has often been contrasted with Portuguese atrocities such as Pedro AlvaresCabrals bombardment of Calicut in 1501 and da Gamas butchery of several hundredfishermen and Muslim pilgrims off Calicut in 1502 Seen in this light it seems clearthat Zheng He was not sent to conquer or colonize but to make friends and allies37The Chinese were peaceful by nature and therefore refused to make a bid for impe-rial power as did the Portuguese and the Spanish38 The Chinese had no sense ofmission and they were not empire-builders they had no conception of the horrors ofrealpolitik inseparable from a colonial regime39 They were it is said calm andpacific unencumbered by a heritage of enmities in panoply of arms yet conqueringno colonies and setting up no strongholds 40

Reading such encomiums one would do well to remember that the Treasure-shipscontained an experienced and well-trained force that was armed to the teeth one that

SeZheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 1143 A 1406 source states that there were 37000 men in the firstvoyage see also Xu Yuhu Ming Zheng He zhi yanjiu [Research on the Zheng He of the Ming dynasty(Gao Xiong Taiwan De Qinshi 1980) pp 18-41 espec p 20 Ming maritime and land forces were notsharply distinguished (see Dreyer Early Ming China p 202) and it is likely that some of the troopsmanned the ships as well

S7SU Chung-jen Places in South-East Asia the Middle East and Africa visited by Cheng Ho and HisCompanions (AD 1405-1433) in Symposium on Historical Archaeological and Linguistic Studies onSouthern China South-East Asia and the Hong Kong Region Frederick Seguier Drake ed (Hong KongHong Kong University Press 1967) p 207

s8Chiu Ling-yeong Chinese Maritime Expansion 1368-1644 The Journal of the Oriental Society of Aus-tralia 3 (1965) 44

s9William Willetts The Maritime Adventures of Grand Eunuch Ho Journal of Southeast Asian-History5 (1964) 20-21

4degNeedham Science and Civilization 4535 The view of the Chinese as a uniquely peaceful people goesback to the idealization of China found in Jesuit relations of the seventeenth century see Jacques Gernet AHistory of Chinese Civilization trans J R Foster (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1982) pp521-23 In turn this positive image is related to an earlier negative one of the Chinese as cowardly andlacking in martial vigor a view that stemmed from Chinas inability to protect its southeastern coast frompirate attacks in the sixteenth century at the very time that the first Portuguese ships reached China SeeLea E Williams Inauspicious Ambience The Historical Setting of Early Luso-Chinese Contacts inIndo-Portuguese History Old Issues New Questions ed Teotonio de Souza (New Delhi Concept 1985)pp 32-39 and Luis Gonzaga Gomes Os primeiros contactos entre Portugeses e Chineses Boletim doInstituto Luis de Camoes 2 (1966) 159-74

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was larger than the population of most port-cities between Canton and Mombasa Cer-tainly the impression made by Zheng Hes troops was forceful and lasting as wasconveyed by the people of Calicut telling da Gamas men about the helmets spears andbombards of their mysterious predecessors When Zheng Hes 26000 troops marchedoff his ships and built their fortified warehouses it surely inclined their hosts to con-sider that a client relationship with the Ming emperor was an offer that they could notrefuse

Given the overwhelming force in the hands of Zheng He it is less remarkable thatthe Ming expeditions were generally peaceful than that they met opposition at allDuring the second voyage in 1407 some 170 men of the fleet were killed in a Javanesemarket-town the victims of a struggle for power in the Majapahit kingdom of JavaZheng He collected an indemnity in gold from the king41 Later during the same voy-age Zheng Hes soldiers destroyed ten pirate ships and killed several thousand follow-ers of Chen Zuyi the Fujianese pirate-chieftain of Palembang in Sumatra who wastaken to China and beheaded42 In 1411 on the third expedition Vira Alakasvara thede facto monarch of Ceylon attacked a contingent of Zheng Hes forces with (it isalleged) 50000 troops and attempted to burn the Treasure-fleet Zheng He broke outof the ambush invaded the capital city with 2000 men captured the king and hiscourt and then spent six days fighting his way back to his ships Vira Alakasvara wastaken back to China as a prisoner but the emperor Yongle declined to order his execu-tion saying Barbarians are like animals and dont deserve to be put to death43

Heroics such as the so-called Battle of Ceylon Mountain were rarely necessary how-ever A panoply of arms was usually sufficient to cow opposition although it is intrin-sic to the sources that such events go unrecorded A 1597 Ming novel on the voyageswhich extensively used original sources relates that the king of Mogadisho on the EastAfrican coast was persuaded to welcome the Treasure-fleet after bombards simultane-ously blasted the four gates of his city44 The event is played for comic relief in thenovel and smacks of the condescension that the Chinese habitually displayed toward theoutside barbarians Condescension however seems a mild vice when compared to thecruel behavior of the Portuguese Certainly none of the military actions of the Mingfleets can compare with the atrocities of the Portuguese Of course the latter sufferedthe liabilities of being small in number and poor in resources As they saw it a policy

41Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2932 Chiu Ling-yeong Sino-Javanese Relationsin the Early Ming Period Symposium on Historical Archaeological and Linguistic Studies on SouthernChina South-East Asia and the Hong Kong Region ed F S Drake (Hong Kong 1967) p 218 JNoorduyn The Eastern Kings in Majapahit Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde 131(1975) 479-89

42Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2936-38 Chiu Ling-yeong Sino Javanese Rela-tions in the Early Ming Period p 217

4SZheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2949-52 On the confusion surrounding the Cey-lon events see Gintota Parana Vidanage Somaratne The Political History of the Kingdom of Kotte1400-1521 (PhD thesis University of London 1975) pp 65-73 and Willetts The Maritime Adven-tures of Grand Eunuch Ho pp 31-36

44Luo Maodeng San Bao taijian xia xiyang [The voyage of the San Bao Eunuch to the Western Ocean edShen Yunjia (Shanghai nd) chapter 72 see J J L Duyvendak Desultory Notes on the Hsi-Yang ChiToung Pao 42 (1954) 18-19 On Zheng Hes bombards see Joseph Needham Science and Civilization inChina vol 5 pt 7 Military Technology The Gunpowder Epic (Cambridge Cambridge University Press1986) p 296

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of rapacious aggression seasoned with terror was the only means of gaining a footholdin Asia This was recognized by an Indian merchant in Calicut who told the citysruler when Vasco da Gama arrived in 1498 that the Portuguese had nothing to givebut would rather take away and that thus his country would be ruined45

Wealthy and heavily armed the Chinese overawed potential opposition and crushedthose unwise enough not to be willing to submit to a dependent status ComparingMing and Portuguese behavior in Asia and recognizing that the former neither ac-quired colonies nor spread terror on the seas should not obscure the reality of theChinese use of massive military power to impose their will throughout Southeast Asiaand the Indian Ocean In the course of the seven Ming expeditions forty-eight statesbecame tributary clients of the Chinese emperor many of them for the first time46

China became the arbiter of the rise and fall of distant kingdoms Majapahit Javadeclined as it was supplanted by China as the major power in maritime SoutheastAsia47 The city-state of Melaka like Palembang and Brunei renounced allegiance toJava under the protection of Zheng Hes fleet Indeed Melakas rise to eminence in theearly fifteenth century was solely a consequence of Chinese maritime imperialism forthe Ming armadas relied on Melaka for its port facilities and provided an umbrella ofprotection for the fledging state against both Java and Siam48 Ports along the northcoast of Java such as Demak Tuban Gresik Giri and J apara also began to establishtheir political autonomy from the inland Javanese kingdom after Zheng Hes fleet ap-peared on the scene49

Regarding the Treasure-fleet as a military force-albeit infrequently involved incombat-helps clarify the much-debated questions of the motive for the expeditions andthe reason for their disappearance As a military instrument the Ming armadas were adirect expression of the values and ambitions of Yongle the emperor behind the firstsix voyages 50 Before becoming emperor Yongle spent twenty years fighting Mongoltribes on the northern frontier After three years of civil war he wrested the thronefrom his nephew the emperor Jianwen (1398-1402)1gt1 Throughout his reign Yonglecontinued to lead numerous campaigns deep into the northern plains An out-and-out

usJournal of the First Voyage p 7248Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian vol 2 pt 2 pp 1297-1353 see also Hiroshi

Watanabe An Index of Embassies and Tribute Missions from Islamic Countries to Ming China (1368 -1466) as recorded in the Ming Shih-lu classified according to Geographic Area Memoirs of the ResearchDepartment of the Toyo Bunko 33 (1975) 285-349

47G Ceodes The Indianized States of Southeast Asia trans Susan Brown Cowing ed Walter F Vella(Honolulu East-West Center Press 1968) pp 241-42 J Noorduyn Majapahit in the Fifteenth Cen-tury Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde 134 (1978) 208 255-56

48See Wang Gungwu The Opening of Relations between China and Malacca 1403-5 in Malayan andIndonesian Studies Essays Presented to Sir Richard Winstedt ed John Bastin and R Roolvink (OxfordClarendon Press 1964) pp 87-104 D G E Hall A History of South-East Asia 4th ed (New York1981) pp 225-26 Christopher Wake Malaccas Early Kings and the Reception of Islam Journal ofSoutheast Asian History 5 (1964) 117 Shu Shizeng Zheng He xia xiyang zhi jiazhi [Contributions ofZheng Hes voyages to the Western Ocean] in Zhenghe yanjiu ziliao xuanbian p 182

49Kenneth R Hall Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia (Honolulu Universityof Hawaii Press 1985) p 254 see also Theodore G Th Pigeaud and H J de Graaf Islamic States inJava 1500-1700 (The Hague Martinus Nijhoff 1976) p 5

aOOn Yongles personal involvement in decision-making especially regarding the voyages and Vietnam seeWang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 p 376 and Dreyer Early Ming China p 220

alOn the civil war see David B Chan The Usurpation of the Prince of Yen 1398-1402 (San FranciscoChinese Materials Center 1976)

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militarist he ordered the assembly of the first Treasure-fleet within three years ofcoming to power52 About a year later in 1406 he ordered armies totalling 215000men into Vietnam (Annan) the beginning of a twenty-year debacle that drained Chi-nese resources and determination 53

To some extent Yongles commands were in the tradition of the Mongol emperorKubilai Khan (d1294) who also invaded Vietnam and in 1292 sent a huge fleet topunish the kingdom of Java for insubordination 54 Both emperors aspired to dominatethe world outside China although in regard to maritime Asia the means they em-ployed toward that end were very different Playing the role of a Mongol conquerorKubilai Khan used his fleets to punish and defeat his enemies while YongIe within thecontext of the traditional tribute system made an unorthodox use of maritime power toenforce and extend his authority Both men thought in military terms and relied onforce When some of Zheng Hes men were killed in Java and some Chinese diplomatswere robbed in Thailand Yongle warned the respective states that he might deal withthem as he had with Vietnam Similarly those who opposed Yongles aggressive poli-cies also linked the voyages with Vietnam as when a Confucian official addressed asuccessor to Yongle in 1426 Your minister hopes that your majesty would notindulge in military pursuits nor glorify the sending of expeditions to distantcountries 55

The Ming armadas were a personal project of the militaristic emperor and they allbut died with him in 1424 The new emperor Hongxi (1424) cancelled Zheng Hesscheduled seventh voyage on the very day he assumed the throne and he began cuttingback in Vietnam Yongle had imprisoned his long-time Minister of Finance XiaYuanji after he had protested the cost of the expeditions Hongxi personally releasedthe disgraced minister from jail and restored him to office66 Unlike Yongle Hongxihad received an impeccably Confucian education and he fully supported the civil bu-reaucrats who opposed both the Ming voyages and the eunuchs who organized themHongxi died within the year although Confucian officials especially the powerful XiaYuanji generally retained their hold over policy under Xuande (1424-1435) But whenXia Yuanji the foremost opponent of the voyages died in 1430 Xuande ordered thedispatch of the seventh voyage which sailed in 143357

It was the final maritime expedition of the Ming Empire as well as for Zheng Hewho probably died in Calicut and was taken back to China on the last Treasure-fleet 58

1I2The phrase is from Dreyer Early Ming China p 8IIs0n the invasion of Vietnam see Lo Intervention in Vietnam1I4SeeJ V G Mills Notes on early Chinese voyages The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great

Britain and Ireland 3 (1951) 13 Morris Rossabi Kubilai Khan His Life and Times (Berkeley Univer-sity California Press 1988) pp 218-19 Hall A History of South-East Asia pp 88-90

III1LoIntervention in Vietnam p 174 Wang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 pp 391-92 Thequotation is from Wang Gungwu The Decline of the Early Ming Navy Oriens Extremus 5 (1958)167

1I6Dreyer Early Ming China pp 221-25230-33 Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expedi-tions pp 134-35

1I7Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expeditions p 139 Dreyer Early Ming China pp225 233

1I80n the death of Zheng He see Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 1 137-38 XuAoren Zheng He mu yu Huli wa [Zheng Hes tomb and glazed tile] in Zhenghe yanjui ziliao xuanbianpp 351-54

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Xuande was succeeded by his eight-year-old son in 1435 and the Confucian bureau-crats came to dominate policy even more The Treasure-ships were allowed to deterio-rate and the shipyards were starved of labor Timber set aside for the Treasure-shipswas sold cheaply as fuel to the people of Nanjing The men of the fleet were reassignedto repair the royal palace in N anjing to build Yongles mausoleum to load grain onthe Grand Canal and to fight in Vietnam Within a generation the Chinese lost theknowledge of how to build Treasure-ships and private Chinese vessels ceased ventur-ing beyond the Straits of Melaka~9

About 1477 the eunuch Wang Zhi the Inspector of the Frontiers requested therecords of Zheng Hes voyages apparently with the intention of reasserting Chineseauthority in the seas of Asia In response Liu Daxia a high official in the Ministry ofWar destroyed the archives of the expeditions because of his conviction that Chinesepreoccupation with the world outside China was damaging to the empire As he toldhis superior The expeditions [of Zheng He] to the Western Ocean wasted tens ofmyriads of money and grain and moreover the people who met their deaths [because ofthem] may be counted in the myriads Although he returned with wonderful thingswhat benefit was it to the state This was merely an action of bad government of whichministers should severely disapprove Destroying Zheng Hes documents he declaredwas the only way to be certain that future maritime expeditions would be impossibleGO

The Confucian officials who administered the Ming Empire disdained commercemilitarism and naval adventure in favor of self-sufficiency agrarian virtue and impe-rial isolation In their eyes the Middle Kingdom did not need the wider world and themaritime imperialism of Zheng Hes voyages was an embarrassment as well as a dan-ger But twenty years after the records of the Ming expeditions were destroyed Vascoda Gamas four ships reached Calicut Perhaps inspired by the rumors that they heardthere about Zheng Hes Treasure-ships and the riches in them the Portuguese at oncebegan casting their eyes toward the eastern seaways The world was going to come toChina whether China liked it or not

G9Wang The Decline of the Early Ming Navy pp 160-161 Yang Xi Zheng He xia xiyang de mudi jiqibei tinghang de yuanyin [The purpose of Zheng Hes expeditions to the Western Ocean and the reasons fortheir termination] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji p 34 Needham Science and Civilization 4 524-25The decline in shipbuilding techniques and knowledge especially regarding the Treasure-ships is evidentin the 1553 report by the manager of the Nanjing shipyards where most of the Treasure-ships had beenbuilt Li Zhaoxiang Longquan chuan chang zhi [Record of the shipbuilding yards on the Dragon River4 9 611 837-38 (consulted in a sixteenth-century printed edition at Harvard-Yenching Library HarvardUniversity)

BOJan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak The True Dates of the Chinese Maritime Expeditions in the EarlyFifteenth Century Toung Pao 34 (1938) 396

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The Portuguese (like other Westerners) conceived of an extension of their powerabroad in terms of control of territory planting of colonies and domination of com-merce they thought in terms of sovereignty conquest and mastery as experienced forgenerations within the context of a system of competing states In areas immediatelybordering the empire such as the northern steppe frontier Korea and Vietnam theChinese were also concerned periodically with conquest and direct control albeit notwith tribes or kingdoms that offered much competition with the empire The Chineseotherwise saw the extension of power as a matter of incorporating peoples and rulerswithin a system of hierarchical relationships centering on the emperor they thought interms of ritual submission ceremonial barter and formal recognition as developed forcenturies within the context of a superior powerful civilization condescending to a hostof distant petty and relatively undeveloped principalities33 The Portuguese experiencein Asia was shaped by notions of power politics religious exclusivity and state rivalrywhile the Chinese experience in the same area was molded by ideas of cultural assimi-lation religious indifference and imperial self-satisfaction

Given their background and ambitions it is natural that the Portuguese at first re-garded the reports of a Chinese presence on the Malabar coast as evidence of imperialdomination In fact the Ming expeditions entered the Indian Ocean with vastly moremilitary force than the Portuguese were ever capable of assembling Since that forcewas in the service of a maritime imperialism that was very different from the Westernvariety the intentions behind the voyages of Zheng He have appeared mysterious Onehistorian has even asserted the stark impossibility of knowing the reasons for the Chi-nese expansion or for the collective abandoning of the enterprise at the peak of suc-cess34 The problem however is not that the voyages of Zheng He present a conun-drum but that explanations for the voyages have seemed incommensurate with theirgrandeur and duration The notion that the Treasure-ships were sent as far as the EastAfrican coast and the Red Sea just to peddle porcelain and iron pots or to fetch os-triches and tortoise shell is somehow deflating And it is obvious that chasing down adeposed emperor collecting coral and beeswax and eliminating a few piratestrongholds did not require the dispatch of mammoth fleets for a generation Moreoverif the 1405 expedition had been sent out to prevent Timurs invasion of China it isunclear why six more voyages were necessary inasmuch as the threat of invasion endedwith the death of Timur in the same year35

The 27800 men in the first Ming expedition of 1405 included seven eunuch ambas-sadors ten deputy eunuch ambassadors fifty-three supervisory eunuchs several divina-tion experts 180 medical personnel 300 military officers and 26000 common soldiersas well as about 800 sailors cooks oarsmen secretaries artisans and miscellaneous

33See the characterization (in the context of Zheng Hes voyages) of the differences between the Europeansystem of state rivalry and Chinas imperial domination in Eric Lionel Jones The European MiracleEnvironments Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia (Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1981) pp 203 205 see also Mark Elvin The Pattern of the Chinese Past (StanfordStanford University Press 1973) pp 177 225

34Pierre Chaunu European Expansion in the Later Middle Ages trans Katharine Bertram (AmsterdamNorth Holland Publishing Company 1979) p 228 n 105 see also Janet LAbu-Lughod Before Euro-pean Hegemony The World System AD 1250-1350 (Oxford Oxford University Press 1989) p 321

3l1Rossabi Cheng Ho and Timur p 135

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functionaries36 The Treasure-fleet of Zheng He then was overwhelmingly military incomposition Unlike the Portuguese fleets the Ming expeditions were not seeking terri-tory to conquer or sea lanes to monopolize Nevertheless the Chinese armadas had aclear political mission that called for an overpowering military force-to incorporatethe countries of maritime Asia within the tribute system of the empire with the Son ofHeaven as the guarantor of political legitimacy and commercial mobility in the greatarea formally subject to him For local rulers the prospect of access to Chinese goodswithin the tribute system was the emperors carrot while the army aboard the Trea-sure-ships was his stick Chinese wares usually were sufficiently attractive to localpotentates to convince them to put their names on the tribute roster but it was essentialfor Zheng He to possess a large enough stick if only to be certain of using it sparinglyThe Treasure-ships were intended not only to dazzle foreign peoples with their wealthand majesty but to overawe potential opposition with their might and firepower

This view of the Ming expeditions runs counter to a long tradition of emphasizingthe pacific behavior of the Chinese The cultivation of the goodwill of foreign rulers byZheng He has often been contrasted with Portuguese atrocities such as Pedro AlvaresCabrals bombardment of Calicut in 1501 and da Gamas butchery of several hundredfishermen and Muslim pilgrims off Calicut in 1502 Seen in this light it seems clearthat Zheng He was not sent to conquer or colonize but to make friends and allies37The Chinese were peaceful by nature and therefore refused to make a bid for impe-rial power as did the Portuguese and the Spanish38 The Chinese had no sense ofmission and they were not empire-builders they had no conception of the horrors ofrealpolitik inseparable from a colonial regime39 They were it is said calm andpacific unencumbered by a heritage of enmities in panoply of arms yet conqueringno colonies and setting up no strongholds 40

Reading such encomiums one would do well to remember that the Treasure-shipscontained an experienced and well-trained force that was armed to the teeth one that

SeZheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 1143 A 1406 source states that there were 37000 men in the firstvoyage see also Xu Yuhu Ming Zheng He zhi yanjiu [Research on the Zheng He of the Ming dynasty(Gao Xiong Taiwan De Qinshi 1980) pp 18-41 espec p 20 Ming maritime and land forces were notsharply distinguished (see Dreyer Early Ming China p 202) and it is likely that some of the troopsmanned the ships as well

S7SU Chung-jen Places in South-East Asia the Middle East and Africa visited by Cheng Ho and HisCompanions (AD 1405-1433) in Symposium on Historical Archaeological and Linguistic Studies onSouthern China South-East Asia and the Hong Kong Region Frederick Seguier Drake ed (Hong KongHong Kong University Press 1967) p 207

s8Chiu Ling-yeong Chinese Maritime Expansion 1368-1644 The Journal of the Oriental Society of Aus-tralia 3 (1965) 44

s9William Willetts The Maritime Adventures of Grand Eunuch Ho Journal of Southeast Asian-History5 (1964) 20-21

4degNeedham Science and Civilization 4535 The view of the Chinese as a uniquely peaceful people goesback to the idealization of China found in Jesuit relations of the seventeenth century see Jacques Gernet AHistory of Chinese Civilization trans J R Foster (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1982) pp521-23 In turn this positive image is related to an earlier negative one of the Chinese as cowardly andlacking in martial vigor a view that stemmed from Chinas inability to protect its southeastern coast frompirate attacks in the sixteenth century at the very time that the first Portuguese ships reached China SeeLea E Williams Inauspicious Ambience The Historical Setting of Early Luso-Chinese Contacts inIndo-Portuguese History Old Issues New Questions ed Teotonio de Souza (New Delhi Concept 1985)pp 32-39 and Luis Gonzaga Gomes Os primeiros contactos entre Portugeses e Chineses Boletim doInstituto Luis de Camoes 2 (1966) 159-74

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was larger than the population of most port-cities between Canton and Mombasa Cer-tainly the impression made by Zheng Hes troops was forceful and lasting as wasconveyed by the people of Calicut telling da Gamas men about the helmets spears andbombards of their mysterious predecessors When Zheng Hes 26000 troops marchedoff his ships and built their fortified warehouses it surely inclined their hosts to con-sider that a client relationship with the Ming emperor was an offer that they could notrefuse

Given the overwhelming force in the hands of Zheng He it is less remarkable thatthe Ming expeditions were generally peaceful than that they met opposition at allDuring the second voyage in 1407 some 170 men of the fleet were killed in a Javanesemarket-town the victims of a struggle for power in the Majapahit kingdom of JavaZheng He collected an indemnity in gold from the king41 Later during the same voy-age Zheng Hes soldiers destroyed ten pirate ships and killed several thousand follow-ers of Chen Zuyi the Fujianese pirate-chieftain of Palembang in Sumatra who wastaken to China and beheaded42 In 1411 on the third expedition Vira Alakasvara thede facto monarch of Ceylon attacked a contingent of Zheng Hes forces with (it isalleged) 50000 troops and attempted to burn the Treasure-fleet Zheng He broke outof the ambush invaded the capital city with 2000 men captured the king and hiscourt and then spent six days fighting his way back to his ships Vira Alakasvara wastaken back to China as a prisoner but the emperor Yongle declined to order his execu-tion saying Barbarians are like animals and dont deserve to be put to death43

Heroics such as the so-called Battle of Ceylon Mountain were rarely necessary how-ever A panoply of arms was usually sufficient to cow opposition although it is intrin-sic to the sources that such events go unrecorded A 1597 Ming novel on the voyageswhich extensively used original sources relates that the king of Mogadisho on the EastAfrican coast was persuaded to welcome the Treasure-fleet after bombards simultane-ously blasted the four gates of his city44 The event is played for comic relief in thenovel and smacks of the condescension that the Chinese habitually displayed toward theoutside barbarians Condescension however seems a mild vice when compared to thecruel behavior of the Portuguese Certainly none of the military actions of the Mingfleets can compare with the atrocities of the Portuguese Of course the latter sufferedthe liabilities of being small in number and poor in resources As they saw it a policy

41Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2932 Chiu Ling-yeong Sino-Javanese Relationsin the Early Ming Period Symposium on Historical Archaeological and Linguistic Studies on SouthernChina South-East Asia and the Hong Kong Region ed F S Drake (Hong Kong 1967) p 218 JNoorduyn The Eastern Kings in Majapahit Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde 131(1975) 479-89

42Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2936-38 Chiu Ling-yeong Sino Javanese Rela-tions in the Early Ming Period p 217

4SZheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2949-52 On the confusion surrounding the Cey-lon events see Gintota Parana Vidanage Somaratne The Political History of the Kingdom of Kotte1400-1521 (PhD thesis University of London 1975) pp 65-73 and Willetts The Maritime Adven-tures of Grand Eunuch Ho pp 31-36

44Luo Maodeng San Bao taijian xia xiyang [The voyage of the San Bao Eunuch to the Western Ocean edShen Yunjia (Shanghai nd) chapter 72 see J J L Duyvendak Desultory Notes on the Hsi-Yang ChiToung Pao 42 (1954) 18-19 On Zheng Hes bombards see Joseph Needham Science and Civilization inChina vol 5 pt 7 Military Technology The Gunpowder Epic (Cambridge Cambridge University Press1986) p 296

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of rapacious aggression seasoned with terror was the only means of gaining a footholdin Asia This was recognized by an Indian merchant in Calicut who told the citysruler when Vasco da Gama arrived in 1498 that the Portuguese had nothing to givebut would rather take away and that thus his country would be ruined45

Wealthy and heavily armed the Chinese overawed potential opposition and crushedthose unwise enough not to be willing to submit to a dependent status ComparingMing and Portuguese behavior in Asia and recognizing that the former neither ac-quired colonies nor spread terror on the seas should not obscure the reality of theChinese use of massive military power to impose their will throughout Southeast Asiaand the Indian Ocean In the course of the seven Ming expeditions forty-eight statesbecame tributary clients of the Chinese emperor many of them for the first time46

China became the arbiter of the rise and fall of distant kingdoms Majapahit Javadeclined as it was supplanted by China as the major power in maritime SoutheastAsia47 The city-state of Melaka like Palembang and Brunei renounced allegiance toJava under the protection of Zheng Hes fleet Indeed Melakas rise to eminence in theearly fifteenth century was solely a consequence of Chinese maritime imperialism forthe Ming armadas relied on Melaka for its port facilities and provided an umbrella ofprotection for the fledging state against both Java and Siam48 Ports along the northcoast of Java such as Demak Tuban Gresik Giri and J apara also began to establishtheir political autonomy from the inland Javanese kingdom after Zheng Hes fleet ap-peared on the scene49

Regarding the Treasure-fleet as a military force-albeit infrequently involved incombat-helps clarify the much-debated questions of the motive for the expeditions andthe reason for their disappearance As a military instrument the Ming armadas were adirect expression of the values and ambitions of Yongle the emperor behind the firstsix voyages 50 Before becoming emperor Yongle spent twenty years fighting Mongoltribes on the northern frontier After three years of civil war he wrested the thronefrom his nephew the emperor Jianwen (1398-1402)1gt1 Throughout his reign Yonglecontinued to lead numerous campaigns deep into the northern plains An out-and-out

usJournal of the First Voyage p 7248Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian vol 2 pt 2 pp 1297-1353 see also Hiroshi

Watanabe An Index of Embassies and Tribute Missions from Islamic Countries to Ming China (1368 -1466) as recorded in the Ming Shih-lu classified according to Geographic Area Memoirs of the ResearchDepartment of the Toyo Bunko 33 (1975) 285-349

47G Ceodes The Indianized States of Southeast Asia trans Susan Brown Cowing ed Walter F Vella(Honolulu East-West Center Press 1968) pp 241-42 J Noorduyn Majapahit in the Fifteenth Cen-tury Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde 134 (1978) 208 255-56

48See Wang Gungwu The Opening of Relations between China and Malacca 1403-5 in Malayan andIndonesian Studies Essays Presented to Sir Richard Winstedt ed John Bastin and R Roolvink (OxfordClarendon Press 1964) pp 87-104 D G E Hall A History of South-East Asia 4th ed (New York1981) pp 225-26 Christopher Wake Malaccas Early Kings and the Reception of Islam Journal ofSoutheast Asian History 5 (1964) 117 Shu Shizeng Zheng He xia xiyang zhi jiazhi [Contributions ofZheng Hes voyages to the Western Ocean] in Zhenghe yanjiu ziliao xuanbian p 182

49Kenneth R Hall Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia (Honolulu Universityof Hawaii Press 1985) p 254 see also Theodore G Th Pigeaud and H J de Graaf Islamic States inJava 1500-1700 (The Hague Martinus Nijhoff 1976) p 5

aOOn Yongles personal involvement in decision-making especially regarding the voyages and Vietnam seeWang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 p 376 and Dreyer Early Ming China p 220

alOn the civil war see David B Chan The Usurpation of the Prince of Yen 1398-1402 (San FranciscoChinese Materials Center 1976)

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militarist he ordered the assembly of the first Treasure-fleet within three years ofcoming to power52 About a year later in 1406 he ordered armies totalling 215000men into Vietnam (Annan) the beginning of a twenty-year debacle that drained Chi-nese resources and determination 53

To some extent Yongles commands were in the tradition of the Mongol emperorKubilai Khan (d1294) who also invaded Vietnam and in 1292 sent a huge fleet topunish the kingdom of Java for insubordination 54 Both emperors aspired to dominatethe world outside China although in regard to maritime Asia the means they em-ployed toward that end were very different Playing the role of a Mongol conquerorKubilai Khan used his fleets to punish and defeat his enemies while YongIe within thecontext of the traditional tribute system made an unorthodox use of maritime power toenforce and extend his authority Both men thought in military terms and relied onforce When some of Zheng Hes men were killed in Java and some Chinese diplomatswere robbed in Thailand Yongle warned the respective states that he might deal withthem as he had with Vietnam Similarly those who opposed Yongles aggressive poli-cies also linked the voyages with Vietnam as when a Confucian official addressed asuccessor to Yongle in 1426 Your minister hopes that your majesty would notindulge in military pursuits nor glorify the sending of expeditions to distantcountries 55

The Ming armadas were a personal project of the militaristic emperor and they allbut died with him in 1424 The new emperor Hongxi (1424) cancelled Zheng Hesscheduled seventh voyage on the very day he assumed the throne and he began cuttingback in Vietnam Yongle had imprisoned his long-time Minister of Finance XiaYuanji after he had protested the cost of the expeditions Hongxi personally releasedthe disgraced minister from jail and restored him to office66 Unlike Yongle Hongxihad received an impeccably Confucian education and he fully supported the civil bu-reaucrats who opposed both the Ming voyages and the eunuchs who organized themHongxi died within the year although Confucian officials especially the powerful XiaYuanji generally retained their hold over policy under Xuande (1424-1435) But whenXia Yuanji the foremost opponent of the voyages died in 1430 Xuande ordered thedispatch of the seventh voyage which sailed in 143357

It was the final maritime expedition of the Ming Empire as well as for Zheng Hewho probably died in Calicut and was taken back to China on the last Treasure-fleet 58

1I2The phrase is from Dreyer Early Ming China p 8IIs0n the invasion of Vietnam see Lo Intervention in Vietnam1I4SeeJ V G Mills Notes on early Chinese voyages The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great

Britain and Ireland 3 (1951) 13 Morris Rossabi Kubilai Khan His Life and Times (Berkeley Univer-sity California Press 1988) pp 218-19 Hall A History of South-East Asia pp 88-90

III1LoIntervention in Vietnam p 174 Wang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 pp 391-92 Thequotation is from Wang Gungwu The Decline of the Early Ming Navy Oriens Extremus 5 (1958)167

1I6Dreyer Early Ming China pp 221-25230-33 Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expedi-tions pp 134-35

1I7Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expeditions p 139 Dreyer Early Ming China pp225 233

1I80n the death of Zheng He see Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 1 137-38 XuAoren Zheng He mu yu Huli wa [Zheng Hes tomb and glazed tile] in Zhenghe yanjui ziliao xuanbianpp 351-54

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Xuande was succeeded by his eight-year-old son in 1435 and the Confucian bureau-crats came to dominate policy even more The Treasure-ships were allowed to deterio-rate and the shipyards were starved of labor Timber set aside for the Treasure-shipswas sold cheaply as fuel to the people of Nanjing The men of the fleet were reassignedto repair the royal palace in N anjing to build Yongles mausoleum to load grain onthe Grand Canal and to fight in Vietnam Within a generation the Chinese lost theknowledge of how to build Treasure-ships and private Chinese vessels ceased ventur-ing beyond the Straits of Melaka~9

About 1477 the eunuch Wang Zhi the Inspector of the Frontiers requested therecords of Zheng Hes voyages apparently with the intention of reasserting Chineseauthority in the seas of Asia In response Liu Daxia a high official in the Ministry ofWar destroyed the archives of the expeditions because of his conviction that Chinesepreoccupation with the world outside China was damaging to the empire As he toldhis superior The expeditions [of Zheng He] to the Western Ocean wasted tens ofmyriads of money and grain and moreover the people who met their deaths [because ofthem] may be counted in the myriads Although he returned with wonderful thingswhat benefit was it to the state This was merely an action of bad government of whichministers should severely disapprove Destroying Zheng Hes documents he declaredwas the only way to be certain that future maritime expeditions would be impossibleGO

The Confucian officials who administered the Ming Empire disdained commercemilitarism and naval adventure in favor of self-sufficiency agrarian virtue and impe-rial isolation In their eyes the Middle Kingdom did not need the wider world and themaritime imperialism of Zheng Hes voyages was an embarrassment as well as a dan-ger But twenty years after the records of the Ming expeditions were destroyed Vascoda Gamas four ships reached Calicut Perhaps inspired by the rumors that they heardthere about Zheng Hes Treasure-ships and the riches in them the Portuguese at oncebegan casting their eyes toward the eastern seaways The world was going to come toChina whether China liked it or not

G9Wang The Decline of the Early Ming Navy pp 160-161 Yang Xi Zheng He xia xiyang de mudi jiqibei tinghang de yuanyin [The purpose of Zheng Hes expeditions to the Western Ocean and the reasons fortheir termination] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji p 34 Needham Science and Civilization 4 524-25The decline in shipbuilding techniques and knowledge especially regarding the Treasure-ships is evidentin the 1553 report by the manager of the Nanjing shipyards where most of the Treasure-ships had beenbuilt Li Zhaoxiang Longquan chuan chang zhi [Record of the shipbuilding yards on the Dragon River4 9 611 837-38 (consulted in a sixteenth-century printed edition at Harvard-Yenching Library HarvardUniversity)

BOJan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak The True Dates of the Chinese Maritime Expeditions in the EarlyFifteenth Century Toung Pao 34 (1938) 396

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functionaries36 The Treasure-fleet of Zheng He then was overwhelmingly military incomposition Unlike the Portuguese fleets the Ming expeditions were not seeking terri-tory to conquer or sea lanes to monopolize Nevertheless the Chinese armadas had aclear political mission that called for an overpowering military force-to incorporatethe countries of maritime Asia within the tribute system of the empire with the Son ofHeaven as the guarantor of political legitimacy and commercial mobility in the greatarea formally subject to him For local rulers the prospect of access to Chinese goodswithin the tribute system was the emperors carrot while the army aboard the Trea-sure-ships was his stick Chinese wares usually were sufficiently attractive to localpotentates to convince them to put their names on the tribute roster but it was essentialfor Zheng He to possess a large enough stick if only to be certain of using it sparinglyThe Treasure-ships were intended not only to dazzle foreign peoples with their wealthand majesty but to overawe potential opposition with their might and firepower

This view of the Ming expeditions runs counter to a long tradition of emphasizingthe pacific behavior of the Chinese The cultivation of the goodwill of foreign rulers byZheng He has often been contrasted with Portuguese atrocities such as Pedro AlvaresCabrals bombardment of Calicut in 1501 and da Gamas butchery of several hundredfishermen and Muslim pilgrims off Calicut in 1502 Seen in this light it seems clearthat Zheng He was not sent to conquer or colonize but to make friends and allies37The Chinese were peaceful by nature and therefore refused to make a bid for impe-rial power as did the Portuguese and the Spanish38 The Chinese had no sense ofmission and they were not empire-builders they had no conception of the horrors ofrealpolitik inseparable from a colonial regime39 They were it is said calm andpacific unencumbered by a heritage of enmities in panoply of arms yet conqueringno colonies and setting up no strongholds 40

Reading such encomiums one would do well to remember that the Treasure-shipscontained an experienced and well-trained force that was armed to the teeth one that

SeZheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 1143 A 1406 source states that there were 37000 men in the firstvoyage see also Xu Yuhu Ming Zheng He zhi yanjiu [Research on the Zheng He of the Ming dynasty(Gao Xiong Taiwan De Qinshi 1980) pp 18-41 espec p 20 Ming maritime and land forces were notsharply distinguished (see Dreyer Early Ming China p 202) and it is likely that some of the troopsmanned the ships as well

S7SU Chung-jen Places in South-East Asia the Middle East and Africa visited by Cheng Ho and HisCompanions (AD 1405-1433) in Symposium on Historical Archaeological and Linguistic Studies onSouthern China South-East Asia and the Hong Kong Region Frederick Seguier Drake ed (Hong KongHong Kong University Press 1967) p 207

s8Chiu Ling-yeong Chinese Maritime Expansion 1368-1644 The Journal of the Oriental Society of Aus-tralia 3 (1965) 44

s9William Willetts The Maritime Adventures of Grand Eunuch Ho Journal of Southeast Asian-History5 (1964) 20-21

4degNeedham Science and Civilization 4535 The view of the Chinese as a uniquely peaceful people goesback to the idealization of China found in Jesuit relations of the seventeenth century see Jacques Gernet AHistory of Chinese Civilization trans J R Foster (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1982) pp521-23 In turn this positive image is related to an earlier negative one of the Chinese as cowardly andlacking in martial vigor a view that stemmed from Chinas inability to protect its southeastern coast frompirate attacks in the sixteenth century at the very time that the first Portuguese ships reached China SeeLea E Williams Inauspicious Ambience The Historical Setting of Early Luso-Chinese Contacts inIndo-Portuguese History Old Issues New Questions ed Teotonio de Souza (New Delhi Concept 1985)pp 32-39 and Luis Gonzaga Gomes Os primeiros contactos entre Portugeses e Chineses Boletim doInstituto Luis de Camoes 2 (1966) 159-74

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was larger than the population of most port-cities between Canton and Mombasa Cer-tainly the impression made by Zheng Hes troops was forceful and lasting as wasconveyed by the people of Calicut telling da Gamas men about the helmets spears andbombards of their mysterious predecessors When Zheng Hes 26000 troops marchedoff his ships and built their fortified warehouses it surely inclined their hosts to con-sider that a client relationship with the Ming emperor was an offer that they could notrefuse

Given the overwhelming force in the hands of Zheng He it is less remarkable thatthe Ming expeditions were generally peaceful than that they met opposition at allDuring the second voyage in 1407 some 170 men of the fleet were killed in a Javanesemarket-town the victims of a struggle for power in the Majapahit kingdom of JavaZheng He collected an indemnity in gold from the king41 Later during the same voy-age Zheng Hes soldiers destroyed ten pirate ships and killed several thousand follow-ers of Chen Zuyi the Fujianese pirate-chieftain of Palembang in Sumatra who wastaken to China and beheaded42 In 1411 on the third expedition Vira Alakasvara thede facto monarch of Ceylon attacked a contingent of Zheng Hes forces with (it isalleged) 50000 troops and attempted to burn the Treasure-fleet Zheng He broke outof the ambush invaded the capital city with 2000 men captured the king and hiscourt and then spent six days fighting his way back to his ships Vira Alakasvara wastaken back to China as a prisoner but the emperor Yongle declined to order his execu-tion saying Barbarians are like animals and dont deserve to be put to death43

Heroics such as the so-called Battle of Ceylon Mountain were rarely necessary how-ever A panoply of arms was usually sufficient to cow opposition although it is intrin-sic to the sources that such events go unrecorded A 1597 Ming novel on the voyageswhich extensively used original sources relates that the king of Mogadisho on the EastAfrican coast was persuaded to welcome the Treasure-fleet after bombards simultane-ously blasted the four gates of his city44 The event is played for comic relief in thenovel and smacks of the condescension that the Chinese habitually displayed toward theoutside barbarians Condescension however seems a mild vice when compared to thecruel behavior of the Portuguese Certainly none of the military actions of the Mingfleets can compare with the atrocities of the Portuguese Of course the latter sufferedthe liabilities of being small in number and poor in resources As they saw it a policy

41Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2932 Chiu Ling-yeong Sino-Javanese Relationsin the Early Ming Period Symposium on Historical Archaeological and Linguistic Studies on SouthernChina South-East Asia and the Hong Kong Region ed F S Drake (Hong Kong 1967) p 218 JNoorduyn The Eastern Kings in Majapahit Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde 131(1975) 479-89

42Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2936-38 Chiu Ling-yeong Sino Javanese Rela-tions in the Early Ming Period p 217

4SZheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2949-52 On the confusion surrounding the Cey-lon events see Gintota Parana Vidanage Somaratne The Political History of the Kingdom of Kotte1400-1521 (PhD thesis University of London 1975) pp 65-73 and Willetts The Maritime Adven-tures of Grand Eunuch Ho pp 31-36

44Luo Maodeng San Bao taijian xia xiyang [The voyage of the San Bao Eunuch to the Western Ocean edShen Yunjia (Shanghai nd) chapter 72 see J J L Duyvendak Desultory Notes on the Hsi-Yang ChiToung Pao 42 (1954) 18-19 On Zheng Hes bombards see Joseph Needham Science and Civilization inChina vol 5 pt 7 Military Technology The Gunpowder Epic (Cambridge Cambridge University Press1986) p 296

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of rapacious aggression seasoned with terror was the only means of gaining a footholdin Asia This was recognized by an Indian merchant in Calicut who told the citysruler when Vasco da Gama arrived in 1498 that the Portuguese had nothing to givebut would rather take away and that thus his country would be ruined45

Wealthy and heavily armed the Chinese overawed potential opposition and crushedthose unwise enough not to be willing to submit to a dependent status ComparingMing and Portuguese behavior in Asia and recognizing that the former neither ac-quired colonies nor spread terror on the seas should not obscure the reality of theChinese use of massive military power to impose their will throughout Southeast Asiaand the Indian Ocean In the course of the seven Ming expeditions forty-eight statesbecame tributary clients of the Chinese emperor many of them for the first time46

China became the arbiter of the rise and fall of distant kingdoms Majapahit Javadeclined as it was supplanted by China as the major power in maritime SoutheastAsia47 The city-state of Melaka like Palembang and Brunei renounced allegiance toJava under the protection of Zheng Hes fleet Indeed Melakas rise to eminence in theearly fifteenth century was solely a consequence of Chinese maritime imperialism forthe Ming armadas relied on Melaka for its port facilities and provided an umbrella ofprotection for the fledging state against both Java and Siam48 Ports along the northcoast of Java such as Demak Tuban Gresik Giri and J apara also began to establishtheir political autonomy from the inland Javanese kingdom after Zheng Hes fleet ap-peared on the scene49

Regarding the Treasure-fleet as a military force-albeit infrequently involved incombat-helps clarify the much-debated questions of the motive for the expeditions andthe reason for their disappearance As a military instrument the Ming armadas were adirect expression of the values and ambitions of Yongle the emperor behind the firstsix voyages 50 Before becoming emperor Yongle spent twenty years fighting Mongoltribes on the northern frontier After three years of civil war he wrested the thronefrom his nephew the emperor Jianwen (1398-1402)1gt1 Throughout his reign Yonglecontinued to lead numerous campaigns deep into the northern plains An out-and-out

usJournal of the First Voyage p 7248Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian vol 2 pt 2 pp 1297-1353 see also Hiroshi

Watanabe An Index of Embassies and Tribute Missions from Islamic Countries to Ming China (1368 -1466) as recorded in the Ming Shih-lu classified according to Geographic Area Memoirs of the ResearchDepartment of the Toyo Bunko 33 (1975) 285-349

47G Ceodes The Indianized States of Southeast Asia trans Susan Brown Cowing ed Walter F Vella(Honolulu East-West Center Press 1968) pp 241-42 J Noorduyn Majapahit in the Fifteenth Cen-tury Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde 134 (1978) 208 255-56

48See Wang Gungwu The Opening of Relations between China and Malacca 1403-5 in Malayan andIndonesian Studies Essays Presented to Sir Richard Winstedt ed John Bastin and R Roolvink (OxfordClarendon Press 1964) pp 87-104 D G E Hall A History of South-East Asia 4th ed (New York1981) pp 225-26 Christopher Wake Malaccas Early Kings and the Reception of Islam Journal ofSoutheast Asian History 5 (1964) 117 Shu Shizeng Zheng He xia xiyang zhi jiazhi [Contributions ofZheng Hes voyages to the Western Ocean] in Zhenghe yanjiu ziliao xuanbian p 182

49Kenneth R Hall Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia (Honolulu Universityof Hawaii Press 1985) p 254 see also Theodore G Th Pigeaud and H J de Graaf Islamic States inJava 1500-1700 (The Hague Martinus Nijhoff 1976) p 5

aOOn Yongles personal involvement in decision-making especially regarding the voyages and Vietnam seeWang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 p 376 and Dreyer Early Ming China p 220

alOn the civil war see David B Chan The Usurpation of the Prince of Yen 1398-1402 (San FranciscoChinese Materials Center 1976)

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militarist he ordered the assembly of the first Treasure-fleet within three years ofcoming to power52 About a year later in 1406 he ordered armies totalling 215000men into Vietnam (Annan) the beginning of a twenty-year debacle that drained Chi-nese resources and determination 53

To some extent Yongles commands were in the tradition of the Mongol emperorKubilai Khan (d1294) who also invaded Vietnam and in 1292 sent a huge fleet topunish the kingdom of Java for insubordination 54 Both emperors aspired to dominatethe world outside China although in regard to maritime Asia the means they em-ployed toward that end were very different Playing the role of a Mongol conquerorKubilai Khan used his fleets to punish and defeat his enemies while YongIe within thecontext of the traditional tribute system made an unorthodox use of maritime power toenforce and extend his authority Both men thought in military terms and relied onforce When some of Zheng Hes men were killed in Java and some Chinese diplomatswere robbed in Thailand Yongle warned the respective states that he might deal withthem as he had with Vietnam Similarly those who opposed Yongles aggressive poli-cies also linked the voyages with Vietnam as when a Confucian official addressed asuccessor to Yongle in 1426 Your minister hopes that your majesty would notindulge in military pursuits nor glorify the sending of expeditions to distantcountries 55

The Ming armadas were a personal project of the militaristic emperor and they allbut died with him in 1424 The new emperor Hongxi (1424) cancelled Zheng Hesscheduled seventh voyage on the very day he assumed the throne and he began cuttingback in Vietnam Yongle had imprisoned his long-time Minister of Finance XiaYuanji after he had protested the cost of the expeditions Hongxi personally releasedthe disgraced minister from jail and restored him to office66 Unlike Yongle Hongxihad received an impeccably Confucian education and he fully supported the civil bu-reaucrats who opposed both the Ming voyages and the eunuchs who organized themHongxi died within the year although Confucian officials especially the powerful XiaYuanji generally retained their hold over policy under Xuande (1424-1435) But whenXia Yuanji the foremost opponent of the voyages died in 1430 Xuande ordered thedispatch of the seventh voyage which sailed in 143357

It was the final maritime expedition of the Ming Empire as well as for Zheng Hewho probably died in Calicut and was taken back to China on the last Treasure-fleet 58

1I2The phrase is from Dreyer Early Ming China p 8IIs0n the invasion of Vietnam see Lo Intervention in Vietnam1I4SeeJ V G Mills Notes on early Chinese voyages The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great

Britain and Ireland 3 (1951) 13 Morris Rossabi Kubilai Khan His Life and Times (Berkeley Univer-sity California Press 1988) pp 218-19 Hall A History of South-East Asia pp 88-90

III1LoIntervention in Vietnam p 174 Wang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 pp 391-92 Thequotation is from Wang Gungwu The Decline of the Early Ming Navy Oriens Extremus 5 (1958)167

1I6Dreyer Early Ming China pp 221-25230-33 Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expedi-tions pp 134-35

1I7Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expeditions p 139 Dreyer Early Ming China pp225 233

1I80n the death of Zheng He see Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 1 137-38 XuAoren Zheng He mu yu Huli wa [Zheng Hes tomb and glazed tile] in Zhenghe yanjui ziliao xuanbianpp 351-54

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Xuande was succeeded by his eight-year-old son in 1435 and the Confucian bureau-crats came to dominate policy even more The Treasure-ships were allowed to deterio-rate and the shipyards were starved of labor Timber set aside for the Treasure-shipswas sold cheaply as fuel to the people of Nanjing The men of the fleet were reassignedto repair the royal palace in N anjing to build Yongles mausoleum to load grain onthe Grand Canal and to fight in Vietnam Within a generation the Chinese lost theknowledge of how to build Treasure-ships and private Chinese vessels ceased ventur-ing beyond the Straits of Melaka~9

About 1477 the eunuch Wang Zhi the Inspector of the Frontiers requested therecords of Zheng Hes voyages apparently with the intention of reasserting Chineseauthority in the seas of Asia In response Liu Daxia a high official in the Ministry ofWar destroyed the archives of the expeditions because of his conviction that Chinesepreoccupation with the world outside China was damaging to the empire As he toldhis superior The expeditions [of Zheng He] to the Western Ocean wasted tens ofmyriads of money and grain and moreover the people who met their deaths [because ofthem] may be counted in the myriads Although he returned with wonderful thingswhat benefit was it to the state This was merely an action of bad government of whichministers should severely disapprove Destroying Zheng Hes documents he declaredwas the only way to be certain that future maritime expeditions would be impossibleGO

The Confucian officials who administered the Ming Empire disdained commercemilitarism and naval adventure in favor of self-sufficiency agrarian virtue and impe-rial isolation In their eyes the Middle Kingdom did not need the wider world and themaritime imperialism of Zheng Hes voyages was an embarrassment as well as a dan-ger But twenty years after the records of the Ming expeditions were destroyed Vascoda Gamas four ships reached Calicut Perhaps inspired by the rumors that they heardthere about Zheng Hes Treasure-ships and the riches in them the Portuguese at oncebegan casting their eyes toward the eastern seaways The world was going to come toChina whether China liked it or not

G9Wang The Decline of the Early Ming Navy pp 160-161 Yang Xi Zheng He xia xiyang de mudi jiqibei tinghang de yuanyin [The purpose of Zheng Hes expeditions to the Western Ocean and the reasons fortheir termination] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji p 34 Needham Science and Civilization 4 524-25The decline in shipbuilding techniques and knowledge especially regarding the Treasure-ships is evidentin the 1553 report by the manager of the Nanjing shipyards where most of the Treasure-ships had beenbuilt Li Zhaoxiang Longquan chuan chang zhi [Record of the shipbuilding yards on the Dragon River4 9 611 837-38 (consulted in a sixteenth-century printed edition at Harvard-Yenching Library HarvardUniversity)

BOJan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak The True Dates of the Chinese Maritime Expeditions in the EarlyFifteenth Century Toung Pao 34 (1938) 396

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was larger than the population of most port-cities between Canton and Mombasa Cer-tainly the impression made by Zheng Hes troops was forceful and lasting as wasconveyed by the people of Calicut telling da Gamas men about the helmets spears andbombards of their mysterious predecessors When Zheng Hes 26000 troops marchedoff his ships and built their fortified warehouses it surely inclined their hosts to con-sider that a client relationship with the Ming emperor was an offer that they could notrefuse

Given the overwhelming force in the hands of Zheng He it is less remarkable thatthe Ming expeditions were generally peaceful than that they met opposition at allDuring the second voyage in 1407 some 170 men of the fleet were killed in a Javanesemarket-town the victims of a struggle for power in the Majapahit kingdom of JavaZheng He collected an indemnity in gold from the king41 Later during the same voy-age Zheng Hes soldiers destroyed ten pirate ships and killed several thousand follow-ers of Chen Zuyi the Fujianese pirate-chieftain of Palembang in Sumatra who wastaken to China and beheaded42 In 1411 on the third expedition Vira Alakasvara thede facto monarch of Ceylon attacked a contingent of Zheng Hes forces with (it isalleged) 50000 troops and attempted to burn the Treasure-fleet Zheng He broke outof the ambush invaded the capital city with 2000 men captured the king and hiscourt and then spent six days fighting his way back to his ships Vira Alakasvara wastaken back to China as a prisoner but the emperor Yongle declined to order his execu-tion saying Barbarians are like animals and dont deserve to be put to death43

Heroics such as the so-called Battle of Ceylon Mountain were rarely necessary how-ever A panoply of arms was usually sufficient to cow opposition although it is intrin-sic to the sources that such events go unrecorded A 1597 Ming novel on the voyageswhich extensively used original sources relates that the king of Mogadisho on the EastAfrican coast was persuaded to welcome the Treasure-fleet after bombards simultane-ously blasted the four gates of his city44 The event is played for comic relief in thenovel and smacks of the condescension that the Chinese habitually displayed toward theoutside barbarians Condescension however seems a mild vice when compared to thecruel behavior of the Portuguese Certainly none of the military actions of the Mingfleets can compare with the atrocities of the Portuguese Of course the latter sufferedthe liabilities of being small in number and poor in resources As they saw it a policy

41Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2932 Chiu Ling-yeong Sino-Javanese Relationsin the Early Ming Period Symposium on Historical Archaeological and Linguistic Studies on SouthernChina South-East Asia and the Hong Kong Region ed F S Drake (Hong Kong 1967) p 218 JNoorduyn The Eastern Kings in Majapahit Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde 131(1975) 479-89

42Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2936-38 Chiu Ling-yeong Sino Javanese Rela-tions in the Early Ming Period p 217

4SZheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 2949-52 On the confusion surrounding the Cey-lon events see Gintota Parana Vidanage Somaratne The Political History of the Kingdom of Kotte1400-1521 (PhD thesis University of London 1975) pp 65-73 and Willetts The Maritime Adven-tures of Grand Eunuch Ho pp 31-36

44Luo Maodeng San Bao taijian xia xiyang [The voyage of the San Bao Eunuch to the Western Ocean edShen Yunjia (Shanghai nd) chapter 72 see J J L Duyvendak Desultory Notes on the Hsi-Yang ChiToung Pao 42 (1954) 18-19 On Zheng Hes bombards see Joseph Needham Science and Civilization inChina vol 5 pt 7 Military Technology The Gunpowder Epic (Cambridge Cambridge University Press1986) p 296

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of rapacious aggression seasoned with terror was the only means of gaining a footholdin Asia This was recognized by an Indian merchant in Calicut who told the citysruler when Vasco da Gama arrived in 1498 that the Portuguese had nothing to givebut would rather take away and that thus his country would be ruined45

Wealthy and heavily armed the Chinese overawed potential opposition and crushedthose unwise enough not to be willing to submit to a dependent status ComparingMing and Portuguese behavior in Asia and recognizing that the former neither ac-quired colonies nor spread terror on the seas should not obscure the reality of theChinese use of massive military power to impose their will throughout Southeast Asiaand the Indian Ocean In the course of the seven Ming expeditions forty-eight statesbecame tributary clients of the Chinese emperor many of them for the first time46

China became the arbiter of the rise and fall of distant kingdoms Majapahit Javadeclined as it was supplanted by China as the major power in maritime SoutheastAsia47 The city-state of Melaka like Palembang and Brunei renounced allegiance toJava under the protection of Zheng Hes fleet Indeed Melakas rise to eminence in theearly fifteenth century was solely a consequence of Chinese maritime imperialism forthe Ming armadas relied on Melaka for its port facilities and provided an umbrella ofprotection for the fledging state against both Java and Siam48 Ports along the northcoast of Java such as Demak Tuban Gresik Giri and J apara also began to establishtheir political autonomy from the inland Javanese kingdom after Zheng Hes fleet ap-peared on the scene49

Regarding the Treasure-fleet as a military force-albeit infrequently involved incombat-helps clarify the much-debated questions of the motive for the expeditions andthe reason for their disappearance As a military instrument the Ming armadas were adirect expression of the values and ambitions of Yongle the emperor behind the firstsix voyages 50 Before becoming emperor Yongle spent twenty years fighting Mongoltribes on the northern frontier After three years of civil war he wrested the thronefrom his nephew the emperor Jianwen (1398-1402)1gt1 Throughout his reign Yonglecontinued to lead numerous campaigns deep into the northern plains An out-and-out

usJournal of the First Voyage p 7248Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian vol 2 pt 2 pp 1297-1353 see also Hiroshi

Watanabe An Index of Embassies and Tribute Missions from Islamic Countries to Ming China (1368 -1466) as recorded in the Ming Shih-lu classified according to Geographic Area Memoirs of the ResearchDepartment of the Toyo Bunko 33 (1975) 285-349

47G Ceodes The Indianized States of Southeast Asia trans Susan Brown Cowing ed Walter F Vella(Honolulu East-West Center Press 1968) pp 241-42 J Noorduyn Majapahit in the Fifteenth Cen-tury Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde 134 (1978) 208 255-56

48See Wang Gungwu The Opening of Relations between China and Malacca 1403-5 in Malayan andIndonesian Studies Essays Presented to Sir Richard Winstedt ed John Bastin and R Roolvink (OxfordClarendon Press 1964) pp 87-104 D G E Hall A History of South-East Asia 4th ed (New York1981) pp 225-26 Christopher Wake Malaccas Early Kings and the Reception of Islam Journal ofSoutheast Asian History 5 (1964) 117 Shu Shizeng Zheng He xia xiyang zhi jiazhi [Contributions ofZheng Hes voyages to the Western Ocean] in Zhenghe yanjiu ziliao xuanbian p 182

49Kenneth R Hall Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia (Honolulu Universityof Hawaii Press 1985) p 254 see also Theodore G Th Pigeaud and H J de Graaf Islamic States inJava 1500-1700 (The Hague Martinus Nijhoff 1976) p 5

aOOn Yongles personal involvement in decision-making especially regarding the voyages and Vietnam seeWang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 p 376 and Dreyer Early Ming China p 220

alOn the civil war see David B Chan The Usurpation of the Prince of Yen 1398-1402 (San FranciscoChinese Materials Center 1976)

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militarist he ordered the assembly of the first Treasure-fleet within three years ofcoming to power52 About a year later in 1406 he ordered armies totalling 215000men into Vietnam (Annan) the beginning of a twenty-year debacle that drained Chi-nese resources and determination 53

To some extent Yongles commands were in the tradition of the Mongol emperorKubilai Khan (d1294) who also invaded Vietnam and in 1292 sent a huge fleet topunish the kingdom of Java for insubordination 54 Both emperors aspired to dominatethe world outside China although in regard to maritime Asia the means they em-ployed toward that end were very different Playing the role of a Mongol conquerorKubilai Khan used his fleets to punish and defeat his enemies while YongIe within thecontext of the traditional tribute system made an unorthodox use of maritime power toenforce and extend his authority Both men thought in military terms and relied onforce When some of Zheng Hes men were killed in Java and some Chinese diplomatswere robbed in Thailand Yongle warned the respective states that he might deal withthem as he had with Vietnam Similarly those who opposed Yongles aggressive poli-cies also linked the voyages with Vietnam as when a Confucian official addressed asuccessor to Yongle in 1426 Your minister hopes that your majesty would notindulge in military pursuits nor glorify the sending of expeditions to distantcountries 55

The Ming armadas were a personal project of the militaristic emperor and they allbut died with him in 1424 The new emperor Hongxi (1424) cancelled Zheng Hesscheduled seventh voyage on the very day he assumed the throne and he began cuttingback in Vietnam Yongle had imprisoned his long-time Minister of Finance XiaYuanji after he had protested the cost of the expeditions Hongxi personally releasedthe disgraced minister from jail and restored him to office66 Unlike Yongle Hongxihad received an impeccably Confucian education and he fully supported the civil bu-reaucrats who opposed both the Ming voyages and the eunuchs who organized themHongxi died within the year although Confucian officials especially the powerful XiaYuanji generally retained their hold over policy under Xuande (1424-1435) But whenXia Yuanji the foremost opponent of the voyages died in 1430 Xuande ordered thedispatch of the seventh voyage which sailed in 143357

It was the final maritime expedition of the Ming Empire as well as for Zheng Hewho probably died in Calicut and was taken back to China on the last Treasure-fleet 58

1I2The phrase is from Dreyer Early Ming China p 8IIs0n the invasion of Vietnam see Lo Intervention in Vietnam1I4SeeJ V G Mills Notes on early Chinese voyages The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great

Britain and Ireland 3 (1951) 13 Morris Rossabi Kubilai Khan His Life and Times (Berkeley Univer-sity California Press 1988) pp 218-19 Hall A History of South-East Asia pp 88-90

III1LoIntervention in Vietnam p 174 Wang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 pp 391-92 Thequotation is from Wang Gungwu The Decline of the Early Ming Navy Oriens Extremus 5 (1958)167

1I6Dreyer Early Ming China pp 221-25230-33 Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expedi-tions pp 134-35

1I7Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expeditions p 139 Dreyer Early Ming China pp225 233

1I80n the death of Zheng He see Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 1 137-38 XuAoren Zheng He mu yu Huli wa [Zheng Hes tomb and glazed tile] in Zhenghe yanjui ziliao xuanbianpp 351-54

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Xuande was succeeded by his eight-year-old son in 1435 and the Confucian bureau-crats came to dominate policy even more The Treasure-ships were allowed to deterio-rate and the shipyards were starved of labor Timber set aside for the Treasure-shipswas sold cheaply as fuel to the people of Nanjing The men of the fleet were reassignedto repair the royal palace in N anjing to build Yongles mausoleum to load grain onthe Grand Canal and to fight in Vietnam Within a generation the Chinese lost theknowledge of how to build Treasure-ships and private Chinese vessels ceased ventur-ing beyond the Straits of Melaka~9

About 1477 the eunuch Wang Zhi the Inspector of the Frontiers requested therecords of Zheng Hes voyages apparently with the intention of reasserting Chineseauthority in the seas of Asia In response Liu Daxia a high official in the Ministry ofWar destroyed the archives of the expeditions because of his conviction that Chinesepreoccupation with the world outside China was damaging to the empire As he toldhis superior The expeditions [of Zheng He] to the Western Ocean wasted tens ofmyriads of money and grain and moreover the people who met their deaths [because ofthem] may be counted in the myriads Although he returned with wonderful thingswhat benefit was it to the state This was merely an action of bad government of whichministers should severely disapprove Destroying Zheng Hes documents he declaredwas the only way to be certain that future maritime expeditions would be impossibleGO

The Confucian officials who administered the Ming Empire disdained commercemilitarism and naval adventure in favor of self-sufficiency agrarian virtue and impe-rial isolation In their eyes the Middle Kingdom did not need the wider world and themaritime imperialism of Zheng Hes voyages was an embarrassment as well as a dan-ger But twenty years after the records of the Ming expeditions were destroyed Vascoda Gamas four ships reached Calicut Perhaps inspired by the rumors that they heardthere about Zheng Hes Treasure-ships and the riches in them the Portuguese at oncebegan casting their eyes toward the eastern seaways The world was going to come toChina whether China liked it or not

G9Wang The Decline of the Early Ming Navy pp 160-161 Yang Xi Zheng He xia xiyang de mudi jiqibei tinghang de yuanyin [The purpose of Zheng Hes expeditions to the Western Ocean and the reasons fortheir termination] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji p 34 Needham Science and Civilization 4 524-25The decline in shipbuilding techniques and knowledge especially regarding the Treasure-ships is evidentin the 1553 report by the manager of the Nanjing shipyards where most of the Treasure-ships had beenbuilt Li Zhaoxiang Longquan chuan chang zhi [Record of the shipbuilding yards on the Dragon River4 9 611 837-38 (consulted in a sixteenth-century printed edition at Harvard-Yenching Library HarvardUniversity)

BOJan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak The True Dates of the Chinese Maritime Expeditions in the EarlyFifteenth Century Toung Pao 34 (1938) 396

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of rapacious aggression seasoned with terror was the only means of gaining a footholdin Asia This was recognized by an Indian merchant in Calicut who told the citysruler when Vasco da Gama arrived in 1498 that the Portuguese had nothing to givebut would rather take away and that thus his country would be ruined45

Wealthy and heavily armed the Chinese overawed potential opposition and crushedthose unwise enough not to be willing to submit to a dependent status ComparingMing and Portuguese behavior in Asia and recognizing that the former neither ac-quired colonies nor spread terror on the seas should not obscure the reality of theChinese use of massive military power to impose their will throughout Southeast Asiaand the Indian Ocean In the course of the seven Ming expeditions forty-eight statesbecame tributary clients of the Chinese emperor many of them for the first time46

China became the arbiter of the rise and fall of distant kingdoms Majapahit Javadeclined as it was supplanted by China as the major power in maritime SoutheastAsia47 The city-state of Melaka like Palembang and Brunei renounced allegiance toJava under the protection of Zheng Hes fleet Indeed Melakas rise to eminence in theearly fifteenth century was solely a consequence of Chinese maritime imperialism forthe Ming armadas relied on Melaka for its port facilities and provided an umbrella ofprotection for the fledging state against both Java and Siam48 Ports along the northcoast of Java such as Demak Tuban Gresik Giri and J apara also began to establishtheir political autonomy from the inland Javanese kingdom after Zheng Hes fleet ap-peared on the scene49

Regarding the Treasure-fleet as a military force-albeit infrequently involved incombat-helps clarify the much-debated questions of the motive for the expeditions andthe reason for their disappearance As a military instrument the Ming armadas were adirect expression of the values and ambitions of Yongle the emperor behind the firstsix voyages 50 Before becoming emperor Yongle spent twenty years fighting Mongoltribes on the northern frontier After three years of civil war he wrested the thronefrom his nephew the emperor Jianwen (1398-1402)1gt1 Throughout his reign Yonglecontinued to lead numerous campaigns deep into the northern plains An out-and-out

usJournal of the First Voyage p 7248Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian vol 2 pt 2 pp 1297-1353 see also Hiroshi

Watanabe An Index of Embassies and Tribute Missions from Islamic Countries to Ming China (1368 -1466) as recorded in the Ming Shih-lu classified according to Geographic Area Memoirs of the ResearchDepartment of the Toyo Bunko 33 (1975) 285-349

47G Ceodes The Indianized States of Southeast Asia trans Susan Brown Cowing ed Walter F Vella(Honolulu East-West Center Press 1968) pp 241-42 J Noorduyn Majapahit in the Fifteenth Cen-tury Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde 134 (1978) 208 255-56

48See Wang Gungwu The Opening of Relations between China and Malacca 1403-5 in Malayan andIndonesian Studies Essays Presented to Sir Richard Winstedt ed John Bastin and R Roolvink (OxfordClarendon Press 1964) pp 87-104 D G E Hall A History of South-East Asia 4th ed (New York1981) pp 225-26 Christopher Wake Malaccas Early Kings and the Reception of Islam Journal ofSoutheast Asian History 5 (1964) 117 Shu Shizeng Zheng He xia xiyang zhi jiazhi [Contributions ofZheng Hes voyages to the Western Ocean] in Zhenghe yanjiu ziliao xuanbian p 182

49Kenneth R Hall Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia (Honolulu Universityof Hawaii Press 1985) p 254 see also Theodore G Th Pigeaud and H J de Graaf Islamic States inJava 1500-1700 (The Hague Martinus Nijhoff 1976) p 5

aOOn Yongles personal involvement in decision-making especially regarding the voyages and Vietnam seeWang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 p 376 and Dreyer Early Ming China p 220

alOn the civil war see David B Chan The Usurpation of the Prince of Yen 1398-1402 (San FranciscoChinese Materials Center 1976)

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militarist he ordered the assembly of the first Treasure-fleet within three years ofcoming to power52 About a year later in 1406 he ordered armies totalling 215000men into Vietnam (Annan) the beginning of a twenty-year debacle that drained Chi-nese resources and determination 53

To some extent Yongles commands were in the tradition of the Mongol emperorKubilai Khan (d1294) who also invaded Vietnam and in 1292 sent a huge fleet topunish the kingdom of Java for insubordination 54 Both emperors aspired to dominatethe world outside China although in regard to maritime Asia the means they em-ployed toward that end were very different Playing the role of a Mongol conquerorKubilai Khan used his fleets to punish and defeat his enemies while YongIe within thecontext of the traditional tribute system made an unorthodox use of maritime power toenforce and extend his authority Both men thought in military terms and relied onforce When some of Zheng Hes men were killed in Java and some Chinese diplomatswere robbed in Thailand Yongle warned the respective states that he might deal withthem as he had with Vietnam Similarly those who opposed Yongles aggressive poli-cies also linked the voyages with Vietnam as when a Confucian official addressed asuccessor to Yongle in 1426 Your minister hopes that your majesty would notindulge in military pursuits nor glorify the sending of expeditions to distantcountries 55

The Ming armadas were a personal project of the militaristic emperor and they allbut died with him in 1424 The new emperor Hongxi (1424) cancelled Zheng Hesscheduled seventh voyage on the very day he assumed the throne and he began cuttingback in Vietnam Yongle had imprisoned his long-time Minister of Finance XiaYuanji after he had protested the cost of the expeditions Hongxi personally releasedthe disgraced minister from jail and restored him to office66 Unlike Yongle Hongxihad received an impeccably Confucian education and he fully supported the civil bu-reaucrats who opposed both the Ming voyages and the eunuchs who organized themHongxi died within the year although Confucian officials especially the powerful XiaYuanji generally retained their hold over policy under Xuande (1424-1435) But whenXia Yuanji the foremost opponent of the voyages died in 1430 Xuande ordered thedispatch of the seventh voyage which sailed in 143357

It was the final maritime expedition of the Ming Empire as well as for Zheng Hewho probably died in Calicut and was taken back to China on the last Treasure-fleet 58

1I2The phrase is from Dreyer Early Ming China p 8IIs0n the invasion of Vietnam see Lo Intervention in Vietnam1I4SeeJ V G Mills Notes on early Chinese voyages The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great

Britain and Ireland 3 (1951) 13 Morris Rossabi Kubilai Khan His Life and Times (Berkeley Univer-sity California Press 1988) pp 218-19 Hall A History of South-East Asia pp 88-90

III1LoIntervention in Vietnam p 174 Wang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 pp 391-92 Thequotation is from Wang Gungwu The Decline of the Early Ming Navy Oriens Extremus 5 (1958)167

1I6Dreyer Early Ming China pp 221-25230-33 Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expedi-tions pp 134-35

1I7Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expeditions p 139 Dreyer Early Ming China pp225 233

1I80n the death of Zheng He see Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 1 137-38 XuAoren Zheng He mu yu Huli wa [Zheng Hes tomb and glazed tile] in Zhenghe yanjui ziliao xuanbianpp 351-54

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Xuande was succeeded by his eight-year-old son in 1435 and the Confucian bureau-crats came to dominate policy even more The Treasure-ships were allowed to deterio-rate and the shipyards were starved of labor Timber set aside for the Treasure-shipswas sold cheaply as fuel to the people of Nanjing The men of the fleet were reassignedto repair the royal palace in N anjing to build Yongles mausoleum to load grain onthe Grand Canal and to fight in Vietnam Within a generation the Chinese lost theknowledge of how to build Treasure-ships and private Chinese vessels ceased ventur-ing beyond the Straits of Melaka~9

About 1477 the eunuch Wang Zhi the Inspector of the Frontiers requested therecords of Zheng Hes voyages apparently with the intention of reasserting Chineseauthority in the seas of Asia In response Liu Daxia a high official in the Ministry ofWar destroyed the archives of the expeditions because of his conviction that Chinesepreoccupation with the world outside China was damaging to the empire As he toldhis superior The expeditions [of Zheng He] to the Western Ocean wasted tens ofmyriads of money and grain and moreover the people who met their deaths [because ofthem] may be counted in the myriads Although he returned with wonderful thingswhat benefit was it to the state This was merely an action of bad government of whichministers should severely disapprove Destroying Zheng Hes documents he declaredwas the only way to be certain that future maritime expeditions would be impossibleGO

The Confucian officials who administered the Ming Empire disdained commercemilitarism and naval adventure in favor of self-sufficiency agrarian virtue and impe-rial isolation In their eyes the Middle Kingdom did not need the wider world and themaritime imperialism of Zheng Hes voyages was an embarrassment as well as a dan-ger But twenty years after the records of the Ming expeditions were destroyed Vascoda Gamas four ships reached Calicut Perhaps inspired by the rumors that they heardthere about Zheng Hes Treasure-ships and the riches in them the Portuguese at oncebegan casting their eyes toward the eastern seaways The world was going to come toChina whether China liked it or not

G9Wang The Decline of the Early Ming Navy pp 160-161 Yang Xi Zheng He xia xiyang de mudi jiqibei tinghang de yuanyin [The purpose of Zheng Hes expeditions to the Western Ocean and the reasons fortheir termination] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji p 34 Needham Science and Civilization 4 524-25The decline in shipbuilding techniques and knowledge especially regarding the Treasure-ships is evidentin the 1553 report by the manager of the Nanjing shipyards where most of the Treasure-ships had beenbuilt Li Zhaoxiang Longquan chuan chang zhi [Record of the shipbuilding yards on the Dragon River4 9 611 837-38 (consulted in a sixteenth-century printed edition at Harvard-Yenching Library HarvardUniversity)

BOJan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak The True Dates of the Chinese Maritime Expeditions in the EarlyFifteenth Century Toung Pao 34 (1938) 396

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militarist he ordered the assembly of the first Treasure-fleet within three years ofcoming to power52 About a year later in 1406 he ordered armies totalling 215000men into Vietnam (Annan) the beginning of a twenty-year debacle that drained Chi-nese resources and determination 53

To some extent Yongles commands were in the tradition of the Mongol emperorKubilai Khan (d1294) who also invaded Vietnam and in 1292 sent a huge fleet topunish the kingdom of Java for insubordination 54 Both emperors aspired to dominatethe world outside China although in regard to maritime Asia the means they em-ployed toward that end were very different Playing the role of a Mongol conquerorKubilai Khan used his fleets to punish and defeat his enemies while YongIe within thecontext of the traditional tribute system made an unorthodox use of maritime power toenforce and extend his authority Both men thought in military terms and relied onforce When some of Zheng Hes men were killed in Java and some Chinese diplomatswere robbed in Thailand Yongle warned the respective states that he might deal withthem as he had with Vietnam Similarly those who opposed Yongles aggressive poli-cies also linked the voyages with Vietnam as when a Confucian official addressed asuccessor to Yongle in 1426 Your minister hopes that your majesty would notindulge in military pursuits nor glorify the sending of expeditions to distantcountries 55

The Ming armadas were a personal project of the militaristic emperor and they allbut died with him in 1424 The new emperor Hongxi (1424) cancelled Zheng Hesscheduled seventh voyage on the very day he assumed the throne and he began cuttingback in Vietnam Yongle had imprisoned his long-time Minister of Finance XiaYuanji after he had protested the cost of the expeditions Hongxi personally releasedthe disgraced minister from jail and restored him to office66 Unlike Yongle Hongxihad received an impeccably Confucian education and he fully supported the civil bu-reaucrats who opposed both the Ming voyages and the eunuchs who organized themHongxi died within the year although Confucian officials especially the powerful XiaYuanji generally retained their hold over policy under Xuande (1424-1435) But whenXia Yuanji the foremost opponent of the voyages died in 1430 Xuande ordered thedispatch of the seventh voyage which sailed in 143357

It was the final maritime expedition of the Ming Empire as well as for Zheng Hewho probably died in Calicut and was taken back to China on the last Treasure-fleet 58

1I2The phrase is from Dreyer Early Ming China p 8IIs0n the invasion of Vietnam see Lo Intervention in Vietnam1I4SeeJ V G Mills Notes on early Chinese voyages The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great

Britain and Ireland 3 (1951) 13 Morris Rossabi Kubilai Khan His Life and Times (Berkeley Univer-sity California Press 1988) pp 218-19 Hall A History of South-East Asia pp 88-90

III1LoIntervention in Vietnam p 174 Wang China and South-East Asia 1402-1424 pp 391-92 Thequotation is from Wang Gungwu The Decline of the Early Ming Navy Oriens Extremus 5 (1958)167

1I6Dreyer Early Ming China pp 221-25230-33 Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expedi-tions pp 134-35

1I7Lo The Termination of the Early Ming Naval Expeditions p 139 Dreyer Early Ming China pp225 233

1I80n the death of Zheng He see Zheng and Zheng Zheng He xia xiyang ziliao huibian 1 137-38 XuAoren Zheng He mu yu Huli wa [Zheng Hes tomb and glazed tile] in Zhenghe yanjui ziliao xuanbianpp 351-54

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Xuande was succeeded by his eight-year-old son in 1435 and the Confucian bureau-crats came to dominate policy even more The Treasure-ships were allowed to deterio-rate and the shipyards were starved of labor Timber set aside for the Treasure-shipswas sold cheaply as fuel to the people of Nanjing The men of the fleet were reassignedto repair the royal palace in N anjing to build Yongles mausoleum to load grain onthe Grand Canal and to fight in Vietnam Within a generation the Chinese lost theknowledge of how to build Treasure-ships and private Chinese vessels ceased ventur-ing beyond the Straits of Melaka~9

About 1477 the eunuch Wang Zhi the Inspector of the Frontiers requested therecords of Zheng Hes voyages apparently with the intention of reasserting Chineseauthority in the seas of Asia In response Liu Daxia a high official in the Ministry ofWar destroyed the archives of the expeditions because of his conviction that Chinesepreoccupation with the world outside China was damaging to the empire As he toldhis superior The expeditions [of Zheng He] to the Western Ocean wasted tens ofmyriads of money and grain and moreover the people who met their deaths [because ofthem] may be counted in the myriads Although he returned with wonderful thingswhat benefit was it to the state This was merely an action of bad government of whichministers should severely disapprove Destroying Zheng Hes documents he declaredwas the only way to be certain that future maritime expeditions would be impossibleGO

The Confucian officials who administered the Ming Empire disdained commercemilitarism and naval adventure in favor of self-sufficiency agrarian virtue and impe-rial isolation In their eyes the Middle Kingdom did not need the wider world and themaritime imperialism of Zheng Hes voyages was an embarrassment as well as a dan-ger But twenty years after the records of the Ming expeditions were destroyed Vascoda Gamas four ships reached Calicut Perhaps inspired by the rumors that they heardthere about Zheng Hes Treasure-ships and the riches in them the Portuguese at oncebegan casting their eyes toward the eastern seaways The world was going to come toChina whether China liked it or not

G9Wang The Decline of the Early Ming Navy pp 160-161 Yang Xi Zheng He xia xiyang de mudi jiqibei tinghang de yuanyin [The purpose of Zheng Hes expeditions to the Western Ocean and the reasons fortheir termination] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji p 34 Needham Science and Civilization 4 524-25The decline in shipbuilding techniques and knowledge especially regarding the Treasure-ships is evidentin the 1553 report by the manager of the Nanjing shipyards where most of the Treasure-ships had beenbuilt Li Zhaoxiang Longquan chuan chang zhi [Record of the shipbuilding yards on the Dragon River4 9 611 837-38 (consulted in a sixteenth-century printed edition at Harvard-Yenching Library HarvardUniversity)

BOJan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak The True Dates of the Chinese Maritime Expeditions in the EarlyFifteenth Century Toung Pao 34 (1938) 396

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Xuande was succeeded by his eight-year-old son in 1435 and the Confucian bureau-crats came to dominate policy even more The Treasure-ships were allowed to deterio-rate and the shipyards were starved of labor Timber set aside for the Treasure-shipswas sold cheaply as fuel to the people of Nanjing The men of the fleet were reassignedto repair the royal palace in N anjing to build Yongles mausoleum to load grain onthe Grand Canal and to fight in Vietnam Within a generation the Chinese lost theknowledge of how to build Treasure-ships and private Chinese vessels ceased ventur-ing beyond the Straits of Melaka~9

About 1477 the eunuch Wang Zhi the Inspector of the Frontiers requested therecords of Zheng Hes voyages apparently with the intention of reasserting Chineseauthority in the seas of Asia In response Liu Daxia a high official in the Ministry ofWar destroyed the archives of the expeditions because of his conviction that Chinesepreoccupation with the world outside China was damaging to the empire As he toldhis superior The expeditions [of Zheng He] to the Western Ocean wasted tens ofmyriads of money and grain and moreover the people who met their deaths [because ofthem] may be counted in the myriads Although he returned with wonderful thingswhat benefit was it to the state This was merely an action of bad government of whichministers should severely disapprove Destroying Zheng Hes documents he declaredwas the only way to be certain that future maritime expeditions would be impossibleGO

The Confucian officials who administered the Ming Empire disdained commercemilitarism and naval adventure in favor of self-sufficiency agrarian virtue and impe-rial isolation In their eyes the Middle Kingdom did not need the wider world and themaritime imperialism of Zheng Hes voyages was an embarrassment as well as a dan-ger But twenty years after the records of the Ming expeditions were destroyed Vascoda Gamas four ships reached Calicut Perhaps inspired by the rumors that they heardthere about Zheng Hes Treasure-ships and the riches in them the Portuguese at oncebegan casting their eyes toward the eastern seaways The world was going to come toChina whether China liked it or not

G9Wang The Decline of the Early Ming Navy pp 160-161 Yang Xi Zheng He xia xiyang de mudi jiqibei tinghang de yuanyin [The purpose of Zheng Hes expeditions to the Western Ocean and the reasons fortheir termination] in Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji p 34 Needham Science and Civilization 4 524-25The decline in shipbuilding techniques and knowledge especially regarding the Treasure-ships is evidentin the 1553 report by the manager of the Nanjing shipyards where most of the Treasure-ships had beenbuilt Li Zhaoxiang Longquan chuan chang zhi [Record of the shipbuilding yards on the Dragon River4 9 611 837-38 (consulted in a sixteenth-century printed edition at Harvard-Yenching Library HarvardUniversity)

BOJan Julius Lodewijk Duyvendak The True Dates of the Chinese Maritime Expeditions in the EarlyFifteenth Century Toung Pao 34 (1938) 396

12