An official fleet, not a company
Between 1405 and 1433, the Ming dynasty of China sent seven large maritime expeditions into the Indian Ocean under the command of a court official named Zheng He. They were organised and paid for by the state at the order of the Yongle emperor, and later the Xuande emperor, rather than by merchants or a chartered company. That makes them different from the enterprises described in the overview of maritime trading companies, and a useful contrast with them: they were large, short-lived government missions focused on diplomacy and prestige, not commercial ventures designed to make a profit.
Who was Zheng He?
Zheng He was born around 1371 in Yunnan, in south-west China, into a Muslim family and was originally named Ma He. After being taken into the service of the Ming court as a young man, he became a eunuch official and a trusted servant of the future Yongle emperor. He was given the name Zheng, and the title often rendered as “Three-Jewel Eunuch”, in recognition of his service. His background and experience with military affairs made him a natural choice to lead fleets, though sources on his life are limited and some details are uncertain.
The voyages
The first expedition set out from the Yangtze region in 1405 and sailed to Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka and Calicut on India’s southwest coast. Later voyages went further, calling at ports on the Arabian coast, including Hormuz and Aden, and on the East African coast, including places such as Mogadishu and Malindi. The fleets visited ports on the Malay peninsula and the Indonesian islands, with Malacca serving as an important base, something relevant to the story of the Malacca spice port. Voyages typically lasted around two years and were timed to use the monsoon trade winds in each direction, a practice that Arab and Indian sailors had followed for many centuries.
The last voyage left in 1431 and returned in 1433. Zheng He is generally believed to have died around that time, perhaps during the return, though the evidence is not conclusive.
Size of the fleets and ships
Chinese sources say the fleets were very large, with figures often quoted of over 200 ships on some expeditions, and tens of thousands of men, with the first voyage commonly said to have carried around 27,000. Some accounts describe the largest “treasure ships” as 400 feet or more in length, far larger than any wooden ship in Europe at the time. Many modern historians doubt the largest numbers, arguing that such lengths would be difficult to achieve in a wooden hull, and that the accounts may be exaggerated or reflect different units of measurement. The truth is probably a more modest figure, but the fleets were nonetheless huge for their time, and the debate remains unresolved.
The ships belonged to the family of Chinese junks, with fore-and-aft battened sails, multiple masts and hulls divided by watertight bulkheads, a feature that was developed in Chinese shipbuilding and gave extra safety. The background is given in the history of Chinese junk fleets. The fleets also included supply ships, water carriers, troop ships and support vessels, and shipyards at Nanjing and along the lower Yangtze built many of them. Navigation relied on the magnetic compass, which was used in China for sea voyages by this period, together with star sightings and written sailing directions. This knowledge overlapped with that of the Arab sea pilots who worked across the same ocean.
What the fleets did
The main goals appear to have been diplomatic and political. Zheng He’s ships carried gifts, silks and porcelain, and envoys from distant rulers returned with them to China, where they presented tribute to the emperor. The missions sought to bring recognition of Ming authority and to promote trade under official terms. The fleets also intervened in local affairs on occasion: according to Chinese sources, they fought pirates near Palembang, took part in a dynastic dispute in Sri Lanka and in Sumatran politics, and escorted ambassadors home.
There is no evidence of a plan for conquest or colonies, in contrast to the later Portuguese approach, though the fleets carried soldiers and weapons. Commercial exchange did occur, including trade in spices, pepper and exotic goods, and the voyages seem to have encouraged Chinese merchant communities in the region. Some of the cargo included unusual gifts, famously a giraffe from East Africa, brought back via Bengal or the Swahili coast and presented at court.
A stone inscription set up at Changle in Fujian in 1432 and others recorded the voyages and the sailors’ hopes for the protection of the sea goddess Mazu, reflecting the religious customs that were common among seafarers.
Why the voyages ended
After the death of the Yongle emperor in 1424, court opinion became divided. Officials who favoured a focus on land defence and domestic affairs criticised the cost of the expeditions. After the last voyage, the Ming government stopped sending out such fleets, and in later decades it imposed restrictions on private maritime trade. Historians debate how decisive any one cause was; costs, northern frontier threats and the politics of the court all played a part.
The end did not mean the end of Chinese seafaring. Merchants continued to trade across the South China Sea, and the routes in the South China Sea routes remained busy. When Portuguese ships arrived in the region around the Cape route in the early sixteenth century, they entered an Asian world with long-established networks.
Legacy and caution
Zheng He is now remembered widely in China and Southeast Asia, with temples and museums dedicated to him. Popular books have sometimes made large claims, for example that his fleets discovered the Americas or circled the globe; these are not supported by credible evidence and are rejected by specialist historians. What the sources do show is a remarkable exercise in state-organised seafaring, carried out decades before the Portuguese expeditions down the African coast.