Chapter 2 summary
The Emperor Xuan De’s order to Zheng He to instruct distant lands beyond the seas to follow the way of heaven now seems awesome. This voyage to “instruct” the foreigners was the zenith of Admiral Zheng He’s great career. Zheng He was ordered to return to all three thousand countries he has visited in his life at sea. The task will require a huge number of ships – several great fleets must be readied for voyages across the world. The scope of the shipbuilding programme – more than 2,700 ships – undermines the notion that Zheng He commanded just one fleet of a hundred ocean-going vessels.
This massive ship-building programme was accompanied by major improvements in the junks’ construction. In each of the years 1406, 1408, 1418 and 1432, fleets of a hundred or more Chinese vessels spent lengthy periods refitting in the ports of east Java. The new building programme in China, aided by better timber and the huge refitting programme in Java, would gradually have improved the quality of Zheng He’s fleets. With their superior wood and construction, Zheng He’s ships would be capable of crossing the stormiest oceans.
However, a single fleet of a thousand junks would have been impossible to control. Chinese records listing dates for outbound and returning voyages make it clear that different fleets departed and returned under different commanders often years apart.
In sum, the scale of Zheng He’s voyages would have required many independent fleets to be simultaneously at sea. Some fleets were no doubt carried off by storms to unexpected destinations. Others were surely wrecked. In any case, it should come as no surprise that many, perhaps even a majority, of destinations reached by the fleets were never recorded in official Chinese records. Seafaring in the 15th Century was an even more hazardous profession than it is today. Many ships never returned home to tell their tales.
The Xuande Emperor would have briefed Zheng He background and customs of all the countries the fleet would visit. They had the ideal tool with which to do so – the Yong Le Dadian. This massive encyclopaedia was completed in 1421 and housed in the newly built Forbidden City. 3000 scholars had worked for years compiling all knowledge known to China for the previous 2000 years. The discoveries made on the voyages of Zheng He’s fleet were also incorporated into the Yong Le Dadian. One can go further and say one of Zhu Di’s leading objectives was to acquire knowledge gained from the Barbarians. The best way to acquire knowledge is to share it – to show the Barbarians how immensely deep, wide and old was Chinese knowledge and Chinese civilisation. For this of course they needed to have copies of the Yong Le Dadian aboard their junks and they needed also to brief interpreters about the contents so the message could be propagated.
This vast encyclopaedia was a massive collective endeavour to bring together Chinese knowledge gained in every field over thousands of years under one roof. Zheng He had the immense good fortune to set sail with priceless intellectual knowledge in every sphere of human activity. He commanded a magnificent fleet – magnificent not only in military and naval capabilities but containing intellectual goods of great value and sophistication, a fleet which was the repository of half the world’s knowledge.
Calendars
Of equal importance were the calendars carried by the fleets. Having been ordered to inform distant lands of the commencement of the new reign of Xuan De, an era when “everything should begin anew,” a calendar was essential to Zheng He’s mission.
Issuing calendars was the prerogative of the emperor alone. Accuracy was necessary to enable astronomers to predict eclipses and comets — a sign that the emperor enjoyed heaven’s mandate. The Shou Shi calendar produced by Guo Shou Jing was officially adopted by the Ming Bureau of Astronomy in 1384. This is the calendar that both Zhu Di and the Xuan De emperor would have ordered Zheng He to present to foreign heads of state. The calendar contained a mass of astronomical data running to thousands of observations. It enabled comets and eclipses to be predicted for years ahead as well as times of sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonset. The positions of the sun and moon relative to the stars and to each other were included, as were the positions of the planets relative to the stars, sun and moon. Adjustments enabled sunrise and sunset, and moonrise and moonset, to be calculated for different places on earth for every day of the year.
Further reading:
Kublai Khan’s lost fleet:
http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/interesting-documentary/khubilai-khan.html
http://starecentral.com/news/story.asp?file=/2005/9/5/tvnradio/11793659&sec=tvnradio
Liu Gang: The real discoverer of the world- click here
Tai Peng Wang: The most startling discovery from Zheng He’s treasure ship shipyards by Prof. Pan Biao and my response – click here
Chinese Marine cartography – Mei-Ling Hsu:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1151020
Dr. Siu-Leung Lee’s Asiawind website:
www.asiawind.com
