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Decline & Legacy

Zheng He's Voyages and the Maritime Silk Road

Between 1405 and 1433, the early Ming court of China despatched seven enormous naval expeditions into the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean. The fleets,…

Between 1405 and 1433, the early Ming court of China despatched seven enormous naval expeditions into the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean. The fleets, each comprising dozens of ships and tens of thousands of sailors, visited the coasts of Southeast Asia, India, Sri Lanka, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and possibly the Swahili coast of East Africa. They projected Ming power across the Indian Ocean and, for a brief generation, established a Chinese maritime presence in the trade routes that would later be called the maritime Silk Road. Then, almost as abruptly as they had begun, the voyages were halted, the fleet was mothballed, and the records of the expeditions were largely destroyed. The episode is one of the great counterfactuals of world history, and forms a central chapter in the longer account of the decline of the Silk Road.

The Yongle emperor and the treasure fleets

The voyages were commissioned by the Yongle emperor (r. 1402–1424), the third ruler of the Ming dynasty, who had usurped the throne from his nephew and wished to demonstrate the legitimacy and reach of his new regime. The commander was Zheng He (1371–1433), a Muslim of Hui or Yunnanese origin who had served the Yongle emperor as a eunuch attendant and military officer. Zheng He was exceptionally well travelled, and his command combined political reliability with diplomatic skill.

The scale of the expeditions was extraordinary. The largest ships, the so-called treasure ships, are reported in Ming sources to have been roughly 120 metres long and 50 metres wide — figures that have been contested but that indicate vessels far larger than anything the contemporary Portuguese, Arab, or Indian navies could build. The first expedition of 1405–1407, consisting of 317 ships and perhaps 28,000 men, would have been visible from shore for miles. The entire programme involved, by some counts, more than a hundred thousand sailors, soldiers, and interpreters.

The diplomatic and commercial programme

The official purpose of the voyages was diplomatic. The Yongle emperor wished to extend the Ming tributary system to the polities of Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and East Africa. The first voyage intervened in a succession dispute in Java, established a Chinese presence in Sumatra, and carried envoys to Calicut. Subsequent voyages visited the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Cochin, Hormuz, Mecca, and Mogadishu. The fleets carried Chinese silks, porcelain, and gold in enormous quantities, and the diplomatic gifts were calculated to overwhelm foreign courts.

Zheng He is, in modern Chinese memory, the great counterfactual of maritime history.

The commercial dimension was no less significant. The fleets carried Chinese goods to markets that had previously been served by Arab and Indian merchants, and returned with pepper, cinnamon, cloves, gemstones, and ivory. The voyages overlapped with the older spice trade of the Indian Ocean, and gave the Ming court direct access to the supply networks of the western Indian Ocean. The diplomatic gifts probably exceeded the commercial value of the return cargo, but the expeditions consolidated a Chinese presence in the trade routes that had existed for centuries, and established a short-lived Ming hegemony over much of the Indian Ocean.

The treasure ships of Zheng He are also the centre of a minor historiographical controversy. The contemporary Mao Kun map shows the routes; the Yingya Shenglan of Ma Huan (1433) is the principal contemporary narrative; the Gong Zhen stone inscriptions in Fujian preserve the multilingual exchange that followed. These primary sources are partly destroyed; the reader looking for the original text is working from partial copies.

A personal note

The size of Zheng He’s treasure ships — reported as over 120 metres long in some Ming sources — is disputed. Many modern historians consider the figures an exaggeration, perhaps a copying error, and think the real ships were much smaller. The reader who wants certainty will not find it. The voyages happened; their scale was impressive; the exact dimensions are unclear.

Further reading

  • Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Brill), the relevant entry. Old but unequalled for the western Islamic world.
  • Encyclopaedia Iranica (Columbia), the relevant entry, for the Iranian sphere.
  • An article in the most recent volume of Silk Road Journal or Journal of Asian History.
  • A primary source in translation (named in the article above).
  • One recent monograph — see the suggested works in the other entries in this series.