Zheng He

Biography

Family Background and Early Life

Zheng He was originally surnamed Ma and was a native of Kunyang Prefecture, Yunnan. According to the Epitaph of the Late Master Ma, his great-grandfather was named Bayan, while both his grandmother and mother were surnamed Wen. The names of his grandfather and father are not given on the epitaph, which instead uses the Islamic honorific “Hajji”; his father is therefore referred to as Ma Hajji. Zheng He's family claimed descent from an eminent Xianyang lineage and is described as Hui. It has been conjectured that his grandfather served as a pingzhang of the Yunnan provincial administration and that his father was hereditary Marquis of Dianyang, leaving Zheng in comfortable circumstances as a child. He had four sisters and was the family's second son. From childhood he enjoyed listening to his grandfather and father recount experiences of long-distance travel and developed a strong interest in overseas lands.

In the winter of 1381, described here as the third year of the Tianyuan era of the Yuan, Ming forces attacked Yunnan. Zheng He's father was killed, and the ten-year-old boy was captured by Lan Yu, a deputy commander of the Ming army, and taken to Nanjing, where he was castrated and became a eunuch before being assigned to the household of the Prince of Yan. In 1390, the twenty-third year of Hongwu, Zheng He accompanied the Prince of Yan Zhu Di to Beiping, present-day Beijing, and entered his household service.

Merit in the Jingnan Campaign and Grant of the Surname Zheng

In 1399, the first year of Jianwen, the Prince of Yan Zhu Di launched the Jingnan Campaign. The History of Ming, “Biography of Zheng He,” states: “He first served the Prince of Yan in his princely residence, followed him in raising troops, and rendered merit; he was repeatedly promoted to eunuch.” Scholar Xie Fang has suggested that Zheng He's contribution probably occurred in the Battle of Zhengcunba and that the bestowal of the surname Zheng may have been connected with that battle. In 1402, the fourth year of Jianwen, Zhu Di captured Nanjing and became the Yongle Emperor. On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh lunar month that year, Zheng He, in his capacity as a eunuch, was ordered to sacrifice to Lady Feng, Zhu Di's wet nurse, indicating that he had already won the emperor's confidence.

In 1403, the first year of Yongle, Zheng He printed the Buddha Speaks the Sutra of Marici. The imperial preceptor Yao Guangxiao wrote an inscription for it, stating that Zheng He had received the bodhisattva precepts and taken the Dharma name Fu Jixiang. In 1404, the second year of Yongle, the Yongle Emperor personally wrote the character “Zheng” and bestowed it as Zheng He's surname to commemorate his military service. Zheng was promoted to eunuch director of the Directorate of Palace Servants, a fourth-rank office. According to Yuan Zhongche's Gujin shijian, Zheng He was “nine chi tall, ten spans around the waist, with prominent cheekbones and a small nose, clear brows and eyes, ears pale beyond the face, teeth like rows of shells, a gait like a tiger, and a resonant voice.” He was described as imposing in appearance, exceptionally intelligent, and deeply trusted by Zhu Di.

Seven Maritime Expeditions

On the fifteenth day of the sixth lunar month in 1405, the third year of Yongle, the Yongle Emperor appointed Zheng He chief envoy and ordered him to lead a fleet to the Western Ocean. The fleet sailed from Liujiagang at Suzhou to Fujian and then departed from Wuhumen, reaching Champa first before traveling through numerous overseas states. Across seven expeditions over twenty-eight years, Zheng He's fleets visited more than thirty countries, including Champa, Java, Sumatra, Malacca, Ceylon, Calicut, Hormuz, and Mogadishu, and reached as far as the East African coast.

First voyage (1405–1407): When the fleet reached Java, western and eastern Java were at war. One hundred seventy members of the fleet who went ashore to trade were mistakenly killed. Zheng He exercised restraint and resolved the matter peacefully. At Old Port, present-day Palembang in Indonesia, he discovered that the pirate Chen Zuyi was feigning surrender, attacked and destroyed a pirate force of more than 5,000, captured Chen and two other leaders alive, and presented them as prisoners upon returning to court.

Second voyage (1407–1409): The fleet mainly visited Champa, Java, Siam, Malacca, Lambri, Kayal, Ceylon, Cochin, and Calicut. At Galle in Ceylon, Zheng He made offerings to a Buddhist temple and erected an inscribed stele in Chinese, Tamil, and Persian, honoring respectively the Buddha, Vishnu, and Allah. The stele was discovered in Sri Lanka in 1911 and is now held by the National Museum of Sri Lanka.

Third voyage (1409–1411): Fei Xin, Ma Huan, and others accompanied the expedition. On the return journey, Alakeshvara, ruler of Ceylon, sent 50,000 troops to surround the fleet and felled trees to block its route. Taking advantage of the ruler's deployment of most of his forces and the resulting weakness of the capital, Zheng He led 2,000 officers and soldiers in a night attack, captured Alakeshvara and his family, and brought them to the Ming capital. The Yongle Emperor pardoned Alakeshvara and allowed him to return home.

Fourth voyage (1413–1415): The interpreter Ma Huan accompanied the fleet. It sailed around the Arabian Peninsula and for the first time reached Malindi on the East African coast in present-day Kenya. In the eleventh lunar month of 1415, an envoy from Malindi came to China and presented a “qilin,” a giraffe.

Fifth voyage (1417–1419): Traveling via Quanzhou, the fleet reached Champa and Java and sailed as far as the East African states of Mogadishu, Brava, and Malindi.

Sixth voyage (1421–1422): The fleet sailed toward Bengal but returned partway through the mission.

Seventh voyage (1431–1433): On the sixth day of the intercalary twelfth lunar month in 1430, the fifth year of Xuande, the fleet departed from Longjiang Pass in Nanjing. In early fourth lunar month of 1433, the eighth year of Xuande, Zheng He died at Calicut. Wang Jinghong led the fleet back, reaching Nanjing on the sixth day of the seventh lunar month.

Later Years and Death

In 1425, the first year of the Hongxi era, Emperor Renzong of Ming, Zhu Gaochi, ascended the throne and ordered the maritime expeditions stopped. Zheng He became the first eunuch garrison commander of Nanjing and was ordered to repair the Nanjing palaces. In 1426, the first year of Xuande, he petitioned to repair the Altar of Heaven and Earth, the Altar of Mountains and Rivers, and other structures. In 1428, the third year of Xuande, he was ordered to supervise work on the Great Bao'en Temple in Nanjing. In 1430, the fifth year of Xuande, Emperor Xuanzong Zhu Zhanji ordered him to lead the seventh maritime expedition. In early fourth lunar month of 1433, the eighth year of Xuande, Zheng He died at Calicut from exhaustion, at the age of sixty-three. The court established a cenotaph for him at Niushou Mountain in Nanjing.

Family, Boyhood and the Surname

Zheng He was by birth a Ma of Zhi Dai village in Baoshan township, Kunyang department, Yunnan. According to the tomb inscription by Li Zhigang, his great-grandfather was Boyan, his grandfather Baiyan and his father the Hajji (a Muslim honorific), his mother Lady Wen, his elder brother Ma Wenming, with four sisters besides. The inscription describes his father as "of commanding stature and awe-inspiring bearing, who would not bend himself to curry favour, who spoke out to a man's face when he erred, and who, being especially kind, would shelter and relieve the poor, the widowed and the friendless without ever wearying", so that his neighbours called him an elder; and it says of Zheng He that "from boyhood he had ability and ambition, served the present Son of Heaven, was granted the surname Zheng and made eunuch director of the palace, being diligent, clear-sighted and astute, modest, careful and secret, and shrinking from no toil, so that gentry and officials all praised him" — the stone being set up at the Dragon Boat Festival of the third year of Yongle. In the winter of 1381, when the Ming armies attacked Yunnan, his father was killed, and the ten-year-old boy was carried off to Nanjing, castrated and made a eunuch, afterwards assigned to the Prince of Yan's household; in 1390 he went with the prince to Beiping. In 1399, when Zhu Di rose in the Jingnan war, the Ming History says that "he first served the Prince of Yan in his palace and had merit in the rising, being repeatedly promoted to eunuch". Scholars conjecture that his merit was at the battle of Zhengcunba, from which the surname Zheng may derive. According to the Eunuch Biographies of the Ming History, several eunuchs led troops at the beginning of the Jingnan war: Gou'er, who was boldest in battle and first to mount the walls; Wang An, that is Buhuadu, a Jurchen; Meng Ji, that is Tian'er, a western barbarian; Zheng He, that is Sanbao, and Li Qian, that is Bao'er, both of Yunnan; and Yun Xiang, that is Mengge, and Tian Jiahe, that is Halatiemu, both Central Asians — all of whom had merit in the rising and were made eunuch directors after the founding. In an edict of 1410 to Tan Qing the emperor names "the eunuchs Wang An, Wang Yan, Sanbao and Tuotuo'er", and in a rescript of that June to Wang You and Liu Cai he says that "I have again sent the eunuch Sanbao". On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month of 1402 he was ordered, as a eunuch, to sacrifice to Feng, the wet-nurse of Zhu Di, which shows the trust he enjoyed. In 1403 he printed the Sutra of Marici spoken by the Buddha, for which Yao Guangxiao wrote a colophon calling him "the bodhisattva-precept disciple Zheng He, whose dharma name is Fushan, who gave wealth and had craftsmen print it for circulation". The next year the emperor wrote the character Zheng in his own hand to grant him the surname in memory of his war service, and he was made eunuch director of the palace. Yuan Zhongche's Mirror of Ancient and Modern Judgment records that he was "nine feet tall with a waist ten spans round, the four peaks of his face high and his nose small, brows and eyes distinct, ears white beyond the face, teeth like strung shells, walking like a tiger, his voice loud and full", and that when the emperor asked whether Sanbao could lead a fleet, Yuan answered that "Sanbao's bearing and intelligence have no equal among the eunuchs, and observing his colour I judge him fit for the charge", whereupon he was given command and all submitted where he went. As to the name Sanbao, later writers have offered both the view that it was Zheng He's own name and that it was a shortening of "Three Grand Guardians".

The Beginning of the Voyages and the First

The Ming History says that "Chengzu suspected that the Huizong emperor had fled overseas and wished to trace him, and also wished to display arms in foreign lands and show China's wealth and strength". In the sixth month of 1405 the emperor ordered Zheng He and his colleague Wang Jinghong to go as envoys to the western ocean, with twenty-seven thousand eight hundred officers and men and much gold and silk, sixty-two great ships being built four hundred and forty feet long and a hundred and eighty wide; the fleet put to sea from Liujiahe in Suzhou, reaching Fujian, and from the Five Tiger Gate sailed to Champa first and then through the various countries, "proclaiming the Son of Heaven's edict, giving gifts to their rulers, and overawing by arms those who would not submit". Arriving off Java while the eastern and western kings were at war and the western had destroyed the eastern, the fleet's men who went ashore to trade, taken for the eastern king's troops, had a hundred and seventy killed; the western king, hearing of it, sent envoys with tribute and apologies, and the emperor rebuked him, requiring him to pay sixty thousand taels of gold to atone for the dead and ransom himself, and observing that he and the eastern king had both received titles from the court and that he had destroyed him out of greed — with the fate of Annam as a warning. In 1408 Zheng He was sent again, and the western king offered ten thousand taels of gold; the ministry of rites, holding the sum short, asked that his envoys be imprisoned, but the emperor said that "toward men from afar I wish only that they fear guilt, and do I covet their gold?", and remitted it all. At Palembang in the old harbour, Chen Zuyi, a Cantonese whose family had fled there in the Hongwu years and become a chief, was most tyrannical, plundering passing ships; Shi Jinqing, another Cantonese, informed on him, and Zheng He sent to remonstrate, whereupon Chen pretended to submit while plotting to attack the fleet. Zheng He saw through it, attacked and destroyed more than five thousand of the bandits, burned ten ships and took seven with two false copper seals, capturing Chen Zuyi and two others, who were sent to the capital and beheaded; Shi Jinqing was given insignia of rank as chief of the old harbour. On the fleet's return in the ninth month of 1407, the emperor, told by Zheng He that "the goddess answered often", ordered a new Temple of the Celestial Princess at Longjiang and sent officers to sacrifice.

Almsgiving, the Capture of a King, and the Sumatran Affair

The second voyage (1405 to 1409 by some reckonings, visiting Champa, Java, Siam, Malacca, Lammuri, Kayal, Ceylon, Cochin and Calicut) saw him go purposely to Ceylon to give alms at the Buddhist temple and set up a stone inscription, in Chinese, Tamil and Persian, honouring the Buddha, Vishnu and God respectively, the Chinese text recording gifts of "gold and silver woven with gold, spun silk banners, incense-burners and vases, curtains and lamps and candles to furnish the temple as offerings, may the World-Honoured One behold them". The stone was found in Sri Lanka in 1911 and is now in the national museum there. In Calicut he also laid out a stone court and set up a stone saying that the country lay "more than a hundred thousand li from China, its people and things well ordered and of one custom with ours", to be shown to all ages. On the third voyage (1407–1411) the king of Ceylon, Alagakkonara, "defying the court and plotting against the fleet", was detected by Zheng He, who sailed away; returning that way, the king lured him in, and when his son demanded gold and silver without success, sent fifty thousand troops against the ships and felled trees to cut off the return road. Zheng He told his men that "the enemy's host has come out, so the capital must be empty, and they think us a stranger army, few and timid, unable to act; to attack it unexpectedly would succeed", and so, while boats were cut off, he sent men by another road to the ships to keep the government troops fighting to the death, and led more than two thousand of his own by a side road swiftly against the royal city, broke it and took Alagakkonara with his family and chiefs; the Ceylonese army, returning, was heavily defeated. The captives were presented at court on the sixteenth day of the sixth month of 1411, and though the ministers asked for death the emperor, pitying the king's folly, released him with food and clothing and had the ministry of rites choose a worthy man of his kin as king, who was enfeoffed and the deposed king sent home. That year the king of Malacca came to court with his queen and five hundred and forty attendants, and was given a sea-going ship to return and guard his land, so that "the countries overseas were the more convinced of the Son of Heaven's majesty and virtue". The fourth voyage (1413–1415) carried the interpreter Ma Huan, rounded Arabia and reached Malindi in East Africa for the first time, proclaiming the edict and enfeoffing the king; on it he also defeated and captured the usurper Sekandar of Sumatra with the local forces. Sekandar, styled a false king, angry that the envoys' gifts had not reached him, led tens of thousands to attack the government troops; Zheng He fought him with his own and the local troops, routed him, pursued him to Lambri, took him with his wife and children and presented them, and the minister of war, calling him a great rebel, had him executed by law, the officers Tang Jing, Wang Heng, Lin Zixuan, Hu Jun and the Hajji being granted hereditary rank and Lu Tong, Ma Gui, Zhang Tong and Liu Hai promoted. That year Malindi sent the "qilin" — a giraffe — as tribute. The fifth voyage (1417–1419) passed through Quanzhou and reached Mogadishu, Brava and Malindi in East Africa; the sixth (1421–1422) went toward Bengal and returned midway.

Commander at Nanjing and the Seventh Voyage

In 1425 Emperor Renzong stopped the voyages by decree, and Zheng He became the first eunuch commander of the Nanjing garrison; in the sixth month of Hongxi the new Emperor Xuanzong ordered the garrison commander Li Long to consult day and night with Zheng He and Wang Jinghong on military readiness and defence. He petitioned for the repair of the Nanjing palaces, the great sacrifice hall of the Altar of Heaven and Earth with its galleries and the retreat, and the halls and kitchens of the Altar of Mountains and Rivers, and was charged with hastening the Great Bao'en Temple works. In the fourth month of the first year of Xuande, when the works official Feng Chun asked rewards for craftsmen building Buddhist temples at Nanjing, the emperor said that temples were the monks' own business and that Zheng He must have prompted it, and had the Directorate of Ceremonial warn him to keep the rules and not to be always petitioning for unreasonable things. In 1428 he was ordered to send a hundred thousand bolts of great silk and two hundred and thirty thousand of cotton cloth from the Nanjing stores to Beijing. In the sixth month of 1430 the emperor sent him and Wang Jinghong with an edict to the countries of the western ocean, naming Hormuz, Ceylon, Calicut, Malacca, Cochin, Brava, Mogadishu, Lambri, Sumatra, Lasa, the Maldives, Aru, Koyampadi, Aden, Dhofar, Shubba, Kayal and the rest, twenty countries with the Old Harbour pacification office; and on the twenty-sixth of the seventh month the emperor's rescript praised the dragon boat he had built as "steady and light, showing your loyal and reverent heart", allotted him a hundred thousand strings of paper money from the Nanjing treasury for the voyage, entrusted to him "all affairs of the countries of the western ocean", and allowed him to rebuild the burned mosque in San Shan Street at Nanjing, drawing craftsmen and materials from the palace or the ministry of works. The seventh voyage sailed from Longwan at Nanjing on the sixth of the intercalary twelfth month of 1430, reaching Xushan on the tenth day, Liu Jia Harbour on the twenty-first; Changle on the sixteenth of the second month of 1431, the Five Tiger Gate on the ninth of the twelfth month and Champa on the twenty-fourth; Java on the sixth of the second month of 1432, the Old Harbour on the twenty-seventh of the sixth month, Malacca on the eighth of the seventh, Sumatra on the eighteenth of the eighth, Ceylon on the sixth of the eleventh, Calicut on the eighteenth, and Hormuz on the twenty-sixth of the twelfth; returning on the eighteenth of the second month of 1433, Calicut on the eleventh of the third, Sumatra on the sixth of the fourth, Malacca on the twentieth, the Kunlun seas on the tenth of the fifth, Taicang on the twenty-first of the sixth, and the capital on the seventh of the seventh. In 1431 he set up the Record of the Goddess's Responses at the Southern Mountain Temple in Changle, recording that "from the third year of Yongle, when I was sent to the western ocean, to the present, seven voyages, the countries passed through being more than thirty in all, across ten thousand li of ocean", and naming Zheng He and Wang Jinghong as principal envoys, Li Xing, Zhu Liang, Zhou Man, Hong Bao, Yang Zhen, Zhang Da and Wu Zhong as deputy envoys, and Zhu Zhen and Wang Heng as commanders; that midsummer he and Wang Jinghong with the officers and men piously cast a bronze bell "to pray for safety on the voyages". As to his death, the Record of the Incense and Holy Images of the Non-Phantom Retreat, from his testament, says that having been ordered to the western ocean in 1430 he died at Calicut in 1433, which is widely accepted; other scholars, finding that record disordered and misread, note from the tomb inscription of the eunuch Hong that only a deputy envoy went to Calicut on the seventh voyage. His tomb, according to the Kangxi Jiangning gazetteer, lies at the western foot of Niushou Mountain and is the burial place of his robes, since he died at Calicut; and his brother's son Yi was granted the hereditary post of a thousand-household commander in the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Faith, Family and Relics

Zheng He came of a Muslim family yet patronised Buddhism, a classic case of the coexistence of religions in Ming times. He took the bodhisattva precepts with the dharma name Fushan, printed the Marici and Lotus sutras, one vow declaring "the Ming Buddhist believer Zheng He" and another his "resolve to cast a golden reliquary pagoda for perpetual offering"; by the Xuande rescript he was allowed to rebuild the burned mosque in Nanjing, which he wished to do for the safety of the voyage; the Jiajing inscription of the restored Qingjing Mosque records that in 1413, sent to Mecca, he sought in Shaanxi the qadi Hasa of that mosque to go with him, and that when the sea rose and the ship was nearly lost, Hasa prayed and the waves stilled, whereupon he vowed to restore the mosque; and the Record of the Goddess's Miracles tells how, caught in a gale at Daxing in Guangdong on his way to Siam, he prayed to the Celestial Princess and was saved, afterwards ordering the temple repaired and going himself with five hundred strings of paper money to sacrifice at Meizhou. The Jinghai Temple at Nanjing had a crab-apple, the Yongning Temple a cape-jasmine, the Bao'en Temple a five-grain tree and the Hongji Temple a sala tree, all said to have been brought back by Zheng He. The family genealogy traces fifteen generations; the record of his testament names "the household marquis of the clan, Zheng Jun Yue Yi" as its executor, and the Gazetteer of the Longjiang Shipyard mentions "the descendants of the eunuch Zheng He" selling vegetable plots belonging to the commission, which were recovered. In 1983 the Nanjing cultural authorities surveyed the site of his residence and concluded that it centred on the Mafu Street area.

Major Activities

Seven Maritime Expeditions

Zheng He's seven maritime expeditions were an extraordinary feat in early fifteenth-century world maritime history. Each voyage involved a very large fleet. According to the History of Ming, “Biography of Zheng He,” the first expedition comprised “more than 27,800 officers and soldiers carrying large quantities of gold and currency. Great ships were built, sixty-two of them measuring forty-four zhang in length and eighteen zhang in width.” The fleet sailed from Liujiagang at Suzhou, departed to sea through Wuhumen in Fujian, and visited more than thirty countries and regions in Asia and Africa, opening intercontinental maritime routes between Asia and Africa with a total sailing distance exceeding 70,000 nautical miles.

Mediation of Regional Conflicts

During the voyages Zheng He repeatedly intervened in regional disputes. On the first voyage, after the ruler of western Java defeated the ruler of eastern Java, his forces mistakenly killed 170 members of Zheng He's fleet. The western ruler sent an envoy to apologize, and Zheng maintained restraint and resolved the matter peacefully. On the second voyage, Siam used its strength to detain envoys from Champa, Sumatra, and Malacca and seized their patents and seals. Zheng, acting under imperial orders, issued a stern reprimand; the king of Siam sent an envoy with tribute to apologize for the earlier offenses. On the third voyage, Alakeshvara, ruler of Ceylon, “held out in defiance and plotted to harm the fleet.” Zheng attacked the capital, captured Alakeshvara, and took him to the Ming court.

Suppression of Pirates

On the return from the first expedition, Zheng He passed through Old Port, formerly part of Srivijaya, where Shi Jinqing, a Guangdong émigré leader, reported the violence of the pirate Chen Zuyi. Zheng sent men to summon and admonish Chen, who feigned surrender while secretly planning to attack the fleet. Zheng detected the plot, attacked and destroyed more than 5,000 pirates, burned ten pirate ships, captured seven more, took Chen Zuyi and two other pirate leaders alive, and brought them back to the capital for execution. Shi Jinqing was appointed Pacification Commissioner of Old Port.

Tribute Trade and Diplomacy

Zheng He's voyages promoted tribute trade, official commerce, and private exchange between the Ming and states along the routes. The fleet carried large quantities of gold, silk, porcelain, and other goods for presentation to foreign rulers while purchasing local treasures, spices, medicinal materials, and other products. Many states in turn sent envoys to China with tribute, and the Ming established extensive tributary relations with Southeast Asian, South Asian, West Asian, and East African states.

Supervision of Palaces and Temples in Nanjing

In 1412, the tenth year of Yongle, Zheng He served as an imperial construction supervisor in Nanjing and was ordered to rebuild the Great Bao'en Temple. In 1425, the first year of Hongxi, he became eunuch garrison commander of Nanjing and was ordered to repair the palaces there. In 1426, the first year of Xuande, he petitioned to repair the Altar of Heaven and Earth, the Altar of Mountains and Rivers, and other buildings. In 1428, the third year of Xuande, he was ordered to press forward the Great Bao'en Temple project and complete it within eight months.

Maritime Records

Zheng He's fleet left valuable records such as the Zheng He Navigation Chart. Members of the expeditions produced important texts: Ma Huan wrote Yingyai Shenglan, Fei Xin wrote Xingcha Shenglan, and Gong Zhen wrote Xiyang Fanguo Zhi. These works record the customs, products, and trade of the countries visited and are valuable sources for the study of fifteenth-century Asian and African geography and Sino-foreign communications.

Managing the Voyages and Regional Peace

Zheng He's missions were undertaken to establish friendly relations with the countries of the western ocean and to create a favourable international environment. Arriving in the southern seas, he warned the "warlike and quarrelsome" island states, with the weight of his arms behind him, that "they should keep to the rites and keep their place, not deceive the few nor oppress the weak", and "overawed by arms those who would not submit", so that "all obeyed his commands without daring to resist" and the peoples who had lived by raiding their neighbours had to lay down their arms. At the same time he worked through the promotion of Buddhism or the spread of Islam to give the peoples of the regions concerned a common religious ground, which served to balance relations among the states and ease tensions caused by religion and the like. By proclaiming civilising influence, aiding the weak and checking the violent, he helped to establish a general peace, so that it was said that "the sea routes were thereby cleared and quiet, and the peoples of the foreign lands relied on it for their livelihood". He strove without stint to settle the disputes of the Southeast Asian states and to build peace among the lands of Asia and Africa, and as the tangled conflicts among the overseas states were gradually resolved, trade and cultural exchange among the Asian and African countries advanced further.

Trade and the Management of the Routes

The voyages took the tribute trade as their basic form while promoting official trade and stimulating private exchange. During the seven voyages he established two trading offices in Southeast Asia, one at Sumatra in the north and one at Malacca: the fleet brought business opportunity to Malacca and made its prosperity notable to the world. Scholars note that he also laid out a strategic plan for the maritime regions, choosing Champa, Malacca, the Old Harbour, Calicut and Hormuz as key areas for maritime development according to his mission and knowledge of the sea, which widened the scope of overseas traffic and trade. The routes his fleet traversed developed, over a great range, a web of sea communications among the coastal countries and regions of Asia and Africa, linking and strengthening the connections between the lands on the western Pacific and Indian Ocean shores.

Charts, Records and Influence

The fleet left the Zheng He Navigation Chart and other precious materials; those who sailed with him produced Ma Huan's Overall Survey of the Ocean's Shores, Fei Xin's Triumphant Visions of the Star Raft and Gong Zhen's Gazetteer of the Foreign Countries of the Western Ocean, recording the climates, geography, peoples and products of the countries visited, all of them important sources for the geography of Asia and Africa and for East-West communication in the fifteenth century. In the history of navigation, Zheng He opened the intercontinental route between Asia and Africa, paving the way for the later European voyages: when Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached the East African coast, the people there told him that the Chinese had come several times decades before, and with Arab pilots he followed the route Zheng He's fleet had opened to reach India. Liang Qichao reckoned that Zheng He "spent nearly thirty years of his life at sea, scarcely a year free from tempest", and asked whether in the whole history of the world there were many famous voyagers who could stand beside him; other scholars judge that in less than twenty years he crossed half the globe, conducting, before the European voyages of discovery at the end of the fifteenth century, the largest series of maritime expeditions in world history.

Reputation and Commemoration

The Ming History reckons that Zheng He "served three reigns and was sent as envoy seven times", visiting Champa, Java, Cambodia, the Old Harbour, Siam, Calicut, Malacca, Borneo, Sumatra, Aru, Cochin, the two Kollams, Kayal, Ceylon, Lambri, Pahang, Kelantan, Hormuz, Bila, the Maldives, Sunla, Mogadishu, Malindi, Lasa, Dhofar, Shaliwanni, Shubba, Bengal, Mecca, Leifa and the Nakuo — more than thirty countries in all — and that "the nameless treasures he took were beyond count, while China's waste was likewise not small", adding that "after Zheng He, all who were sent to the seas never failed to speak grandly of him to impress the foreign lands, so that it became proverbial that the eunuch Sanbao's voyages to the western ocean were a great affair of the early Ming". Emperor Xuanzong's poem to the eunuch Zheng He calls him one who "from of old gave himself to service... repeatedly bearing the edicts to distant lands", and urges him to "proclaim my will and exert your merit, that your name may shine in the records". His memory spread abroad — "Sanbao" names survive at Sanbao Ridge in Changle, Sanbao ginger in Taiwan, Sanbao Ridge in Java, Sanbao harbour and temple in Siam and Sanbao city and well in Malacca — and in modern times temples and images honour him in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines; in 2005 a great assembly in the Great Hall of the People at Beijing marked the six hundredth anniversary of the voyages, praising his achievement, his spirit of peaceful exchange and his devotion to his country.

The Size of the Fleet, Rewards and Enfeoffments

Zheng He's fleet was of great size. The Ming History records that on the first voyage he took "twenty-seven thousand eight hundred officers and men with much gold and silk, and built sixty-two great ships four hundred and forty feet long and a hundred and eighty feet wide", while the Changle stele records that he "commanded tens of thousands of officers, cadets and banner soldiers in more than a hundred great ships, bearing gifts to bestow" in order "to proclaim civilising virtue and conciliate men from afar". The fleet was at sea for more than ten years and passed through dozens of countries, and on its return the emperor told the ministry of rites that the soldiers "have crossed the ocean more than ten years, ten thousand li and dozens of countries, and are surely weary, and should be rewarded", whereupon commanders received twenty strings of paper money each, colonels eighteen, the officers of hundreds and guards sixteen, the sailing masters eighty-five, and the banner soldiers thirteen. In the eleventh month of 1412 he was sent to bestow brocade, gauze, thin silk and coloured silks on the kings of Malacca, Java, Champa, Sumatra, Aru, Cochin, Calicut, Lambri, Pahang, Kelantan, Kayal, Hormuz, Bila, the Maldives and Sunla; and in 1416 he returned with the envoys of Calicut, Java, Malacca, Champa, Ceylon, Mogadishu, the Maldives, Lambri, Brava, Aden, Sumatra, Malindi, Lasa, Hormuz, Cochin, Lammuri, Shaliwanni and Pahang and of the Old Harbour pacification office, and conferred on the king of Cochin a seal and patent and enfeoffed the mountain of his country as the mountain that guards the state, the emperor himself composing the inscription, which said that "the king's transforming influence flows with heaven and earth, and all within their compass is taken into the moulding kiln, embodying the benevolence of the creative power", that "distant lands and different realms should all be brought to their proper place", and that therefore Kayal was made king with a seal to govern his people, and the mountain of his country enfeoffed and inscribed on stone for ever.

The Old Harbour Succession and the Decree Ending the Voyages

In the first month of 1424 Jisun, son of the late pacification commissioner of the Old Harbour, Shi Jinqing, sent envoys to ask to succeed his father and reported that the old seal had been destroyed by fire; the emperor had him succeed as pacification commissioner and gave him a gauze cap, a gold-flowered belt, gold-woven figured robes and a silver seal, which Zheng He was sent to convey. That year Zheng He returned from the foreign countries, and Siam, Sumatra, Hada and others sent envoys with him to bring tribute. In the first year of Hongxi, Emperor Renzong's decree stopped the voyages altogether: "the treasure ships for the western ocean countries shall all cease; those already anchored in Fujian, Taicang and elsewhere shall return to Nanjing, and the goods they carried shall be handed in to the appropriate treasury; tribute envoys of the foreign countries who should return shall be escorted home with a suitable allocation of men and ships; the officials, eunuch and civil, formerly sent out shall return to the capital at once, and the sailors and others shall be discharged to their homes... the building of sea-going ships for the voyages shall everywhere cease... the purchase of all articles for the voyages, the casting of copper cash and the buying of musk, raw copper and raw silk, except what has already been bought and is in official hands, shall everywhere cease." The long voyages thus came to an end, save for the seventh in the Xuande years.

Relations with Japan

Japan too was among those addressed. According to the Chronicle of Ming Affairs, in the tenth month of 1417 the emperor sent the vice-minister of rites Lü Yuan to Japan: "the emperor had earlier ordered the eunuch Zheng He and others to bestow gifts and proclaim his will to the maritime countries, and Japan was the first to submit, and was richly rewarded, its sacred mountain enfeoffed and a hundred tally-credentials granted, with the term fixed at one tribute mission in ten years." Later, when several dozen Japanese raiders were captured on the frontier and presented, and the ministers asked that they be executed, the emperor sent Lü Yuan with a rescript of stern reproof. By this arrangement Japan was for a time brought within the Ming tribute system in the Yongle era.

Personal Relations

• Great-grandfather: Bayan
• Grandfather: Ma Hajji, referred to by an Islamic honorific
• Father: Ma Hajji, referred to by an Islamic honorific
• Mother: Lady Wen
• Grandmother: Lady Wen
• Four sisters
• Elder brother: Ma Wenming
• Yongle Emperor Zhu Di: Zheng He's former commander in the Jingnan Campaign, who bestowed the surname Zheng and entrusted him with the seven maritime expeditions
• Emperor Renzong of Ming Zhu Gaochi: ended the maritime expeditions after accession and appointed Zheng He eunuch garrison commander of Nanjing
• Emperor Xuanzong of Ming Zhu Zhanji: ordered Zheng He's seventh voyage and had him supervise work on the Great Bao'en Temple
• Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunwen: opponent in the Jingnan Campaign
• Wang Jinghong: deputy eunuch envoy who sailed on the expeditions and led the fleet home after the seventh voyage
• Yao Guangxiao: imperial preceptor who wrote an inscription for a Buddhist scripture printed by Zheng He and accepted him as a disciple under the bodhisattva precepts
• Yuan Zhongche: imperial physiognomist who said that Zheng He's “appearance, bearing, talent, and intelligence had no equal among the palace eunuchs”
• Ma Huan: interpreter who accompanied the fourth and seventh voyages and wrote Yingyai Shenglan
• Fei Xin: accompanied the third voyage and wrote Xingcha Shenglan
• Gong Zhen: accompanied the seventh voyage and wrote Xiyang Fanguo Zhi
• Chen Zuyi: pirate at Old Port whose feigned surrender Zheng He discovered; captured and sent to the capital for execution
• Alakeshvara: ruler of Ceylon who plotted against the fleet and was captured by Zheng He and sent to the Ming capital
• Ashikaga Yoshimitsu: shogun of Japan's Muromachi shogunate, who received the title “King of Japan” around the time of Zheng He's mission to Japan
• Shi Jinqing: Guangdong émigré leader and Pacification Commissioner of Old Port who reported Chen Zuyi to Zheng He

Historical Assessment

Ming and Contemporary Assessments

• Yuan Zhongche wrote in Gujin shijian: “Sanbao's appearance and talent were such that none among the eunuchs could equal him; I observed his bearing and judged that he could truly be entrusted with responsibility.”
• The Draft History of Ming, “Biography of Zheng He,” stated: “He was resourceful, understood military affairs, and was experienced in warfare; the emperor relied greatly upon him.”
• Ma Huan's Yingyai Shenglan records that the fleet at Calicut “constructed a stele pavilion and erected a stone,” and says that although the country was “more than one hundred thousand li from China, its people and things all enjoyed peace and shared the same civilizing influence.”

Early and Middle Qing

• The History of Ming, “Biography of Zheng He,” states: “Chengzu suspected that Emperor Hui had fled overseas and wished to trace him, while also desiring to display military might in foreign regions and show the wealth and strength of China.”
• The same biography states: “After He, all who were sent on missions beyond the seas boasted of Zheng He to impress foreign states; hence the popular account of Sanbao the eunuch voyaging to the Western Ocean became celebrated as a great event of the early Ming.”
• Early Qing scholars criticized the expenditures of the voyages, saying that “Sanbao the eunuch's voyages to the Western Ocean consumed hundreds of thousands in money and grain and cost the lives or health of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians.”

Late Qing and Republican Period

• Liang Qichao wrote in Biography of Zheng He, the Great Navigator of Our Fatherland: “When we consider Master Zheng, how few among the navigational heroes acclaimed in world history can stand shoulder to shoulder with him.”
• Liang Qichao also wrote: “After Zheng He, there was no second Zheng He.”
• Republican-era scholars undertook systematic research into the Zheng He Navigation Chart, the dimensions of the treasure ships, and related questions and affirmed Zheng He's maritime achievements.

Modern Assessments

• Zheng Hesheng and Zheng Yijun examined Zheng He's birth and death dates and the chronology of the seven voyages and affirmed his maritime achievements.
• Scholars generally hold that Zheng He's voyages preceded the European Age of Exploration by more than half a century and constituted a major achievement in world maritime history.
• Contemporary research also emphasizes the predominantly peaceful character of the voyages, citing the description that he “proclaimed the Son of Heaven's edicts and bestowed gifts upon rulers; those who refused submission were overawed by force,” while treating peaceful exchange as the principal mode.