Chapter summary
Size of the fleet – Over the past three years researchers have found references in the Ming Shi Lu to the number of junks built in the years 1403 to 1419. The figures are subject to interpretation, particularly with regard to the number that can be assigned specifically to Zheng He’s fleets. But it seems the low estimate makes a total of three hundred and forty-three ships constructed for Zheng He’s voyages. The high estimate is a fleet of 2,020 ships out of a total construction programme of 2,726.
The scope of the shipbuilding programme undermines the notion that Zheng He commanded just one fleet of a hundred ocean-going vessels.
The provision of accurate charts and a viable system of navigation was of paramount importance — not only to facilitate the safe passage of Zheng He and his fleets, but also to encourage the barbarians to return tribute to the new emperor. Zhu Di and his father, Hong Wu, had encouraged the development of every aspect of navigation. Zheng He and his admirals were instructed to search for navigation charts, collecting all the information about currents, islands, mountains, straits and the positions of stars. They used this data to revise their navigation charts, including compass points and the cross references of stars.
This obsessive focus on improving navigational techniques enabled Zheng He’s fleets to reach foreign countries where the Chinese ambassadors would supply maps and astronomical tables to the foreign rulers. The gift of knowledge was intended to make it possible for them to return tribute to the Middle Kingdom. We know from recent excavations in Cairo beside the Red Sea Canal and from collections in Europe that Chinese delegations also offered personal gifts to foreign leaders. Traditionally, foreign rulers were presented with one hundred slave girls. After the Chinese squadron reached Venice, slave girls and their offspring made a significant impact on the domestic life and population of Venice, Florence and Tuscany.
As voyages progressed and boredom set in, sailors would have put aside novels for progressively more serious reading. By Zheng He’s era, printed popular books were widely available and all kinds of pocket encyclopaedias were sold. Reference books with illustrations and descriptions covered all manner of practical subjects. The Nung Shu, a popular encyclopaedia first published in 1313, provided descriptions and illustrations of agricultural machinery. Doubtless these descriptions of how to make a wide variety of useful farm machinery would have had value to farmers in other countries
Another pocket encyclopaedia, The Wu Ching Tsung Yao, a collection of the most important military techniques, gave detailed accounts of the construction and functions of a vast array of military machines. What is extraordinary is that this military information seems to have been unclassified – it could have been acquired by anyone. It must have been of considerable value to realms that lacked sophisticated gunpowder weapons in the 1430s, including Venice and Florence.
We can be confident that Zheng He’s fleets had every weapon then known to the Chinese: sea skimming rockets, machine guns, mines, mortars, bombards for use against shore batteries, cannon, flame throwers, exploding grenades and much more. Zheng He’s fleets were powerfully armed and well supplied by water tankers, grain and horse ships, which enabled them to stay at sea for months on end. In addition, the ships were repositories of great wealth – both in material objects such as silk and ceramics and in the intellectual treasure contained in astronomical tables and encyclopaedias covering every subject known to the Chinese.
Thus Zheng He was able to provide Europeans with maps, navigational tools and an astronomical calendar beyond anything they had yet been able to produce on their own. Supplied with this revolutionary knowledge, the barbarians would be able to make their way to the Middle Kingdom, appropriately “with deference.”
Further reading
Tai Peng Wang: Zheng He and his envoy’s visit to Cairo – click here
Tai Peng Wang: a tale of globalisation in Ancient China – click here
Helmer Aslaksen: the mathematics of the Chinese calendar
http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/calendar/cal.pdf
Tai Peng Wang: The most startling discovery from Zheng He’s treasure ship shipyards by Prof. Pan Biao and my response – click here
Jamal ad Din’s globe and the Islamic astronomers – click here
