In 1498, the Portuguese seafarer Vasco da Gama, on his way to India, stopped in Malindi, a port city on the east coast of Africa in present-day Kenya. When he set foot on solid ground, he first noticed that some of the locals wore elegant silk caps that would have cost a fortune in Europe. He was also surprised to find that none of them showed any particular interest in the valuables the Portuguese carried with them. Even the three large ships on which they had arrived had made little impression on the natives. To make things even stranger, the locals began to tell the Portuguese stories about white “ghosts” in silk dresses who had come to their town in huge ships long ago.
The mysterious white “ghosts” that the locals spoke of were the Chinese, who visited the area as early as 1417, when China was the world’s leading maritime power. Its shipyards produced hundreds of ships that were far superior in size and carrying capacity to later European vessels. Within a few years, a huge fleet had grown up, commanded by the eunuch Zheng He. Emperor Yongle entrusted him with the task of taking it out into the world and showing the greatness of the Ming dynasty to distant “barbarian” lands. Tens of thousands of sailors, soldiers and merchants took part in these maritime expeditions. Chinese ships loaded with silk and porcelain even sailed the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.
But China’s maritime dominance lasted only a few decades: in 1436, the Imperial Court banned the construction of ocean-going ships virtually overnight. As it had done so many times in its history, China voluntarily withdrew from the world stage for seemingly no reason, leaving the colonisation of the world to European countries. It did not enter the game of world domination again until five centuries later. The question arises as to why there was such a sudden turn. What kind of world would we be living in today if China had continued its maritime expansion then?
In the eyes of Westerners, China has always been seen as a mysterious and inward-looking country. Although we are now living in a century that many have declared “Chinese”, it is safe to say that Western knowledge of thousands of years of Chinese history and culture is at best patchy. After all, it was not until the 13th century, when Marco Polo published in a book his impressions of his travels to that distant land, that Europeans first received serious information about China.
On the other hand, it is of course worth noting that for a long time China also did not make much effort to get to know the lands to the west of the Mongolian steppes. For centuries, the Chinese emperors lived in the belief that the territory controlled by their court was no more and no less than the centre of the world. The neighbouring peoples were regarded as vassals who had to pay tribute to the ‘Central Empire’. The more distant lands were simply territories inhabited by barbarians who had not had the good fortune to be ruled by a Chinese emperor.
Despite the geographical distance and the lack of mutual knowledge, trade relations between China and Europe have a long history. As early as the second century BC, the famous Silk Road came into being. Caravans of traders carried European gold and Middle Eastern glass, among other things, eastwards, while camels and horses loaded with fine Chinese silk and shiny porcelain headed in the opposite direction. Trade also encouraged the flow of intangibles. These were still the days when a journey from Rome to China could take years, but spontaneous cultural exchange was slowly but steadily changing the social landscape along the entire Silk Road.
Chinese maritime history
At the same time, there was the lesser-known, but no less important, Maritime Silk Road. Some historians believe that the Chinese were already sailing the Indian Ocean in the second century BC, coming into contact with more distant cultures. But it was not until the Tang Dynasty (618-907) that Chinese maritime trade really flourished. Many Arab, Jewish, Persian and Christian traders lived in the port cities along the South China Sea, bringing with them their customs and traditions. Chinese women, for example, began to dress in the latest Persian fashion, while men were fascinated by leopard-skin hats, which were previously unknown in Chinese culture. African slaves, who performed hard labour, and black dwarfs, whose unusual appearance amused the nobility at the imperial court, were also highly prized commodities.
During this period, Chinese ships also sailed in the Arabian Gulf and off the coast of East Africa. Chinese shipbuilding was already highly developed by then. Some ships could carry up to five hundred sailors and were up to seventy metres long. By comparison, Columbus’s Santa Maria, which crossed the Atlantic seven centuries later, measured just under forty metres.
Chinese seafaring made even greater progress during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). In 1127, the Chinese were forced to move their capital from Kaifeng to the south, to the port of Hangzhou, because of the threat posed by the nomadic steppe tribes in the north. The new capital soon became a bustling city of millions and the country’s main commercial centre. Shipbuilding then took off. Huge Chinese ships sailed the Indian Ocean, considered unsinkable because their hulls were divided into watertight compartments. In the event of a puncture, the water could not flood the entire hold and sink the ship. Many were equipped with a magnetic compass, an ancient Chinese invention that revolutionised ocean navigation. Europeans only started using it a few centuries later.
In addition to trade, wartime seafaring developed. In 1132, for the first time in Chinese history, a national navy was established. Construction began on a number of warships to protect China’s coast from foreign invaders. Less than a hundred years later, the navy already numbered 52,000 soldiers and hundreds of vessels. Some of the ships were propelled by paddle-wheels, pedal-powered by sailors in the hold, and their manoeuvrability also allowed them to take part in river battles, where gunpowder was used for the first time, another Chinese invention that would later become the most important and loudest actor in wars around the world.
The Song dynasty and its navy were the undisputed rulers of China’s coasts, but the real danger to the imperial court came from the dusty steppes to the north. In the 13th century, an irresistible force was born there and soon began knocking at China’s door. In 1217, Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, threw the Song dynasty from the Chinese throne and proclaimed himself Emperor. A century of Mongol domination began in China.
The Mongols also inherited a huge navy from the Song dynasty, which they intended to use to extend their influence. In 1281, Kublai Khan decided to attack Japan because the proud island nation refused to pay tribute to its great neighbour. After years of preparation, four thousand ships with more than a hundred thousand soldiers on board set sail for Japan. After initial victories, the Mongol army collided with Japanese resistance on the island of Kyushu and was forced to retreat. The decision was taken to shelter the troops on the ships and wait for the right moment to attack again. The troops had been waiting in the bay for almost a month when suddenly a powerful hurricane hit the coast. The sky instantly darkened and huge waves began to engulf the defenceless ships, which were tossed against the rocks by the wind. The hurricane that saved them was called the kamikaze, the wind of God, by the Japanese.
The myth of the Mongols’ invincibility is shattered. After the death of Kublai Khan in 1294, Mongol power in China began to wane. A century of foreign domination came to an end in 1368, when the imperial court was reoccupied by the Chinese. For the next three hundred years, the country was ruled by the Ming dynasty. The third and final peak of Chinese maritime history occurred during the early part of this dynasty.
The eternal happiness of the usurper
Traditional Chinese belief holds that the Emperor was the central figure in the state, ruling the people with a “Mandate of Heaven” granted by the highest deity – Heaven. Thus, all power was united in one person, with only one limit. The emperor must rule for the good of the people, otherwise he loses the “mandate of heaven”. Given that on Earth there have sometimes been different interpretations of what is meant by the good of the people, it is not surprising that there have often been several claimants to the “mandate of heaven” at the same time.
It was at the turn of the 14th to the 15th century that one of these misunderstandings occurred, which eventually led to a change of throne. In 1402, Zhu Di, who was the son of the founder of the Ming dynasty, staged a coup d’état and wrested the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ from the hands of his nephew. The new Emperor took the name Yongle, which could be translated as “eternal happiness”, when he was enthroned.
China has experienced many upheavals in its millennia-long history, leading to illegal seizures of power, and the new emperor has made every effort to be remembered not as a usurper, but as the ruler of the greatest country in the world. He took part in five military campaigns against the Mongols, preventing them from uniting into a powerful force that could one day threaten China again. He was an experienced military leader and a strong personality. Some of his contemporaries regarded him as a stubborn and paranoid man, obsessed with his own success. Nevertheless, today he would probably be ‘lucky’, since Chinese history books make only passing reference to his coup d’état. Indeed, his name is associated above all with his other achievements, for which he is one of China’s most famous emperors.
For example, during his reign, he moved the court from Nanjing to Beijing and ordered the construction of the famous Forbidden City. This gigantic complex of palaces and court chambers was to be the political heart of China for the next five centuries, and was the home of all subsequent Chinese emperors. Even more famous are Yongle’s diplomatic successes. To increase the prestige of his court, he built a huge fleet which carried the Chinese dragon as far as the ports of the Arabian Peninsula in seven naval expeditions. The world had never seen such a magnificent display of power at sea. He gave the leading role in leading the naval expeditions to his long-time confidant, the eunuch Zheng He.
Men without valuables
Eunuchs have been an indispensable part of Chinese history since at least the second century BC. They have served in a variety of roles at court – as domestic servants, teachers, advisors, cooks and much more. The physical handicap that made them different from other people was also their greatest advantage. Since they could not procreate children, they did not pose a threat to his dynasty in the eyes of the emperor, so they were allowed to move around in places where other men, including the emperor’s relatives, were forbidden to enter. Over time, they were able to gain the Emperor’s trust and influence decision-making, as they were often his only contact with the outside world.
In Chinese history, there are few instances where individual eunuchs have gained enough influence to decide the fate of an empire. But only a lucky few had direct access to the Emperor. Indeed, hundreds or even thousands of eunuchs could reside at the court at the same time. In the late Ming dynasty, some estimates put the number of eunuchs in the Forbidden City at more than fifty thousand.
The vast majority of eunuchs ended up at the Imperial Court against their will. They were prisoners of war or slaves, often young boys captured by the Chinese in their many war campaigns. Castration was a simple but dangerous procedure. Both the testicles and the penis had to be cut off with a knife and a small tin plug inserted into the ureter to prevent the water from draining out. The future eunuch was then not allowed to drink any liquid for three days. If, after three days, when the plug was removed, urine flowed from the ureter, the procedure was successful. Otherwise, the man was certain to die.
The recovery took several months and those who successfully passed the castration were allowed to move into the manor. Each eunuch was also given a special container in which to store his manhood. When he died, his “three precious things”, as they were called in Chinese, were buried with him, as it was believed that this would restore his former integrity in the afterlife.
One of the people whose life was changed by the swing of a Chinese knife was Zheng He, who became the chief confidant of Emperor Yongle and one of the most influential people in China. He was born in Yunnan, ‘south of the clouds’, as the Chinese call the province, which is guarded to the north-east by the Himalayas. He grew up in a Muslim family that had lived here for centuries. His surname at birth was Muhammad, or Ma in Chinese, and it was not until 1404 that the Emperor gave him the surname Zheng.
At the age of 10, he was captured by the Chinese army, which was fighting the remnants of the Mongol forces in the area. After his castration, he ended up not at court but in the entourage of the warlord Zhu Di, who later became Emperor of Yongle. The educated and physically imposing Zheng He was not a typical eunuch, but perhaps for this reason he quickly won the favour of the future emperor, who was only eleven years his senior. The two developed a sincere friendship that lasted until Yongle’s death in 1424.
The culmination of a millennium of Chinese shipbuilding
Soon after his enthronement, the new Emperor began to think about how to consolidate his power and prove that he was truly entitled to the “heavenly mandate” he had been “granted”. The idea of building a huge fleet to extend China’s influence in the world was born. The huge ships should be a symbol of the technological and economic superiority of the ‘Central Empire’. The expeditions that followed did not have military objectives. Yongle wanted above all to increase the influence and prestige of his court. Success abroad would bring him respect at home. He entrusted the difficult task to his eunuch Zheng He.
The burden of the Emperor’s decision fell on the whole country. The megalomaniacal project required a huge amount of money, which began to flow from all Chinese provinces to the Longjiang shipyard, not far from Nanjing, where the Qinhuai River flows into the great Yangtze. Construction began in 1403, less than a year after Yongle was enthroned. A veritable city of thirty thousand carpenters, engineers and various craftsmen grew up near the shipyard.
The Chinese craftsmen approached the work with characteristic precision. Every step has been carefully thought out, every detail considered. The hull had to be V-shaped and “sharp as a knife” to make it seaworthy even in the roughest seas. For greater water resistance, all ships were coated with a mixture of lime and tung oil, which had been used for centuries in Chinese shipbuilding. Larger ships were also fitted with a movable rudder for easier manoeuvring, which was not used by Europeans until the late 18th century. Within a few years, more than three hundred ships came out of the Longjiang shipyard.
Some of them were real floating palaces because of their size. These few ships, the exact number of which is unknown, represented the culmination of a thousand years of Chinese shipbuilding. The largest of them measured about a hundred and fifty metres long and fifty metres wide. Inside their chambers were sumptuous rooms where the emperor’s envoys passed the time during their long journeys.
Zheng He made sure that the 300 ships worked as a unit. Each vessel had a specific role. Some ships carried precious products that China had been producing since ancient times – silk and porcelain. The so-called ‘horse ships’, which measured hundreds of metres in length, carried on board a variety of duties sent by foreign countries to the Chinese court. Horses have always been considered one of the most popular forms of levies. Supply ships carried water and food for a large crew, which could number up to thirty thousand men on individual expeditions. The safety of the expedition was ensured by smaller and more manoeuvrable ships that could take on the pirates that prowled the route.
When sailing on the high seas, good communication was essential. Three hundred ships had to move as a coordinated unit. To this end, the Chinese developed a sophisticated communication system based on sound and light signals. Each ship was equipped with a large flag, ten lanterns, a drum, several bells and a large gong to warn others of possible danger. There were also pigeon-grammons on board, which could transmit important information from one ship to another.
The expedition crew was made up of a large majority of exiled criminals who had been given the opportunity to atone for their past sins at sea. For every one hundred and fifty crew members, there had to be one doctor on board. Several hundred scientists also took part in the expeditions, studying plants and herbs in foreign lands.
The Chinese dragon is the ruler of the sea
The conductor of this magnificent orchestra was Zheng He, the most influential eunuch in China. In addition to his organisational duties, he was mainly responsible for trading on behalf of the Emperor and for establishing diplomatic relations with foreign countries. He could be said to have been China’s most important diplomat. In less than twenty-five years, Chinese ships under his command sailed to every major port from the Indonesian islands to the coasts of East Africa. By 1415, the Chinese were already masters of a vast maritime trade network stretching from Nanjing almost to Cairo. The foreign countries with which they came into contact at least formally recognised Chinese dominion. Ships loaded with Chinese silk and porcelain travelled west, returning with Malaysian spices, Arab jewels and African ivory on board.
Zheng He’s naval expeditions seem to have achieved their purpose, as representatives of the countries visited by the Chinese fleet began to line up at the imperial court. When Yongle received them, they bowed to the ground as a sign of respect, the greatest proof of his power. An envoy also arrived at court with a letter from the Japanese Shogun, who wanted to make contact with the Emperor. He ended his letter with the words ‘Your subject, the King of Japan’ – a disgrace that would reverberate in the Land of the Rising Sun for many years to come.
Foreign diplomats brought with them exotic gifts to charm the mighty Emperor and win his favour. Elephants, tigers, cheetahs and other wild beasts roamed the streets of Nanjing, which was still the capital at that time. In 1415, Yongle was at the height of his power, with lands near and far recognising him as lord of the realm and all kinds of valuables piling up in his court. Meanwhile, Zheng He successfully ensured that the Chinese navy remained the undisputed master of the seas. But what impressed the Emperor most was the gift of a giraffe from the King of Bengal. Chinese tradition knows of four sacred animals – the dragon, the phoenix, the turtle and the ‘qilin’, a mythological creature that is said to appear only in times of peace and prosperity. The Emperor was extremely happy because the giraffe resembled this Chinese sacred creature. A good sign, he thought. The universe is in balance.
Difficult to maintain balance
Just a few years later, the harmony that holds one of the highest places in the Chinese value system has begun to break down. In the spring of 1421, the Forbidden City, the Emperor’s life project, was engulfed by a massive fire that killed a large number of people. Seeing the deadly flames raging for days, Yongle began to wonder what he had done to deserve the fury of Heaven. Had he, in pursuit of his ambitious goals, forgotten the needs of the people he served? Had he placed too great a burden on their already exhausted shoulders?
In the days that followed, he took several measures to calm Nebo and restore harmony in society. He exempted the poorest provinces from grain duties, stopped the production of copper coins and suspended large naval expeditions. He decided to concentrate all his energies on maintaining harmony at home. Expeditions to distant lands would have to wait.
Running a vast empire required increasing effort from the ailing emperor. Nomadic tribes still threatened the country from the north, plotting a new attack in the steppes. Yongle had fought the Mongols since the days when he was still called Zhu Di and his nephew was on the throne. Warfare was in his blood and he often took part in military campaigns in person.
So in 1424, despite warnings from court advisers that he was too old, he mounted his favourite horse and set off north at the head of an army of 10,000 men. Months of pursuit by the skilful Mongol horsemen failed to bear fruit, and Yongle, frustrated by his failure to defeat his bitter enemy once and for all, began to return home. On his way to Beijing, which by then was the Chinese capital by his orders, he died a natural death. He was sixty-four years old.
He died in the remote Mongolian steppe, far from the sumptuous palaces of the Forbidden City. His ingenious attendants made a makeshift coffin out of melted cutlery and transported the Emperor’s body in dignity to the court. The “Son of Heaven” was buried, together with his favourite clothes and personal effects, in the imperial tomb near Beijing. Twenty metres underground, he was kept company by sixteen concubines who had to die to pass the time in the afterlife. The period of “eternal happiness” was over.
New wind
Among the colourful crowd of local and foreign dignitaries who escorted the Third Ming Emperor on his final journey, there was no one who was his long-time friend. Zheng He was on his way to the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where his mentor had sent him on a diplomatic mission before his death. When Zheng He returned to China, by then with the rank of Admiral, the new Emperor, Yongle’s eldest son, was on the throne.
Zhu Gaozhi was the opposite of his father. He grew up in the comfortable rooms of the imperial court and ignored military matters. Unlike his father, he was a prudent and calm man. He surrounded himself with many Confucian scholars who were not welcome at his father’s court. According to Confucian doctrine, which is the basis of Chinese social and state order, the Emperor must concern himself primarily with internal affairs. China must be a self-sufficient country and its wealth must be based on cultivating the land. Yongle’s global adventures were, of course, contrary to traditional Chinese doctrine. In Beijing, a new wind was blowing with the accession of Zhu Gaozhi to the throne. China stopped looking beyond its borders.
The temporary suspension of naval expeditions, already ordered by Yongle in his pursuit of harmony, became definitive under the new emperor. From 1422 to 1431, the largest fleet in the world was moored in Nanjing. Zheng He, who had proved himself a capable leader over the years, was assigned a new task. He exchanged the ship’s cabin for a government office and became the commander-in-chief of the defence of Nanjing. He had six brilliant naval expeditions that took him to many foreign places and too many stories to list – haggling with cunning locals in the lively markets of India, sleeping in the glamorous sultan’s chambers in Brunei, fighting Japanese pirates in the Taiwan Strait, drinking tea with Arab merchants in an oasis …
In his old age, he was in charge of the defence of the city, which was not threatened by anyone. Meanwhile, the magnificent fleet he once commanded was slowly decaying. Just when he thought he would never again smell the scent of the sea he loved so much, the almighty Heaven intervened again in the life of the Chinese court. The new emperor, who had banned naval expeditions, died unexpectedly in 1425. He was succeeded by his son Zhu Zhanji, who was also Yongle’s grandson.
The last expedition
The fifth emperor of the Ming dynasty combined the qualities of both his predecessors. Like his grandfather, whom he took with him on military campaigns as a child, he loved riding, hunting and the excitement that travel and adventure bring. On the other hand, he inherited his father’s sensitivity and sense of justice. He was also an educated man who liked to listen to learned minds, of which there was no shortage at court. Some historians believe that it was this mixture of adventurous spirit and noble Confucian conservatism, which characterised his reign, that was the high point of the Ming dynasty.
With the new emperor coming to power, China began to flirt with foreign countries again. “A new era has dawned. Let the ten thousand countries come to us again”, the Emperor solemnly announced. In 1430, Zhu Zhanji ordered to rebuild the obsolete fleet and organise a new naval expedition. He turned to a man already trusted by his grandfather. Zheng He was at sea again. The names of the restored ships testified to the peaceful intentions of the new emperor. The Genuine Harmony, the Enduring Serenity and many other ships sailed from Nanjing.
The Chinese dragon has once again beaten the waves and shown its might to foreign lands. In 1433, after a voyage of several years, three hundred ships and more than twenty thousand men returned to their home port. The godfather of China’s greatest naval expeditions, Admiral Zheng He, was not among them. He died a natural death while the imperial fleet was sailing somewhere off the Indian coast. He was buried at sea.
But Zheng He did his job, as he always does. In the following years, representatives of foreign countries again knocked on the doors of the imperial court, bringing with them new gifts. China’s prestige in the world was restored, trade flourished and the Longjiang shipyard received many new orders.
But with the death of Emperor Zhu Zhanji in 1435, everything changed. The Chinese presence at sea disappeared overnight. The Longjiang shipyard no longer had the money to build new vessels. Foreign representatives no longer brought zebras and giraffes to Beijing. The huge fleet, once the pride of the imperial court, was almost completely useless by the middle of the 15th century. In the 1500s, building seagoing ships with more than two masts was a capital offence punishable by death. In less than a hundred years, nothing more remains of the largest fleet in history. Why has this happened?
Epilog
The maritime expeditions were a huge project, requiring a huge amount of money. Most of the burden was borne, as usual, by the people, who benefited little from the extravagant expeditions. Exotic gifts and valuables did accumulate in the Forbidden City, but they stayed there. From the beginning, therefore, there were different factions at court opposing the expeditions and waiting for their moment.
In addition, during this period, Chinese engineers managed an incredible feat. The Grand Canal, a system of canals and rivers linking Beijing to Hangzhou, 1 782 kilometres away in the south of the country, came into being. The Grand Canal became China’s main transport artery, bringing grain from the fertile southern provinces to the north of the country. Previously, grain had been transported north by sea. After the opening of the Grand Canal, the need for domestic sea transport disappeared.
The end of Chinese dominance at sea was partly due to Confucianism, which dominated the Chinese court after the death of Emperor Zhu Zhanji. According to this ancient doctrine, the prosperity of a country is based on the land and its cultivation. Megalomaniacal naval expeditions could not benefit the Chinese people, conservative scholars were convinced. Money that had previously been earmarked for shipbuilding was diverted into the construction of irrigation systems. A backward-looking mentality and a fear of everything foreign began to prevail. “As long as his parents are alive, a son must not go abroad,” taught Confucius.
Perhaps even more incomprehensible to a European is the Confucian attitude to trade. They saw merchants as leeches who lived at the expense of honest people. They were on the lowest rung of the social ladder, next to prostitutes. Sea expeditions were a symbol of trade and thus an easy target for the Confucians.
The mid-15th century marked the beginning of a long period of voluntary Chinese isolation. The flow of information and contact with the outside world was not interrupted, but it was considerably reduced. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the enormous technological and economic advantage that China had begun to rapidly erode. It took five hundred years for it to catch up with the developed West.
China is back on the world stage in the 21st century. In July 2017, it opened China’s first overseas military base in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa. Six hundred years before that, an imperial fleet led by the eunuch Zheng He had already visited the area.
