Zheng He's Floating City: When China Dominated the Oceans

Imagine hundreds of ships fanning out across the horizon, an ocean of red silk sails. At their head colossal dreadnoughts, each one bigger than a football field. This was the great fleet of the Ming Dynasty, a massive floating city commanded by Zheng He. This treasure fleet brought incalculable wealth to foreign lands, yet also showed China's might, conquering pirates and creating kings. Welcome to our video on the voyages of Zheng He, a 30 year period when China dominated the seas. Shoutout to Perfect World Mobile for sponsoring this video on Chinese history. Perfect World International is one of the most popular Shenzhen MMORPGs ever, and soon it will be released for mobile devices. Perfect World Mobile, which has stunning movie level graphics, a unique flight system and character customization, will allow long time fans to revisit this incredible world and make fans of everybody who downloads the game. All the playable classes in the game have distinct characteristics, and each class compliments each other, and that is great news since the game has very good guild and party systems which will make playing with and against your friends very easy. 60,000 square kilometers of panoramic three-dimensional map for players to explore, epic combat in the air, on land or in the oceans, and next-gen immersive graphics make this game a perfect choice for your new favorite. Support our channel and download the game by clicking the link in the description. Perfect World awaits. In 1368, the Ming Dynasty rose to power in China, ending nearly 100 years of Mongol Show more

Dominion. The first ruler of this line, the Hongwu Emperor, enjoyed a long and prosperous reign, but following his death, civil strife enveloped his realm. War erupted between Hongwu's son and his rebellious uncle, Zhu Di, who decisively Show more

defeated his nephew and deposed him as Emperor. Zhu Di took on the imperial moniker of Yongle, a title meaning eternal joy. The Yongle Emperor proved to be among the most ambitious monarchs in Chinese history, sending soldiers south to annex Annam while personally leading armies north to fight the Mongols who remained a threat to his domain. All the while, he facilitated the building of a new grand capital, the city of Beijing. The Emperor wished to see his domain expanded throughout the oceans, to have all nations across the four cardinal directions come under his economic influence and acknowledge China's greatness. In this endeavour, he appointed one of his most trusted confidants, the eunuch known as Zheng He. Zheng He was born in 1371, in the province of Yunnan, which sits in the shadow of the Show more

Himalayas. His birth name was Ma He, and he was the son of a minor official in the Mongol Empire, whose ancestors were likely of Persian origin. His family was Muslim, and he lived his entire life as a devotee of that faith. At ten years old, Ma He saw a Ming army march into his home province to seize it from the Mongol remnant. His father was killed in the ensuing fighting, and he was taken captive. As was the custom, Ma He was castrated and given into the services of Judi. Despite his maiming, the young eunuch fought bravely in the battles that put his master on the throne, and thus became one of the most trusted confidants of the new emperor, who bestowed upon him his new name, Zheng, which was the name of his favourite warhorse. There was still the matter of building the fleet, into which Yongle poured monumental amounts of resources to see through. Show more

In the old capital of Nanjing, a massive dry dock was set up, over a quarter mile wide. In it, the great treasureships were built. These were gargantuan nine mast vessels over 450 feet in length and 200 feet in width, five times bigger than the ships of Christopher Columbus. These behemoths were a marvel of engineering, featuring watertight compartments in their hulls, ensuring only one pocket would be flooded should a leak spring and not the whole ship. They were aptly named for they carried a priceless cargo of silks, porcelain, gold, silver and other treasures that would be gifted to foreign rulers who paid tribute to the Ming. Sixty-two treasureships would be completed in the span of only three years, supplemented by 190 smaller vessels carrying supplies. The crewmen assembled included cooks, sailmakers, carpenters, physicians, record keepers, diplomats, translators and professional soldiers, including cavalrymen, whose mounts were housed aboard nautical stables. Zheng He's fleet was a floating city. In the summer of 1405, the first voyage began. At Nanjing, the crew performed offerings and prayers to Ma Zhu, the Chinese patron goddess of sailors. Even the Muslim Zheng He was known to spread the worship of this spirit rooted in Buddhist and Taoist tradition. From there, the treasureships proceeded down the Yangtze River to the port of Liu Jigang, where the support ships awaited them. Come December, the winter monsoon winds blew southwest, propelling the fleet first to Quanyan, then to Sumatra, through the Strait of Malacca and out into the Bay of Bengal. Unlike later European explorers, Zheng He was plying lands already known to his people. Even so, he used various means of reliable navigation. The fleet compasses determined his whereabouts and slow-burning incense sticks measured distance and time. The fleet navigators had access to detailed sea charts and were able to read the altitude of key stars while sailing along certain latitudes. The fleet rounded Ceylon and arrived in Calicut to great fanfare. Situated on India's west coast, the city was a thriving trade port, but its inhabitants had never seen anything like the treasure fleet before. Hundreds of ships, with a total of over 27,000 crewmen aboard, bearing down upon their home. This was more than half the population of contemporary London. Luckily for them, Zheng He had come with good intentions. Silks, porcelains and other precious treasures were gifted to the local Malayalam elites, while the Chinese received precious stones, corals and pepper in return. Show more

To the sailors aboard the ships, it was a new and alien experience, for the people, the food and the cultures of southern India were all brand new to them. After about half a year of ritualised bartering and trade in Calicut, the fleet fell in with the westerly monsoon winds and began heading home, laid in heavily with foreign luxuries and ambassadors from Calicut, Quillon, Sumatra, Malacca and beyond. Show more

On the way back, Zheng He was made aware of a pirate flotilla in the Strait of Malacca, led by the notorious Chinese pirate lord Chen Zuyi, who evidently had designs upon the treasure fleet. Sources on this conflict are thin, but it is recorded that Zheng He led the pirates into an ambush where a battle followed. Highly disciplined, Ming soldiers threw explosives and incendiary grenades into the pirate ships, sinking 10 and capturing 7. Zuyi was captured after a several month long chase. Zheng He returned to China triumphantly in 1407. The foreign treasures were presented to the Yongle Emperor, the diplomats welcomed to the main court, and Chen Zuyi was publicly beheaded in Nanjing. The treasure fleet's next notable exploits came upon their third voyage, which lasted from 1409 to 1411. Like the first two cruises, it sailed down the coast of Southeast Asia and through the Strait of Malacca, trading with the various kingdoms there. Show more

This time, they encountered the prince Paramiswara, who had just founded a burgeoning trade city. Paramiswara offered up his realm to Zheng He, who gladly took it under Ming's suzerainty on behalf of his emperor. In kowtowing to the Chinese, the Malaccan prince ensured his city would be unmolested by his expansionist neighbour, who dared not invoke the ire of the Ming. Soon, his city became the most prosperous trading port in the Strait. Following this exertion of Chinese political clout, the treasure fleet traded with the locals for nutmeg, cloves, pepper and ginger before sailing on. In Silan, Zheng He found trouble. The local Buddhist Sinhalese were embroiled by wars both with Hindu Tamils and amongst themselves. The regional power was the kingdom of Kote, ruled by the usurper king Alekisvara. The Sinhalese suspected the foreign fleet of trying to steal their sacred relic, the Tooth of Buddha. Alekisvara refused to pay Zheng He any tribute and drove the Chinese from his shores, forcing them to move on to Calicut. On the return voyage, Zheng He arrived back in Silan with vengeance in mind and a small war followed. Sources differ wildly on the nature of this conflict, but it is widely agreed that the admiral himself and 2,000 soldiers were lured inland by the Kote King, where Sinhalese forces felled trees to cut them off from the coast. Show more

Alekisvara mustered the majority of his soldiers to launch a surprise assault upon the treasure fleet and plunder its riches, but the Yunook was a quick thinker and stormed the sparsely defended Sinhalese capital city with his 2,000 men. The Sinhalese were now forced to besiege their own capital, but the Ming soldiers held their own. During this fight, Zheng He managed to capture Alekisvara and escape back to his ships. They departed from the island in safety and the hostage king was taken to Nanjing. Ultimately, the Yongle Emperor released Alekisvara and sent him home, but not before appointing Paracramabahu VI as the new king of Silan at the suggestion of the Sinhalese ambassadors. This new ruler paid regular tribute to the Ming, rendering Silan back under Chinese influence. The fourth voyage commenced in 1413, with expanded horizons. This time, the fleet was to sail beyond Calicut and into the Persian Gulf. The Chinese soon arrived at the port of Hormuz, where they were greeted warmly by the local authorities. There, the sailors were immersed in the riches of the Persian and Arabic worlds, offering Show more

out their wealth in return for precious stones, pearls, ornate Persian carpets and fine Arabic horses. It was here that Zheng He first came into contact with the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, for Hormuz was a thriving trading port and brought in entrepreneurs from across the Muslim world. The eunuch met merchants from Mogadishu and Malindi, as well as the lions and leopards they brought from their homeland. These merchants sold their animals to the Chinese, and after further prompting agreed to come aboard the treasure fleet and go to Nanjing as envoys, paying tribute to Yongle. Meanwhile, one of Zheng He's admirals, Yang Min, had peeled off the main fleet to Bengal, where the local ruler had gifted him an African giraffe. Show more

On the return journey through Malika, Zheng He became embroiled in a dynastic dispute for the throne of Semedera, where a usurper named Sikander had deposed the king, Zain al-Abadan. Zheng He sided with al-Abadan. This enraged Sikander, prompting him to attack the fleet, allegedly with 10,000 men. The Ming soldiers defeated this army, and placed al-Abadan back upon the throne, making it a Show more

tributary state. Yang Min returned back to Nanjing first, followed by Zheng He with the bulk of the fleet. The foreign treasures and live animals were received triumphantly by the Ming court, but it was the giraffe in particular that caused a widespread stir among the Chinese people. Many believed the gentle long-necked creature to be a qilin, a mythical spirit that appeared only to mark the arrival of a great sage ruler. Show more

Its presence in the Chinese court was a sign that Yongle's reign was blessed by the heavens, and it became synonymous with the emperor's boundless prestige. In 1417, Zheng He departed on his fifth voyage, with the intention to go further than he'd ever gone before. Being beyond Hormuz, he docked at the port of Aden in modern-day Yemen. Show more

There, the Chinese acquired more material wealth from the Arab world, alongside ostriches and zebras, as well as more lions and giraffes. From Aden, the fleet made its way down to Mogadishu and Melindi, returning home the African merchants they had picked up on their previous voyage. There they encountered towns defined by coral rag houses and lush citrus gardens. Tours of the treasure fleet's travels here are thin, but the local Swahili's generally received them well, although one account claims Zheng He ordered a gunpowder cannon fired into the walls of a belligerent chieftain's town. Either way, the unicadmeral had travelled farther than any East Asian sailor in history. Unfortunately, the golden age of the treasure fleet was slowly coming to an end. In 1424, following the end of Zheng He's sixth voyage, the Yongle Emperor died, succumbing to illness while on campaign against the Mongols. With him, the Ming's desire to fund more voyages slowly dissipated. Yongle's son staunchly opposed the fleet, but he died only a year into his reign, succeeded by his son, the Xuander Emperor. Xuander opted to honour his grandfather's ambitions by calling upon Zheng He once more. Thus in 1431, 10 years after the conclusion of his previous voyage, the 60-year-old admiral Show more

was sent on one final cruise. On this journey, the great admiral met his end, passing away in Calicut in 1433 and being buried at sea. With both Yongle and Zheng He gone, there was nothing left to stop the Ming court from disbanding the treasure fleet. There is still debate as to why the voyages were terminated. Scholars claim that sects within the imperial court had always been fundamentally opposed to the fleets, seeing it as a flagrant insult to China's Confucian values, which imparted the importance of a land-based agrarian society. Others cite a widespread resentment for the eunuch faction of which Zheng He was Show more

a part. The fleet had been a hallmark of their power and its destruction was a way to diminish their influence. Ultimately, economics was likely the principal reason for the fleet's stoppage. Yongle had bled his treasury dry with his other ventures. His war fronts had cost him dearly, while building Beijing had also incurred huge expenses. After his death, the Ming decided that ocean-going trade was no longer monetarily feasible. The great wall was built by the later Ming emperors, using the funds that would have otherwise gone into maintaining treasureships. In 1529, the Zhejing emperor burned hundreds of logbooks from Zheng He's voyage in an attempt to erase him from history and established China as an isolationist nation. Despite this, the connections established by the admiral eunuch across Southeast Asia Show more

endured. There is physical evidence of this, seen in porcelain bowls made in the early 17th century by Chinese artisans. Inscribed with Arabic calligraphy, they were commissioned by the sultans of Aceh in Sumatra, who still coveted these Chinese luxuries nearly two centuries after Zheng He's death. The treasure fleets also had an indirect role in changing the ethnic makeup of the region. Chinese minorities had existed throughout the South China Sea for centuries, but the era Show more

following Zheng He's voyages saw an exponential increase in immigration. Today, Chinese communities in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and India hold Zheng He as an extremely venerated figure. Furthermore, Zheng He is said to have had mosques built all throughout Southeast Asia. The success of his fleets and their abrupt termination brings many to question if China Show more

had squandered the opportunity to form a colonial empire before the kingdoms of Europe took to the seas. Yet the existing legacy of the treasureships is impressive enough without having to wonder what might have been, and the exploits of Zheng He during the reign of the Yongle Emperor will always be a reminder of a time when China ruled the waves. We always have more stories to tell and release videos every Thursday and Sunday, so make sure you are subscribed to our channel and have pressed the bell button. We would like to express our gratitude to our Patreon supporters and channel members who make the creation of our videos possible. Now you can also support us by buying our merchandise via the link in the description. This is the Kings and Generals channel, and we will catch you on the next one. Show more