Ming treasure voyages

The Ming treasure voyages were seven great maritime expeditions sent by the Ming dynasty of China between 1405 and 1433, commanded by the eunuch admiral Zheng He. Large fleets sailed through Southeast Asia and across the Indian Ocean to India, the Persian Gulf, Arabia and the coast of East Africa, displaying Chinese power and drawing dozens of states into tribute relations with the Ming court. They were abruptly abandoned, and China made no comparable naval effort for centuries.

The voyages were the project of the Yongle Emperor, who seized the throne from his nephew in 1402. He wanted to project the prestige of his reign abroad, extend the tribute system, under which foreign rulers acknowledged the emperor with gifts and received gifts in return, and control maritime trade, which his father, the Hongwu Emperor, had restricted to official channels. Zheng He, a Muslim from Yunnan who had been captured and castrated as a boy during the Ming conquest of that province, had risen to become one of Yongle's most trusted servants.

The first expedition, which left in 1405, is usually said to have numbered 317 ships, including 62 large treasure ships, with about 27,800 men, though figures vary between sources. Later accounts describe the largest treasure ships as more than 120 metres long with nine masts; many historians consider this an exaggeration and suggest much smaller vessels. Even so, the fleets were among the largest the world had seen, carrying soldiers, sailors, interpreters, doctors and officials, with silk, porcelain and other goods to present and trade.

The first three voyages, between 1405 and 1411, sailed through Champa, Java, Malacca and Sumatra to Ceylon and Calicut on the south-west coast of India. On the way the fleet fought several battles: in 1407 it defeated the pirate leader Chen Zuyi at Palembang, and in 1411 Zheng He's troops captured the king of Kotte in Ceylon, today's Sri Lanka, and took him to China. The fourth voyage, from 1413 to 1415, went beyond India to Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. The fifth and sixth, between 1417 and 1422, reached Aden and the East African ports of Mogadishu, Brava and Malindi, in today's Somalia and Kenya. Exotic animals were brought back to the court, including giraffes, which were celebrated as auspicious creatures.

When the Yongle Emperor died in 1424, his successor, the Hongxi Emperor, ordered the voyages stopped on the day he took the throne, siding with civil officials who opposed them. His son, the Xuande Emperor, ordered one last expedition, which sailed from 1431 to 1433 and reached Hormuz, while smaller squadrons visited Bengal and the Red Sea, where some members travelled to Mecca. Zheng He died in 1433 or 1435.

Why the voyages ended is debated. Explanations include their cost, rivalry between court eunuchs and Confucian officials, and the dynasty's need to spend on the northern frontier against the Mongols. Most official records of the expeditions have been lost, and the story that an official deliberately destroyed them is uncertain.

The voyages left little lasting Chinese presence overseas, but they strengthened Malacca as a trading port and are remembered across Southeast Asia, where temples honour Zheng He. In modern China they are often presented as evidence of a peaceful seafaring tradition, and they are frequently compared with the Portuguese and Spanish expeditions of the Age of Discovery, which began later in the same century.

Our 1400 map shows the Ming dynasty a few years before the first voyage, together with the states of Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean it visited.