Expeditions of Zheng He. “Floating Treasures” of the Celestial Empire Winds of the South Seas

Map of Admiral Zheng He's sea voyages.

Speaking about the personality of Admiral Zheng He and his long sea voyages, it should be borne in mind that:

Igor Mazharov:
Admiral Zheng He is, by the way, an example of how glorious pages of national history can be quickly and efficiently destroyed. After all, there are still no reliable sources in China about the geography of his travels. Essentially, everything is reconstructed from indirect sources, almost from guesswork. It is not surprising that the Chinese cling to literally every artifact that helps them restore the history of those great achievements (I’m talking about a Chinese ship off the coast of Africa, which the Chinese are now raising).

ZHEN HE (Zheng He, 1371-1433) - eunuch, admiral, traveler// Historical figures of China. 09/08/2015.
A descendant of a Persian diplomat, not Chinese by nationality, but Muslim by religion, he was castrated as a child and became a eunuch at court. Thanks to his enviable mind and outstanding personal characteristics, he was able to become a favorite of the Chinese emperor.
Zheng He went down in Chinese history as an outstanding navigator. In 1405, at the age of 34, by order of Emperor Zhu Di, the “chief ambassador” and commander-in-chief Zheng He, leading a fleet of more than 200 ships and a crew of 27 thousand 800 people, set off on the first naval expedition. Over the next 28 years, Zheng He made 7 such expeditions to the Western Seas (during the Ming Dynasty, this was the name for the sea zone west of the island of Kalimantan). His fleet visited Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, plowed the waters of Asia and Africa, reached the Red Sea and the shores of East Africa. Traces of the presence of the Zheng He fleet remained in more than 30 countries and regions of Asia and Africa. This was a remarkable feat in the history of navigation.
Fully here:

Zheng He // ABIRUS. 09/08/2015.

ZHENG HE (Chinese - ??) (1371-1433) - Chinese traveler, naval commander and diplomat, who led seven large-scale maritime military-trade expeditions sent by the emperors of the Ming dynasty to the countries of Indochina, Hindustan, the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa.
Zheng He's father was a Muslim and had the surname Ma. According to some sources, the Ma family came from the western regions and some sources claim that his ancestor was the great Persian diplomat Said Ajal al-Din Omar, who became the first viceroy of the emperors of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in Yunnan province. In 1382, when Chinese troops entered the southern province of Yunnan, Zheng He fell into the service of Zhu Di (later the Yongle Emperor) and was castrated. According to the inscription on the gravestone of Zheng He's father, compiled in 1405 and discovered in 1894, Zheng He was born in 1371 in Kunyang County (now Jinning County) in Yunnan Province. He “served diligently and showed ability, was modest and cautious, did not shy away from difficult matters, for which he acquired a good reputation among officials.” He was surrounded by Zhu Di during the campaign of 1400-1402, participating in battles on the side of the future emperor. During the New Year's celebrations in 1404, many participants in this war were awarded awards and titles. Among them was a young eunuch, who from that time received the surname Zheng and was promoted to the highest palace eunuchs - Taijian.
The aggressive foreign policy of Emperor Yong-le dictated an increasingly active expansion of China's borders. The Emperor sent a giant flotilla to Southeast Asia to develop new trade routes. Zheng He was appointed commander.
In 1405, Zheng He first received an order to lead a fleet of 62 large ships, auxiliary ships that carried water and food, and 27 thousand soldiers to the Malay Peninsula. The ships that housed Zheng He's expedition were called "precious". Each of them, 138 meters long, 56 meters wide, was equipped with 9 masts and could accommodate from 400 to 500 people.
Although developing new trade routes and expanding China's political influence were the emperor's primary goals, some historians believe that these grand naval expeditions served another purpose.
According to this assumption, Zheng He was sent to search for the deposed Emperor Jianwen, because his body was never found. At that time, rumors began to circulate that Jianwen had not actually been killed in the Battle of Nanjing, but had gone on the run and was hiding somewhere in southwestern China. This means that he continues to be a threat to the new emperor.
In the period 1405-1433. Zheng He made seven expeditions to the Indian Ocean. His fleet consisted of 317 ships and almost 28 thousand soldiers and sailors. The largest ship reached 130 meters in length. Amazing! Compared to Zheng He's ship, Columbus's famous flagship, the Santa Maria, would have looked like just a lifeboat.

Scheme. Comparison of Zheng He's ship and Christopher Columbus' flagship Santa Maria

Zheng He was never able to find any trace of Emperor Jianwen. However, he reached the Philippine Islands, Malaysia, the Mozambique Channel, the southern coast of Africa, and also crossed the Indian Ocean several times.
He even managed to surprise the Arabian sailors and Venetian traders whom he met in the waters of the Straits of Hormuz and Aden. It is worth emphasizing that all this happened 90 years before Columbus and 116 years before Magellan.
However, Zheng He's travels, popular among the emperor's circle, were not so among officials. The old rivalry between the palace eunuchs and the bureaucratic nobility for influence on the emperor and the court was evident. The high cost of naval expeditions, as well as the fact that they were led and controlled by eunuchs rather than regular officials or generals, caused widespread discontent.
After the death of Emperor Yong-le, Zheng He made two more sea voyages. He died during his last expedition. His grave is located in Nanjing, but it is empty. According to legend, the admiral's body was buried at sea, according to maritime tradition.
Dissatisfaction with the naval expeditions and envy of the admiral's glory in court circles after the death of Zheng He played a decisive role. During the planning of the next expedition, the official bureaucracy managed to “lose” navigation maps and other documents necessary for the expedition. The expedition was postponed, as it turned out, forever. As a result, many of the log books containing information about the voyages of Zheng He and his fleet were destroyed. That is why information about those regions and countries that the naval commander visited is so contradictory. The data we have now was gleaned mainly from the works of Zheng He's contemporaries, as well as from sources found only in the 1930s.
The active work of Zheng He and his numerous sea expeditions are reflected in the novel “Notes on the Voyage of the Eunuch of the Three Jewels to the Western Ocean,” consisting of 100 chapters. It depicts the impressive campaigns of Chinese sailors of the 15th century, and the background of the action of this fantastic novel is a description of a variety of countries (there are more than twenty of them). After the destruction of the documents and archives of the Zheng He expedition by the ruling elite, the appearance of a novel outlining the history of these travels was considered by some readers and critics as a challenge to power. Numerous heroes of the novel were united by a naval campaign, and the compositional core of the book was the path from the mouth of the Yangtze, along the coasts of Southeast Asia, India, Arabia, East Africa and back to China.
Today, there are several research centers around the world named after Zheng He. Warships in China and Taiwan, a Chinese research vessel, as well as one of the long-range Boeing 777-200LR Worldliners are named in honor of the admiral. In addition, on July 11, the day when Zheng He set off on his first voyage, China celebrates Maritime Day. In memory of the famous naval commander.
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Photo: MAZHAROV Igor Vitalievich, head of the ABIRUS Project http://www.abirus.ru, director of the consulting company Avenda Ltd. (Hanzhou, Zhejiang Province, China).

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ZHEN HE (Chinese - 郑和) (1371-1433) - Chinese traveler, naval commander and diplomat who led seven large-scale maritime military-trade expeditions sent by the emperors of the Ming dynasty to the countries of Indochina, Hindustan, the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa.

Zheng He's father was a Muslim and had the surname Ma. According to some sources, the Ma clan came from the western regions and some sources claim that it His ancestor was the great Persian diplomat Said Ajal al-Din Omar, who became the first viceroy of the emperors of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in Yunnan province. In 1382, when Chinese troops entered the southern province of Yunnan, Zheng He fell into the service of Zhu Di (later the Yongle Emperor) and was castrated. According to the inscription on the gravestone of Zheng He's father, compiled in 1405 and discovered in 1894, Zheng He was born in 1371 in Kunyang County (now Jinning County) in Yunnan Province. He “served diligently and showed ability, was modest and cautious, did not shy away from difficult matters, for which he acquired a good reputation among officials.” He was surrounded by Zhu Di during the campaign of 1400-1402, participating in battles on the side of the future emperor. During the New Year's celebrations in 1404, many participants in this war were awarded awards and titles. Among them was a young eunuch, who from that time received the surname Zheng and was promoted to the highest palace eunuchs - Taijian.

The aggressive foreign policy of Emperor Yong-le dictated an increasingly active expansion of China's borders. The Emperor sent a giant flotilla to Southeast Asia to develop new trade routes. Zheng He was appointed commander.

In 1405, Zheng He first received an order to lead a fleet of 62 large ships, auxiliary ships that carried water and food, and 27 thousand soldiers to the Malay Peninsula. The ships that housed Zheng He's expedition were called "precious". Each of them, 138 meters long, 56 meters wide, was equipped with 9 masts and could accommodate from 400 to 500 people.

Although developing new trade routes and expanding China's political influence were the emperor's primary goals, some historians believe that these grand naval expeditions served another purpose.

According to this assumption, Zheng He was sent to search for the deposed Emperor Jianwen, because his body was never found. At that time, rumors began to circulate that Jianwen had not actually been killed in the Battle of Nanjing, but had gone on the run and was hiding somewhere in southwestern China. This means that he continues to be a threat to the new emperor.

In the period 1405-1433. Zheng He made seven expeditions to the Indian Ocean. His fleet consisted of 317 ships and almost 28 thousand soldiers and sailors. The largest ship reached 130 meters in length. Amazing! Compared to Zheng He's ship, Columbus's famous flagship, the Santa Maria, would have looked like just a lifeboat.

He even managed to surprise the Arabian sailors and Venetian traders whom he met in the waters of the Straits of Hormuz and Aden. It is worth emphasizing that all this happened 90 years before Columbus and 116 years before Magellan.

However, Zheng He's travels, popular among the emperor's circle, were not so among officials. The old rivalry between the palace eunuchs and the bureaucratic nobility for influence on the emperor and the court was evident. The high cost of naval expeditions, as well as the fact that they were led and controlled by eunuchs rather than regular officials or generals, caused widespread discontent.

After the death of Emperor Yong-le, Zheng He made two more sea voyages. He died during his last expedition. His grave is located in Nanjing, but it is empty. According to legend, the admiral's body was buried at sea, according to maritime tradition.

Dissatisfaction with the naval expeditions and envy of the admiral's glory in court circles after the death of Zheng He played a decisive role. During the planning of the next expedition, the official bureaucracy managed to “lose” navigation maps and other documents necessary for the expedition. The expedition was postponed, as it turned out, forever. As a result, many of the log books containing information about the voyages of Zheng He and his fleet were destroyed. That is why information about those regions and countries that the naval commander visited is so contradictory. The data we have now was gleaned mainly from the works of Zheng He's contemporaries, as well as from sources found only in the 1930s.

The active work of Zheng He and his numerous sea expeditions are reflected in the novel “Notes on the Voyage of the Eunuch of the Three Jewels to the Western Ocean,” consisting of 100 chapters. It depicts the impressive campaigns of Chinese sailors of the 15th century, and the background of the action of this fantastic novel is a description of a variety of countries (there are more than twenty of them). After the destruction of the documents and archives of the Zheng He expedition by the ruling elite, the appearance of a novel outlining the history of these travels was considered by some readers and critics as a challenge to power. Numerous heroes of the novel were united by a naval campaign, and the compositional core of the book was the path from the mouth of the Yangtze, along the coasts of Southeast Asia, India, Arabia, East Africa and back to China.

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Post on topic: Zheng He and his 7 journeys

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Zheng He(1371--1435) - Chinese traveler, naval commander and diplomat, who led seven large-scale maritime military-trade expeditions sent by the emperors of the Ming dynasty to the countries of Indochina, Hindustan, the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa.

At birth, the future navigator received the name Ma He. He was born in Hedai Village, Kunyan County. Ma's family came from the so-called Sam-- immigrants from Central Asia who arrived in China during the Mongol rule and occupied various positions in the government apparatus of the Yuan Empire. Majority Sam, including the ancestors of Zheng He, were of the Muslim faith (it is often believed that the surname “Ma” itself is nothing more than the Chinese pronunciation of the name “Muhammad”). traveler chinese expedition military

Not much is known about Ma He's parents. The father of the future navigator was known as Ma Haji (1345--1381 or 1382), in honor of the pilgrimage he made to Mecca; his wife had the surname Wen. The family had six children: four daughters and two sons - the eldest, Ma Wenming, and the youngest, Ma He.

Entering the service of Zhu Di and military career

After the overthrow of the Mongol yoke in central and northern China and the establishment of the Ming Dynasty there by Zhu Yuanzhang (1368), the mountainous province of Yunnan on the southwestern edge of China remained under Mongol control for several years. It is unknown whether Ma Haji fought on the side of the Yuan loyalists during the conquest of Yunnan by Ming troops, but be that as it may, he died during this campaign (1382), and his youngest son Ma He was captured and placed in the service of Zhu Di , son of Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, who led the Yunnan campaign.

Three years later, in 1385, the boy was castrated, and he became one of the many eunuchs at the court of Zhu Di. The young eunuch received a name Ma Sanbao that is, Ma "Three Treasures" or "Three Jewels". According to Needham, despite the eunuch's undeniably Muslim origins, his title served as a reminder of the "three jewels" of Buddhism (Buddha, dharma and sangha), whose names are so often repeated by Buddhists.

The first Ming emperor Zhu Yuanzhang planned to transfer the throne to his first-born son Zhu Biao, but he died during Zhu Yuanzhang's lifetime. As a result, the first emperor appointed Zhu Biao's son, Zhu Yunwen, as his heir, although his uncle Zhu Di (one of Zhu Yuanzhang's younger sons) probably considered himself more worthy of the throne. Having ascended the throne in 1398, Zhu Yunwen, fearing that one of his uncles would seize power, began to destroy them one by one. Civil war soon broke out between the young emperor in Nanjing and his Beijing uncle Zhu Di.. Due to the fact that Zhu Yunwen forbade eunuchs to take part in governing the country, many of them supported Zhu Di during the uprising. As a reward for their service, Zhu Di, for his part, allowed them to participate in solving political issues, and allowed them to rise to the highest levels of their political career, which was also very beneficial for Ma Sanbao. The young eunuch distinguished himself both in the defense of Beiping in 1399 and in the capture of Nanjing in 1402, and was one of the commanders tasked with capturing the imperial capital, Nanjing. Having destroyed the regime of his nephew, Zhu Di ascended the throne on July 17, 1402 under the motto of the Yongle reign.

On the (Chinese) New Year of 1404, the new emperor granted Ma He a new surname, Zheng, as a reward for his faithful service. This served as a reminder of how, in the early days of the uprising, Ma He's horse was killed in the vicinity of Beiping in a place called Zhenglunba.

As for the appearance of the future admiral, he “became an adult, they say, grew to seven chi (almost two meters. - Ed.), and the girth of his belt was five chi (more than 140 centimeters. - Ed.). His cheekbones and forehead were wide, and his nose was small. He had a sparkling gaze and a loud voice, like the sound of a large gong.”

After Zheng He was given the title of “chief eunuch” for all his services to the emperor ( taijiang), which corresponded to the fourth rank of an official, Emperor Zhu Di decided that he was better suited than others for the role of fleet admiral and appointed the eunuch to lead all or almost all seven voyages to Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean in 1405-1433, simultaneously promoting him status up to third rank.

Baochuan: length - 134 meters, width - 55 meters, displacement - about 30,000 tons, crew - about 1000 people

1.Admiral Zheng He's cabin

2. Ship altar. The priests constantly burned incense on it - this is how they appeased the gods

3. Hold. Zheng He's ships were full of porcelain, jewelry and other gifts for foreign rulers and a demonstration of the emperor's power

4. The ship’s rudder was equal in height to a four-story building. To operate it, a complex system of blocks and levers was used.

5. Observation deck. Standing on it, the navigators followed the pattern of the constellations, checked the course and measured the speed of the ship

6. Waterline. The displacement of the baochuan is many times greater than that of contemporary European ships

7. Sails woven from bamboo mats opened like a fan and provided high windage of the vessel

"Santa Maria" Columba: length - 25 meters, width - about 9 meters, displacement - 100 tons, crew - 40 people.

The fleet apparently consisted of about 250 ships, and carried about 27 thousand personnel on board, led by 70 imperial eunuchs. The flotilla led by Zheng He visited over 56 countries and major cities in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. Chinese ships reached the coasts of Arabia and East Africa.

First expedition

Cheng Tzu's first decree on equipping the expedition was given in March 1405. By this decree, Zheng He was appointed its head, and the eunuch Wang Jihong was appointed as his assistant. Preparations for the expedition apparently had already begun earlier, since by the autumn of the same year the preparations were completed. The flotilla included sixty-two ships, on which there were twenty-seven thousand eight hundred people. However, in the Middle Ages in China, each large ship was accompanied by two or three more small, auxiliary ones. Gong Zhen, for example, talks about auxiliary ships that carried fresh water and food. There is information that their number reached one hundred and ninety units.

The ships were built at the mouth of the Yangtze, as well as on the shores of Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong, and then pulled together to anchorages on Liujiahe, where the flotilla was assembled. Leaving Liujiajang, the fleet sailed along the coast of China to Taiping Bay in Changle County, Fujian Province. From the coast of Fujian, Zhang He's fleet set off for Champa. Having passed through the South China Sea and rounded the island. Kalimantan from the west, it approached the eastern coast of the island through the Karimata Strait. Java. From here the expedition headed along the northern coast of Java to Palembang. Further, the path of the Chinese ships lay through the Strait of Malacca to the northwestern coast of Sumatra to the country of Samudra. Having entered the Indian Ocean, the Chinese fleet crossed the Bay of Bengal and reached the island of Ceylon. Then, rounding the southern tip of Hindustan, Zheng He visited several rich trading centers on the Malabar coast, including the largest of them - the city of Calicut. A rather colorful illustration of the Calicut market is given by G. Hart in his book “The Sea Route to India”: “Chinese silk, locally produced thin cotton fabric, famous throughout the East and Europe, calico fabric, cloves, nutmegs, their dried husks, camphor from India and Africa, cinnamon from Ceylon, pepper from the Malabar coast, from the Sunda Islands and Borneo, medicinal plants, ivory from the interior of India and Africa, bundles of cassia, bags of cardamom, heaps of copra, coir ropes, piles of sandalwood, yellow and mahogany." The wealth of this city makes it clear why Zhu Di sent the first expedition there.

In addition, on the first voyage on the way back, the Chinese expeditionary forces captured the famous pirate Chen Zui, who at that time captured Palembang, the capital of the Hindu-Buddhist state of Srivijaya in Sumatra. “Zheng He returned and brought Chen Zu" in shackles. Arriving at the Old Port (Palembang), he called on Chen to submit. He pretended to obey, but was secretly planning a riot. Zheng He realized this... Chen, gathering his strength, set out into the battle, and Zheng He sent troops and took the battle. More than five thousand bandits were killed, ten ships were burned and seven were captured... Chen and two others were captured and taken to the imperial capital, where they were ordered. beheaded.” Thus, the envoy of the metropolis protected peaceful migrant compatriots in Palembang and at the same time demonstrated that his ships carried weapons on board not only for appearance.

Second expedition

Immediately after returning from the campaign in the fall of 1407, Zhu Di, surprised by the outlandish goods brought by the expedition, again sent the Zheng He fleet on a long voyage, but this time the flotilla consisted of only 249 ships, since a large number of ships in the first expedition turned out to be useless. The route of the second expedition (1407-1409) basically coincided with the route of the previous one; Zheng He visited mostly familiar places, but this time he spent more time in Siam (Thailand) and Calicut.

Chinese expeditions returned home along the same route as before, and only incidents along the way make it possible in the chronicles to distinguish the voyages “there” from the return ones. During the second voyage, geographically similar to the first, only one event occurred, the memory of which was preserved in history: the ruler of Calicut provided the envoys of the Celestial Empire with several bases, relying on which the Chinese could subsequently travel even further to the west.

Third expedition

But the third expedition brought more interesting adventures. Under the date July 6, 1411, the chronicle records:

“Zheng He... returned and brought the captured king of Ceylon Alagakkonara, his family and parasites. During the first trip, Alagakkonara was rude and disrespectful and set out to kill Zheng He. Zheng He realized this and left. Moreover, Alagakkonara was not friends with neighboring countries and often intercepted and robbed their embassies on the way to China and back. In view of the fact that other barbarians suffered from this, Zheng He returned and again showed contempt for Ceylon. Then Alagakkonara lured Zheng He deep into the country and sent his son Nayanara to demand gold, silver and other precious goods from him. If these goods had not been released, more than 50 thousand barbarians would have risen from hiding and captured Zheng He's ships. They also cut down trees and intended to block narrow paths and cut off Zheng He’s escape routes so that individual Chinese detachments could not come to each other’s aid.

When Zheng He realized that they were cut off from the fleet, he quickly turned his troops around and sent them to the ships... And he ordered the messengers to secretly bypass the roads where the ambush was sitting, return to the ships and convey the order to the officers and soldiers to fight to the death. Meanwhile, he personally led an army of two thousand along roundabout routes. They stormed the eastern walls of the capital, took it by fright, broke through, captured Alagakkonara, his family, parasites and dignitaries. Zheng He fought several battles and completely defeated the barbarian army. When he returned, the ministers decided that Alagakkonara and the other prisoners should be executed. But the emperor had mercy on them - on ignorant people who did not know what the Heavenly Mandate to rule was, and released them, giving them food and clothing, and ordered the Chamber of Ritual to choose a worthy person from the Alagakkonara family to rule the country.”

It is believed that this was the only case when Zheng He consciously and decisively turned away from the path of diplomacy and entered into a war not with the robbers, but with the official authorities of the country in which he arrived. The above quote is the only documentary description of the actions of the naval commander in Ceylon. However, besides him, of course, there are many legends. The most popular of them describes the scandal associated with the most revered relic - the tooth of Buddha (Dalada), which Zheng He either intended to steal, or actually stole from Ceylon.

The story is this: back in 1284, Kublai sent his emissaries to Ceylon to obtain one of the main sacred relics of Buddhists in a completely legal way. But they still did not give the tooth to the Mongol emperor, the famous patron of Buddhism, compensating for the refusal with other expensive gifts. This is where the matter ended for the time being. But according to Sinhalese myths, the Middle State secretly did not give up its desired goal. They generally claim that the admiral’s voyages were undertaken almost specifically to steal the tooth, and all other wanderings were to divert attention. But the Sinhalese allegedly outwitted Zheng He - they “slipped” into his captivity a royal double instead of the real king and a false relic, and hid the real one while the Chinese were fighting. The compatriots of the great navigator, naturally, are of the opposite opinion: the admiral still got the priceless “piece of Buddha,” and he even, like a guiding star, helped him get safely back to Nanjing. What actually happened is unknown.

Fourth expedition

In mid-December 1412, Zheng He received a new order to bring gifts to the courts of overseas rulers. The main event of this campaign was the capture of a certain rebel leader named Sekandar. He had the misfortune to oppose the king of the Semudera state in northern Sumatra, recognized by the Chinese and bound by a treaty of friendship with them, Zain al-Abidin. The arrogant rebel was offended that the emperor’s envoy did not bring him gifts, which means he did not recognize him as the legal representative of the nobility, hastily gathered supporters and himself attacked the admiral’s fleet. True, he had no more chance of winning than the pirate from Palembang. Soon he, his wives and children found themselves aboard the Chinese treasury. Ma Huan reports that the “robber” was publicly executed in Sumatra, without being honored by the imperial court in Nanjing. But the naval commander brought a record number of foreign ambassadors from this voyage to the capital - from thirty powers. Eighteen diplomats of them were taken home by Zheng He during the fifth expedition. They all had gracious letters from the emperor, as well as porcelain and silks - embroidered, transparent, dyed, thin and very expensive, so that their sovereigns, presumably, were pleased. And this time the admiral himself set off into uncharted waters, to the shores of Africa.

Fifth expedition

During the next one (1417-1419) they visited Lasa (a point in the area of the modern city of Mersa Fatima in the Red Sea) and a number of cities on the Somali coast of Africa - Mogadishu, Brava, Zhuba and Malindi. The fleet sailed around the Horn of Africa and actually went to Mogadishu, where the Chinese encountered a real miracle: they saw how, for lack of wood, the black people were building houses from stones - four to five floors. Rich people engaged in maritime trade, poor people cast nets in the ocean. Small livestock, horses and camels were fed dried fish. But the main thing is that the travelers took home a very special “tribute”: leopards, zebras, lions and even a few giraffes. Unfortunately, the African gifts did not satisfy the emperor at all. In fact, goods and offerings from the already familiar Calicut and Sumatra were of significantly greater material value than the exotic newcomers to the imperial menagerie.

Sixth expedition

During the sixth voyage (1421-1422), Zheng He's fleet again reached the coast of Africa. When in the spring of 1421, having strengthened the fleet with 41 ships, the admiral again sailed to the Dark Continent and again returned without any convincing values, the emperor was completely annoyed. In addition, criticism of his ruinous wars intensified during this time in the Celestial Empire itself. In general, further campaigns of the great flotilla were in great doubt.

Seventh Expedition

Be that as it may, contrary to Menzies’ statement, Zheng He’s sixth voyage was not the last expedition of the Chinese admiral. Like previous voyages, the seventh expedition of Zheng He (1431-1433) and the subsequent expedition of his closest assistant Wang Jianghong were crowned with success. Ambassadorial relations between the countries of the South Seas and China revived again, and the rulers of these countries arrived at the imperial court from Malacca (1433) and Samudra (1434). By this time, at the emperor’s court, a group of Zhu Di’s associates was increasingly strengthened, who insisted on reducing expeditions and returning to the policy of isolationism. After the death of Zhu Di, under the influence of such court sentiments, the new emperor insisted on stopping the expeditions, as well as destroying all evidence of their conduct. It is especially surprising that no one knows for sure when the famous admiral Zheng He died - either during the seventh voyage, or shortly after the return of the fleet (July 22, 1433). In modern China, it is generally accepted that he was buried in the ocean as a real sailor, and the cenotaph, which is shown to tourists in Nanjing, is only a conditional tribute to memory.

Meaning

Zheng He's expeditions contributed to the cultural exchange of African and Asian countries with China and the establishment of trade relations between them. Detailed descriptions of the countries and cities visited by Chinese sailors were compiled. Their authors were members of the Zheng He expedition - Ma Huan, Fei Xin and Gong Zhen. Detailed “Charts of Zheng He’s sea voyages” were also compiled. Based on materials and news collected by members of Zheng He's naval expeditions, in Ming China in 1597, Lo Mao-teng wrote the novel "Zheng He's Voyages to the Western Ocean." As the domestic sinologist A.V. Velgus pointed out, there is a lot of fantasy in it, but in some descriptions the author definitely used data from historical and geographical sources.

Heirs

Having been a eunuch since childhood, Zheng He did not have any children of his own. However, he adopted one of his nephews, Zheng Haozhao, who, while unable to inherit his adoptive father's titles, was nevertheless able to retain the property. Therefore, to this day there are people who consider themselves “descendants of Zheng He.”

It is pleasant to note that in 1997 the magazine Life in the list of 100 people who had the greatest influence on history in the last millennium, he placed Zheng He in 14th place.

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Expeditions of Zheng He. “Floating Treasures” of the Celestial Empire Winds of the South Seas

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