By
Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers
The construction of
the Zhengguo Canal, the first to be built in China,
laid the foundations for the rise to power of the state of Qin. It was completed by the Qin in 246 BC and irrigated
about 200,000 acres in the Wei Valley north of Xian and led to such prosperity
and population increase that the state of Qin became the first to unify China
after a long period of internecine strife. The power of that state - and its
ability to organise - can be seen at the tomb of the
Quin emperor near the central city of Xian today. It is guarded by a life-size
army of terracotta warriors some 8,000 of them. However, both the canal and
the Qin empire were short-lived. The canal silted up and became useless about
IS0 years after it was built. Furthermore, the Qin population pressure caused
farming to expand out into the loess plateau. Thus the link between hydraulic
control and political power is ancient.
During the last
decade however, it has taken on a symbolism that is extremely uncomfortable for
Beijing 's rulers. The river known as 'China's sorrow' for its power and
ferocity now elicits pathos for an entirely different reason. For example in
1997 it was dry in Shandong for a full 226 days. The problem however is
entirely manmade. Well over half the water in the river is taken for industry,
agriculture and residential use, but it is estimated that as little as
one-third of the water taken for agricultural irrigation actually reaches the
crops, spilling out of irrigation ditches or sinks into the soil beneath the
eight large dams and thousands of small ones. Perhaps it is that after
thousands of years of political organisation to
control the consequences of too much water, the machinery of the state has not
had enough time to readjust to the reality of too little. Or are there also
other lessons to learn from, the sociology of history?
Archaeological
evidence and descriptions by visiting Chinese emissaries from the time of
international maritime trade network that circulated goods from China to Rome,
indicated that around this same period, also southern Vietnam 's Mekong delta
and along the coasts of peninsular Siam , various states emerged with competing
capitals substantial populations, arable lands, walled and moated settlements
including elite housing and documents.
An important point in
the Asian maritime route as early as the fourth century AD, many trading
settlements were established along its eastern shores. Over several centuries,
populations reaped great yields from the land, and canal networks cut across
the delta to link settlements and facilitate the movement of goods have been
documented. (See Bishop, Sanderson, and M. T. Stark, Dating Pre-Angkorian Canals in the Mekong Delta, Southern Cambodia,
Using Radiocarbon and Oslo Journal of Archaeological Science 31, 3, pp.319-36,
2003; E. Bourdonneau, The Ancient Canal System of the
Mekong Delta. pp. 257-70, and E.Y. Manguin, The
Archaeology of Early Maritime Polities of Southeast Asia. pp. 282-313 in
Bellwood and Glover, eds., A Cultural History of Southeast Asia: From Earliest
Times to the Indic Civilizations, 2004).
For our earlier
larger picture see also:
For S.E. Asia this
included fourth-century Pallava style objects and statues from the Andhra coast
of eastern India reflecting a widespread economic network, explaining why, the voyages 1421 voyages of Zeng Hi
had very little connection with exploration. In fact even Zeng Hi’s much later,
seventh and final, voyage that may have sailed all the way to Mecca, would
hardly be exploration. The location of Mecca was familiar to Muslims
everywhere, including those in China, and the travel by sea of Muslim pilgrims
to Mecca had been going on for centuries. The names of both Zheng He's father
and grandfather indicate that they made that pilgrimage, though there is no evidence
for the route they took.
Instead the idea that
exploration was the purpose of Zheng He's voyages is a modern Western myth, the
actual goals of the voyages were stated clearly by the Qing Dynasty historians
who compiled the Mingshi.
Zheng He lived in the
reigns of five Ming emperors, four of whom had shilu
composed for their reigns. Also called "veritable records" the shilu of the period. are the highly formalized process of
official historiography, presented to or issud by the
emperor in his daily court sessions. After the fall of the dynasty, the shilu served as the primary sources for the official bistory compiled by the successor dynasty, and then they
were usually destroyed. Since the Mingshi, the
Qing-compiled official history of the Ming Dynasty, was issued only in 1739,
long after the fall of the dynasty, copies of the shilu
of the Ming period survived down to the present.
For example the Taizong Shilu compiled after Emperor Yongle's death
includes the period of Emperor Jianwen's reign, and
since the first six voyages of Zheng Hi took place under Emperor Yongle, this
is the richest source of Zheng He material. The Renzong
Shilu of the brief Hongxi reign and the Xuanzong Shilu covering the Xuande
reign also have notices relating to Zheng He.
The tribute system
during the Ming, started when Ashikaga Takauji was made "king"
of Japan for this purpose. And next, also made possible by earlier maritime
advances, 1405-33 Zheng He (1371-1433) asserted Chinese power untill 1433. The first Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, rose from the ranks of the White Lotus
(Maitreya) inspired "Red Turban" rebellion. A much later White Lotus
(Maitreya) the 'Boxer' Rebellion (against European influence), from
November 1899 to September 7, 1901, is frequently mentioned in the propaganda
of the current, Chines regime. Expecially since the 1999
presumed American 'air attack' deemed "part of a greater plot, such
as distracting China's attention from the economic development and causing
China to be bogged down in upheavals or saddled with the heavy burden of
warfare." (People's Daily editorial appeared on the first page of the
newspaper on May 19, 1999).
Also Zheng He's
biography states that Qing dynasty emperor Yongle "wanted to display his
soldiers in strange lands in order to make manifest the wealth and power of the
Middle Kingdom." In order to carry out this mission Zheng He's fleet
"went in succession to the various foreign countries, proclaiming the
edicts of the Son of Heaven and giving gifts to their rulers and chieftains.
Those who did not submit were pacified by force." However this deserves
further investigation thus, for the first time ever: From Red Turban to Ming
Tax collecting.
The Ming Empire rose
from (a much earlier) White Lotus (Maitreya) inspired, in this case "Red
Turban" rebellion against the Yuan Dynasty and its 'foreign Mongol,'
elite. In fact the Ming derived their name from the White Lotus' messianic
figures of "Big and Little Ming Wang" (Brilliant Kings), who were
thought to have been sent by Maitreya to the world to restore order. Although
no direct relationship has been established, it is not difficult to see a paralell legend among the Shi'ite in Iran of some
kind of 'future Maitreya' that will restore order..).
Where the ships used by the Ming 'navy' the larger ships built for the Zheng He
voyages were first built in what now would be part of Indonesia. By the time of
the Ming, these were often pirate ships.
While the true nature
of whatever thalassocracy Majapahit wielded has been much debated, under Rajasanagara (Hayam Wuruk, ruled
1350-89), during whose reign the Ming Dynasty came to power, the Javanese
kingdom was certainly able to exert military power at least in southern
Sumatra. The proclamation of the Ming Dynasty in early 1368 coincided with an
impressive display of Chinese naval power, since troops transported by sea
established Ming authority over the southern coast of China at the same time as
the Ming main army marched overland to capture the Yuan capital. A new dynasty
reigning at Nanjing might well be expected to revive traditional maritime
connections between a regime based in south China and southeast Asia. In
reality Emperor Hongwu from the beginning based his revival of the tribute
system on his understanding of ancient precedents, and he considered the more
recent precedents of the Yuan and Southern Song undesirable. He maintained a
public posture of indifference to wealth derived from overseas trade, and he
was very suspicious of the political and social consequences that might
accompany oceangoing commerce. He welcomed tribute missions, but only from
truly independent states. He allowed trade to take place only under official
auspices and only when tribute was presented. He prohibited private trading
between Chinese and "barbarians" and prohibited Chinese from sailing
overseas. He repeated his prohibitions against foreign trade and overseas
travel frequently, and in an edict of 1394 he admitted that, because he had
prohibited even tribute missions from most countries, Chinese merchants were
sailing overseas to buy spices and aromatics. His solution was that they should
use Chinese substitutes. These prohibitions had the effect of turning the
already numerous (even if the numbers are difficult to estimate) Chinese
maritime population into pirates and smugglers, since they could not be
expected to give up their livelihood. Hence Zheng He found Palembang under the
control of a Chinese pirate fleet on his first voyage, and the Chinese sources
describe "pirates" -certainly Chinese pirates-preying heavily on
shipping in other areas.
Since Hongwu had
prohibited overseas commerce, he was also concerned that tribute missions not
become a mere cover for trade, and therefore he looked for proof that entities
sending tribute missions were in fact independent countries. By 10S2 Jambi
rather than Palembang had become the capital of the state the Chinese still
called Shri Vijaya (Sanfoqi), even though trade was
conducted in both harbors and a dynasty still ruled Palembang in a subordinate
status. The founding of the Ming raised great hopes for the revival of trade
with China, and from 1371 to 1377 both harbors sent missions to China . In 1374
a mission came from Palembang, whose ruler called himself both king of Sanfoqi and maharaja (transcribed as manada
in Chinese) of Palembang (here called Baolinbang);
Hongwu formally invested this unnamed person as king and granted him a calendar
and other gifts. In 1377 Hongwu approved the request of the ruler of Jambi
(also called Malayu or Malayu-Jambi)
for investiture as ruler of Sanfoqi. Java protested that
Sanfoqi was a dependency of Java and waylaid and
murdered the Chinese embassy sent to confer this investiture. The events of
1377, sometimes described as a Javanese conquest of southern Sumatra, seem in
fact to have been more like a firm reassertion of a suzerainty established
earlier.
Hongwu, furious that
he had been deceived, cut off relations with Sanfoqi
for twenty years. In 1380, when he executed his chancellor Hu Weiyong and massacred hundreds of high officers and their
families whom he accused of involvement in Hu's crimes, intrigues with
foreigners and illicit trade in connection with the tribute missions were a
major element in the accusations. Foreign rulers, he felt, often conspired with
merchants to turn tribute missions into occasions for trade, and for that
reason tribute missions from foreign countries were often rejected. Chinese
missions to Southeast Asia during 1377-97 went only to countries that could be
reached by land.
Sometime between 1377
and 1397, probably in 1391-92, Java expelled the now subordinate but still
hereditary ruler of Palembang from his capital, compelling him to begin the
journey that transformed him into the founder of Malacca. Trade unauthorized by
Ming China continued to sail to and from Palemban,
and in 1397 the old emperor sent an angry letter by way of Thailand to Java,
ordering the Majapahit king to order the Palembang
ruler to mend his ways. Instead, Java appointed a "small chief" to
manage affairs in Palemban, where things were rapidly
slipping out of Javanese control partly because of the influx of Chinese
merchants. "At this time"-the Mingshi
says-"Java had already overthrown Shri Vijaya (Sanfoqi)
and annexed the country, changing its name to Old Harbor Uiugang).
But after the demise of Shri Vijaya, there was great disorder in the country,
and Java also was not able to hold on to all of this territory. Chinese people
residing there temporarily more and more often came to live there permanently.
There was Liang Daoming, originally of Nanhai District in Gllangdong,
who had lived in this country for a long time. Several thousand families of
soldiers and people from Fujian and Guangdong, who had sailed across the sea
and joined him, selected Liang Daoming as their
leader." This was taking place while China was distracted with the civil
war that followed Hongwu's death. By the beginning of the Yongle reign,
Palembang had become a southeast Asian city ruled by an overseas Chinese
community drawn from the Chinese maritime population whose oceangoing trade
Yongle's father had tried to prohibit.
In 1405 Yongle sent
an official, a native of the same county as Liang Daoming,
to summon the latter to court. Liang Damning came to court, presented tribute
in local products, received imperial gifts, and returned. In 1406 Chen Zuyi,
described as a "headman" (toumu) of the Old
Harbor and "also" (like Liang Daoming)
originally a native of Guangdong, sent his son to court with tribute; Liang Daoming sent a nephew. "Even though Chen Zuyi had sent
tribute to court, he committed piracy on the high seas, and tribute missions
going to and fro suffered from this." Returning
from his first voyage in 1407, Zheng He defeated and captured Chen Zuyi. Zheng
He had been warned about Chen Zuyi's piracy by Shi Jinqing,
another member of the Chinese community at Palembang, whom the Ming court then
appointed as its chief. Liang Daoming's fate is
unknown.
Palembang's previous
hereditary ruler Paramesvara, alias Iskandar Shah, by then had ended his
wanderings and had established himself as ruler at Malacca. His career
consisted of three years in Palembang (1388-91), six years in Singapore
(1391-97), two years en route to Malacca (1397-99),
and fourteen years as ruler in Malacca (1399-1413), making up the full
twenty-five years of rule ascribed to him by the Malay sources. Originally at
Malacca he was subject to Thailand, with an annual tribute of 40 Chinese ounces,
or liang, of gold, an item confirmed by both the Mingshi
and Ma Huan. In 1404 the eunuch Yin Qing was sent as envoy to his land, and
Paramesvara (Bailimisula), "very happy" at this, promptly sent back
an embassy with tribute in local products. His reward the following year, in
which Zheng He commenced his first voyage, was Ming investiture as king of
Malacca. Malacca collaborated enthusiastically with the treasure voyages: Ming
China, after all, had recognized their royal status; that, plus Zheng He's
fleet, protected Malacca against any reassertion of Thai overlordship.
Paramesvara's death in 1413 was reported to the Ming emperor in 1414.
1274
Zheng He's great-great-grandfather Saiyid Ajall
Shams aI-Din (1211-79) appointed governor of Yunnan
by Mongol emperor Khubilai Khan (born 1215, ruled 1260-94) 1368
(23 January) to 24 June 1398: reign of Hongwu (Zhu Yuanzhang,
born 1328; posth. Taizu), the first Ming
emperor 1371
Zheng He born as Ma He in Kunyang, Yunnan, then
under the rule of Prince Basalawarmi, a descendant
of Khubilai Khan 1380
Zhu Di (born 11 June 1360), fourth son of Hongwu and future Emperor Yongle,
created Prince of Yan and sent to live in Beiping 1381
Ming conquest of Yunnan ; Ma He captured, castrated, and afterward consigned
to the household of the Prince of Yan 1398
(30 June) to 13 July 1402: reign of Jianwen (Zhu Yunwen, born 1377; posth.
Emperor Hui conferred in 1736), son of Zhu Biao and grandson of Hongwu, the
second Ming emperor 1399
(August) Prince of Yan rebels; Ma He wins battle at Zheng Family Dike near
Beiping 1402 (July)
Defection of river fleet under Chen Xuan permits Prince of Yan to capture
Nanjing 1402
(17 July) to 12 August 1424: reign of the former Prince of Yan as Yongle (posth. Taizong, changed 1538 to
Chengzu), the third Ming emperor; Beiping renamed
Beijing in 1403 1402-1405
Ma He (renamed Zheng He on 11 February 1404) is Director of Palace Servants
with the highest eunuch rank; extensive shipbuilding begins in 1403 1405-1407
Zheng He's First Voyage (orders given 11 July 1405), to Calicut and back,
defeating Chen Zuyi at Palembang on its return (recorded on 2 October 1407,
rewards ordered 29 October) |
1407-1408
Ming invasion and annexation of Vietnam 1407
Enlargement of Beijing as an imperial capital begins 1407-1409 Zheng He's
Second Voyage (orders probably given 23 October 1407), again to Calicut and
back 1409-1410
Yongle travels from Nanjing to Beijing (23 February to 4 April 1409), and,
after a Ming army is defeated in Mongolia (23 September), he conducts his
First Mongolian Campaign (15 March to 15 July 1410) and returns from Beijing
to Nanjing (31 October to 7 December) 1409-1411
Zheng He's Third Voyage (returns 6 July 1411), to Calicut and back, with the
campaign in Ceylon 1411
Song Li completes canal from Beijing to Yellow River 1412-1415 Zheng He's
Fourth Voyage (ordered 18 December 1412) to Hormuz, with the campaign against
Sekandar on its return (recorded on 12 August
1415) 1415
Song Li completes canal from Yellow River to Yangtze River; from this time
grain transport to Beijing is entirely by canal 1413-1416
Yongle travels from Nanjing to Beijing (16 March to 30 April 1413), conducts
his Second Mongolian Campaign (6 April to 15 August 1414), and returns from
Beijing to Nanjing (10 October to 14 November 1416) 1416-1417
Yongle's last period of residence in Nanjing, to which no Ming emperor ever
returns; he travels from Nanjing to Beijing (12 April to 16 May 1417) 1417-1419
Zheng He's Fifth Voyage (ordered 28 December 1416) reaches Arabia and Africa
and returns (dated 8 August 1419) 1417-1421
Main period of building in Beijing |
1418
Founder of Le Dynasty (1418-1804) rebels in Vietnam 1421 Yongle inaugurates
Beijing as primary capital (2 February), orders a sixth voyage (3 March), and
then orders a temporary suspension (14 May) of the voyages; later he orders a
third Mongolian campaign (6 August) and sends Xia Yuanji
and others to prison (11 December); in Vietnam, founder of Le Dynasty
eliminates local rivals 1421-1422
Zheng He's Sixth Voyage (return recorded 3 September 1422) 1422 Yonglc's Third Mongolian Campaign (12 April to 23
September) 1423
Yongle's Fourth Mongolian Campaign (29 August to 16 December) 1424
Yongle's Fifth Mongolian Campaign (1 April to 12 August) and his death, while
Zheng He is on a diplomatic mission to Palembang (ordered 27 February) 1424 (7
September) to 29 May 1425: reign of Hongxi (Zhu Gaozhi,
born 16 August 1378; posth. Renzong),
son of Yongle, the fourth Ming emperor; Hongxi recalls Huang Fu from
Vietnam 1424-1430
Zheng He is commandant (shoubei) at Nanjing, in
association with Huang Fu, and his fleet remains at Nanjing as pa rt of the
garrison 1425
(27 June) to 31 January 1435: reign of Xu an de (Zhu Zhanji,
born 16 March 1399; posth. Xuanzong), son of
Hongxi, the fifth Ming emperor 1431-14.1.1
Zheng He's Seventh Voyage (ordered 29 June 1430) and his death 1433-1436
Books by Ma Huan (Yingyai Shenglan,
1433), Gong Zhen (Xiyang Fanguo
Zhi, 1434), and Fei Xin (Xingcha Shenglan, 1436) appear, describing the countries visited
by Zheng He's fleets 1597
Luo Maodeng's novel about Zheng He, Xiyang Ji, appears 1905 Liang Qichao's article begins
modern interest in Zheng He and his voyages |
Giving Ming naval forces ships were much
smaller and due to the large numbers of ships for Zheng He's first voyage,
there was not enough wood, and timber-cutting expeditions were ordered along
the Min River in Fujian and in the upper reaches of the Yangtze.
The entry dated 11
July 1405 in Taizong Shifu treating the dispatch of
the first expedition states simply that," The fleet consisted of up to 255
ships carrying 27,800 men, most of whom were military personnel. The Mingshi says of this voyage that "62 great ships had
been built, 44 zhang long and 18 zhang
wide." These 62 "treasure ships" were the heart of Zheng He's
fleet and had most of its carrying capacity; they are included in the 255 ships
that the Taizong Shifu indicates were constructed in
time for the first voyage. Despite the Mingshi
account, it is unlikely that the treasure ships were all of the same size, but
they would still have had plenty of room for the crews. The normal organization
of the fleet had several smaller ships assigned to each of the large ships, in
the manner made familiar by the accounts of the earlier voyages of Faxian,
Marco Polo and Ibn Battutah
The first port of
call on all of the voyages was in Champa, at the site of the modern Vietnamese
city of Qui Nhon. This city in Champa-called Xinzhou,
or "New Department," by the Chinese-was about fifteen miles from the
(now ruined) inland capital of Vijaya. The ancient kingdom of Champa (Zhancheng, or " Cham City " in Chinese) was then
ruled by King Jaya Sinhavarman V (ruled 1400-41) of
its thirteenth recorded dynasty. Champa had been losing its wars with Vietnam
ever since Vietnam gained independence in 939, but it was about to have an
intermission from these troubles; the ultimately unsuccessful Ming effort to
conquer and annex Vietnam began during Zheng He's first expedition, and while
the wars in Vietnam lasted (until 1427-28), Vietnam's enemy was China's friend.
This state of affairs covered the entire period in which Zheng He's first six
voyages took place. Even after China recognized Vietnam 's independence in
1427, China continued to support Champa, and Vietnam. Ma Huan describes a Cham
society whose domestic economy resembles that of Vietnam (palm thatched houses,
water buffalo) even as their religious practices are clearly Hindu. Since
"most of the men take up fishing for a livelihood" the society is
oriented toward the sea, and the fishermen may turn into pirates and smugglers
who were difficult for the institutionally weak Cham state to control.Zheng He was showing the flag to overawe, rather
than exploring in any sense; fleets of Chinese official ships like Zheng He's
armada had not been seen in these waters since the period of Mongol rule
(though Chinese merchant ships had), and they had navigators who knew the way.
Furthermore, Zheng
He's voyages took place at a time when trading patterns in Southeast Asia and
the Indian Ocean were becoming less centralized, and major changes were taking
place in the Malay-Indonesian world, both politically and in the sphere of religion
and culture. The Chinese fleets withdrew abruptly after a comparatively brief
presence, having had little effect on long, term developments in the regions
where they had sailed.
But already before
the new Zheng He fleet arrived in Indonesian waters, rulers from the region had
attempted to forge relations with the new Ming empire, and Emperor Hongwu had
come to be frustrated at his inability to understand the complicated and evolving
politics of the Malay-Indonesian world.
A major theme in
Malay-Indonesian history is the interaction between the maritime Malays, whose
major political creation had been the trade-dependent empire of Shri Vijaya,
and the Javanese monarchies based on the rice surpluses that could best be
grown on that smaller island. During the Southern Song, Yuan, and Ming, the
realm of Singosari and Majapahit
(1222-1451) flourished on Java. The reign of its fifth ruler had ended in
rebellion in 1292; the arrival of a Mongol fleet sent by Khubilai Khan enabled
that ruler's successor to use the Mongols to overthrow the usurper and then
ambush the Mongols and drive them out. The kingdom prospered afterward, and the
chief minister who dominated its affairs during most of the next three reigns
swore a famous oath in 1331 not to rest until "the land below the
wind" (Nusantara, referring to the maritime Malay world) was subdued. The
narrative poem Nagarakertagama (1365), a major source
for Majapahit history, claims Brunei in Borneo,
Palembang in Sumatra, Pahang and other places on the Malay peninsula, Makassar
on Sulawesi, and the Bandas and Moluccas in the eastern archipelago as subject
to Majapahit. While the true nature of whatever
thalassocracy Majapahit wielded has been much
debated, under Rajasanagara (Hayam Wuruk, ruled 1350-89), during whose reign the Ming Dynasty
came to power, the Javanese kingdom was certainly able to exert military power
at least in southern Sumatra.
The proclamation of
the Ming Dynasty in early 1368 coincided with an impressive display of Chinese
naval power, since troops transported by sea established Ming authority over
the southern coast of China at the same time as the Ming main army marched overland
to capture the Yuan capital. A new dynasty reigning at Nanjing might well be
expected to revive traditional maritime connections between a regime based in
south China and southeast Asia. In reality Emperor Hongwu from the beginning
based his revival of the tribute system on his understanding of ancient
precedents, and he considered the more recent precedents of the Yuan and
Southern Song undesirable. He maintained a public posture of indifference to
wealth derived from overseas trade, and he was very suspicious of the political
and social consequences that might accompany oceangoing commerce. He welcomed
tribute missions, but only from truly independent states. He allowed trade to
take place only under official auspices and only when tribute was presented. He
prohibited private trading between Chinese and "barbarians" and
prohibited Chinese from sailing overseas. He repeated his prohibitions against
foreign trade and overseas travel frequently, and in an edict of 1394 he
admitted that, because he had prohibited even tribute missions from most
countries, Chinese merchants were sailing overseas to buy spices and aromatics.
His solution was that they should use Chinese substitutes. These prohibitions
had the effect of turning the already numerous (even if the numbers are
difficult to estimate) Chinese maritime population into pirates and smugglers,
since they could not be expected to give up their livelihood. Hence Zheng He
found Palembang under the control of a Chinese pirate fleet on his first
voyage, and the Chinese sources describe "pirates" -certainly Chinese
pirates-preying heavily on shipping in other areas.
Palembang was the dry
land nearest to the sea for the export of Sumatra 's pepper, and the wealth
generated by pepper exports had enabled the rulers of Shri Vijaya to attract
the seagoing trade of the archipelago into his port, as long as this trade was in
the hands of Arab and Indonesian shippers. The rise of a carrying trade in
Chinese bottoms during the Song had made the role of Palembang as an entrep6t
less relevant, yet it remained an important commercial center, and ironically
the vanished Maharajah had been replaced by a committee of Chinese merchants as
the local authority.
Since Hongwu had
prohibited overseas commerce, he was also concerned that tribute missions not
become a mere cover for trade, and therefore he looked for proof that entities
sending tribute missions were in fact independent countries. Jambi rather
than Palembang had become the capital of the state the Chinese still called
Shri Vijaya (Sanfoqi), even though trade was
conducted in both harbors and a dynasty still ruled Palembang in a subordinate
status. The founding of the Ming raised great hopes for the revival of trade
with China, and from 1371 to 1377 both harbors sent missions to China. In 1374
a mission came from Palembang, whose ruler called himself both king of Sanfoqi and maharaja (transcribed as manada
in Chinese) of Palembang (here called Baolinbang);
Hongwu formally invested this unnamed person as king and granted him a calendar
and other gifts. In 1377 Hongwu approved the request of the ruler of Jambi
(also called Malayu or Malayu-Jambi)
for investiture as ruler of Sanfoqi. Java protested
that Sanfoqi was a dependency of Java and waylaid and
murdered the Chinese embassy sent to confer this investiture. The events of
1377, sometimes described as a Javanese conquest of southern Sumatra, seem in
fact to have been more like a firm reassertion of a suzerainty established
earlier.
Hongwu, furious that
he had been deceived, cut off relations with Sanfoqi
for twenty years. In 1380, when he executed his chancellor Hu Weiyong and massacred hundreds of high officers and their
families whom he accused of involvement in Hu's crimes, intrigues with
foreigners and illicit trade in connection with the tribute missions were a
major element in the accusations. Foreign rulers, he felt, often conspired with
merchants to turn tribute missions into occasions for trade, and for that
reason tribute missions from foreign countries were often rejected. Chinese
missions to Southeast Asia during 1377-97 went only to countries that could be
reached by land.
Sometime between 1377
and 1397, probably in 1391-92, Java expelled the now subordinate but still
hereditary ruler of Palembang from his capital, compelling him to begin the
journey that transformed him into the founder of Malacca. Trade unauthorized by
Ming China continued to sail to and from Palembang, and in 1397 the old emperor
sent an angry letter by way of Thailand to Java, ordering the Majapahit king to order the Palembang ruler to mend his
ways. Instead, Java appointed a "small chief" to manage affairs in
Palembang, where things were rapidly slipping out of Javanese control partly
because of the influx of Chinese merchants. "At this time"-the Mingshi says-"Java had already overthrown Shri Vijaya
(Sanfoqi) and annexed the country, changing its name
to Old Harbor Uiugang). But after the demise of Shri
Vijaya, there was great disorder in the country, and Java also was not able to
hold on to all of this territory. Chinese people residing there temporarily
more and more often came to live there permanently. There was Liang Daoming, originally of Nanhai
District in Gllangdong, who had lived in this country
for a long time. Several thousand families of soldiers and people from Fujian
and Guangdong, who had sailed across the sea and joined him, selected Liang Daoming as their leader. This was taking place while China
was distracted with the civil war that followed Hongwu's death. By the
beginning of the Yongle reign, Palembang had become a southeast Asian city
ruled by an overseas Chinese community drawn from the Chinese maritime
population whose oceangoing trade Yongle's father had tried to prohibit.
In 1405 Yongle sent
an official, a native of the same county as Liang Daoming,
to summon the latter to court. Liang Damning came to court, presented tribute
in local products, received imperial gifts, and returned. In 1406 Chen Zuyi,
described as a "headman" (toumu) of the Old
Harbor and "also" (like Liang Daoming)
originally a native of Guangdong, sent his son to court with tribute; Liang Daoming sent a nephew. "Even though Chen Zuyi had sent
tribute to court, he committed piracy on the high seas, and tribute missions
going to and fro suffered from this." Returning
from his first voyage in 1407, Zheng He defeated and captured Chen Zuyi. Zheng
He had been warned about Chen Zuyi's piracy by Shi Jinqing,
another member of the Chinese community at Palembang, whom the Ming court then
appointed as its chief. Liang Daoming's fate is
unknown.
Palembang's previous
hereditary ruler Paramesvara, alias Iskandar Shah, by then had ended his
wanderings and had established himself as ruler at Malacca. His career
consisted of three years in Palembang (1388-91), six years in Singapore
(1391-97), two years en route to Malacca (1397-99),
and fourteen years as ruler in Malacca (1399-1413), making up the full
twenty-five years of rule ascribed to him by the Malay sources. Originally at
Malacca he was subject to Thailand, with an annual tribute of 40 Chinese ounces,
or liang, of gold, an item confirmed by both the Mingshi
and Ma Huan. In 1404 the eunuch Yin Qing was sent as envoy to his land, and
Paramesvara (Bailimisula), "very happy" at this, promptly sent back
an embassy with tribute in local products. His reward the following year, in
which Zheng He commenced his first voyage, was Ming investiture as king of
Malacca. Malacca collaborated enthusiastically with the treasure voyages: Ming
China, after all, had recognized their royal status; that, plus Zheng He's
fleet, protected Malacca against any reassertion of Thai overlordship.
Paramesvara's death in 1413 was reported to the Ming emperor in 1414 by his
son, whom the Ming recognized as the second king of Malacca (1413-23). In 1424
Paramesvara's grandson received Ming confirmation as the third king of Malacca
(1423-44). He was stranded in China from 1433 to 1435 with the other foreign
rulers and ambassadors who had traveled to China on the final voyage. Soon
after his return to Malacca in 1436 he embraced Islam and took the name Sultan
Muhammad Shah, and Malacca prospered in his reign and those of his successors
until the Portuguese conquest in 1511. The list of "over thirty"
countries that Zheng He is said in his Mingshi
biography to have visited has 36 names for 35 countries (Lambri
on Sumatra is duplicated in the list, as Nanwuli and Nanpoli). Four of them were substantial mainland kingdoms:
Champa, Cambodia , Thailand , and Bengal . Eleven others were in the insular or
peninsular Malay-Indonesian region, including Brunei on Borneo, Java, and
Pahang, Kelantan and Malacca on the Malay Peninsula, and six locations on
Sumatra: Palembang, Aru, Semudera, Nagur, Lide, and Lambri. Seven others are in Arabia or Africa: Hormuz, Djofar, Lasa, and Mecca (called Tianfang
or " Heavenly Square") in Arabia, and Mogadishu, Zhubu
(Giumbo or Jumbo near present-day Kismayu in Somalia
), and Malindi on the African coast. Aden in Arabia and Brava in Africa are
both omitted from this list, though both ports were visited by Zheng He's
ships. It is unlikely that any Chinese ship traveled to Mecca 's port of Jidda,
and there is reason to doubt that the Chinese got as far as Malindi, but at
least there is no problem locating those places.
The thirteen
remaining locations all seem to be either in the southern part of the Indian
peninsula (nine) or in the islands that are relatively nearby (four). Aru to
the south of Semudera, and Nagur, Lide, and Lam bri to the north, along with Semudera,
all came to be included in the territory of the later sultanate and now
Indonesian province of Aceh. Ma Huan described all five countries as having the
same pure, simple, and honest customs as their fellow Muslims in Malacca,
except that in Nagur the people tattooed their faces. Except for Semudera, these countries were relatively poor and not
heavily populated: three thousand households in Lide, slightly over a thousand
in Lambri, and Aru and Nagur were "merely small
countries."
From Sumatra ships
would sail for Ceylon, sometimes making a landfall at the Nicobar Islands to
establish the correct latitude. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, with their
naked people in dugout canoes, are never referred to as a tributary country in
the Chinese sources. The internal problems in Ceylon that led to hostilities on
the third voyage. From southern India ships could sail to Liushan,
a term often used for the Maldives and Laccadives
collectively, but Bila and Sunla have been
tentatively identified as Bitra and Chetlat atolls, respectively, both in the Laccadives. Whether or not Liushan
included the Maldives, it was also "merely a small country" and
"one or two treasure ships from the Middle Kingdom went there and
purchased ambergris, coconuts, and other such things," according to Ma
Huan, whose use of the term "purchased" here is another indication of
the private trading that went on on Zheng He's
expeditions.
Of the remaining nine
countries, all on the Indian mainland, three are certainly identified and have
substantial chapters in Ma Huan's account. They are Calicut, Cochin, and
Quilon, which Ma Huan calls Xiao Gelan, or "Lesser" Quilon. Calicut
was then the most important trading center in southern India and Ma Huan calls
it the "Great Country of the Western Ocean ." Calicut was the most
distant destination reached by Zheng He's fleet on its first three voyages. To
get there the fleet, having sighted the mountains of Ceylon from far at sea,
would either pass south of the island or make a port call there, then sail up
the west coast of India from Cape Comorin at the southern tip of the
subcontinent.
On the mainland of
India, the fleet would first reach Quilon, whose people Ma Huan, and the Mingshi following him, calls "Chola" or Suoli, which normally refers to speakers of Malayalam, but
Ma Huan did not distinguish between Malayalis and 'LlInils. Ma Huan misidentifies the people of Quilon as
Buddhists; since they "venerate the cow" they are clearly Hindu.
Quilon was only a
small country, but Cochin further up the l'oast was
Calicut 's closest commercial competitor. Cochin 's people are also
"Chola" and Hindu. The class structure was identical to Calicut 's,
headed by an elite (Nanlwn) of Brahmans, including the king, followed by
Muslims members of the trading castes, "who are all rich people"
according to the Mingshi. And the Mugua
who were very poor and earned their livingS as
fishermen and coolies; they lived by the sea in huts and by law were no more
than three feet high.
In contrast to the
variety of goods produced in Calicut, Cochin 's only product was topper. Both
Calicut and Cochin had a matrilineal system of secession to their thrones, each
king being normally followed by a sister's son; this tradition was maintained
in the princely ties of Travancore and Cochin under the later British Raj.
Other states that are
located on the mainnland of India are
"Greater" Qui/on (Da Gelan), Chola (Suoli),
of the Western Ocean (Xiyang Suoli),
Abobadan, and Ganbali. The Mingshi have a few lines appended to another entry.
"Greater" Quilon, Chola, Chola of the Western Ocean, and Iiayile were all in the general area of southern India
usually referred to as the Malabar and Coromandel coasts. While their exact
locations are uncertain, they were on the general itinerary of a fleet whose
main destination was Calicut and whose other known stopping points included
Ceylon, Quilon, and Cochin.
Some writers have
seen Ganbali as Cambay in Gujarat, "the Kambayat of the Arabs." The Zhufan
Zhi of the Song writer Zhao Rugua has a chapter on
Gujarat, a commercially important region on the northwestern coast of India
that both Ma Huan and Fei Xin ignore. The port city of Cambay sits at the head
of a long, funnel-shaped bay that concentrates the daily tides into a wavelike
bore that is a considerable hazard to navigation. Zheng He's largest ships were
most comfortable in smooth tropical seas and brown waters like the river
leading to Palembang; they would have been at risk in a tidal bore or other
rough waters. Ganbali has also been identified as
Coimbatore in southern India. This city is not only inland but, unlike Nanjing
and Palembang, both of which are inland yet very important in Zheng He's story,
it cannot be reached by water.
If Ganbali was Coimbatore and Zheng He visited it, he had to
do so by going overland. This is not an insurmountable objection; Zheng He was
certainly on land when he fought his battles in Ceylon and against Sekandar in Sumatra, but it is nonetheless unusual that
Coimbatore should be the only one of Zheng He's destinations that could not be
reached by sea. Cape Comorin, at the southern tip of India, is another
possibility for the location of Ganbali and nearby Abobadan. Cape Comorin is transcribed on the Mao Kun map
included in the Wubei Zhi as Ganbali
Headland (tou). 'This problem cannot be resolved
conclusively, but a location in southern India for both places would be most
consistent with the general pattern of Zheng He's voyages.
In the
Malay-Indonesian world the voyages of Zheng He, had an impact by contributing
to the rise of Malacca. Elsewhere Zheng He's voyages had a less lasting
influence. Major continental monarchies like Thailand and Bengal were not
trade-dependent and would have sought or avoided diplomatic relations with
China for their own reasons, regardless of the presence or absence of Zheng
He's fleet. For the smaller, weaker, and more trade-dependent coastal states of
India, Arabia, and Africa, and the islands of the Indian Ocean the presence of
Zheng He's huge ships and the powerful army they transported was overwhelming
but ephemeral. Zheng He's mission was to enforce outward compliance with the
norms of China 's by now ancient tributary system of foreign relations. Most
rulers were wise enough to comply, and they benefited both from outright
Chinese gifts and from the opportunities for illicit trade that Zheng He's
large-capacity ships no doubt provided. When Zheng He's fleets stopped sailing,
China 's diplomatic relations with these countries ceased.
Zheng He's first
three voyages kept his ships and men in continuous overseas deployment from
1405 to 1411, "Broken by two brief periods of turnaround in China in 1407
and 1409. Each of the three voyages took the same basic route: to Champa, up
the Straits of Malacca to northern Sumatra, then straight across the Indian
Ocean to Ceylon and on to Calicut and other destinations on India's southwest
coast. The outward voyage coincided with the winter monsoon, and the return
voyage with the summer monsoon of the following year. Emperor Yongle took an
active personal interest in their outcome. Afterward, the building of the new
capital at Beijing-Beiling, and his campaigns in Mongolia increasingly
dominated the emperor's attention.
But Calicut was truly
"the Great Country of the Western Ocean " in the opinion of Ma Huan,
the Muslim author of the Yingyai Shenglan,
who took part in Zheng He's voyages. Its port was a free trade emporium and
point of exchange for the trans-Indian Ocean seaborne trade. The royal title of
Calicut 's rulers was Samutiri, a Malayalam word for
"Sea King" that was transcribed Shamidixi
in Chinese and later transformed by the Portuguese into the familiar
"Zamorin" of later accounts. Succession to the throne was matrilineal,
the king being succeeded by his sister's son, as in later south Indian states.
Because of both the geography of the Indian Ocean and the seasonal nature of
the monsoon winds, this trade tended to be segmented into western (from and to
the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf) and eastern (from and to Sumatra and Malaya)
halves, and Calicut had outperformed its rivals on the west coast of India in
the competition to be the port where the two halves met.
Ma Huan describes the
class systems of Calicut and Cochin in almost identical terms: the king belongs
to an upper class called Nanhun in Chinese, which is
believed to refer to (Brahman priests and Kshatriya?) warriors in combination;
the latter were very rare in southern India. Muslims are the second class
listed, followed by the Chetty class of moneyed property owners, and the ordinary
Malayalam speaking population, called Geling in
Chinese, from Kling, which usually refers to Tamils, but Ma Huan did not distinguish
the Tamil and Malayali peoples.
Muslims are prominent
in the administration of the kingdom, reflecting the fact that the kingdom
lived by trade and that (despite a Chinese presence that was to prove
temporary) Muslim sailors controlled the Indian Ocean trade. Indeed, this trade
was the major vehicle for the propagation of the Islamic faith in the
Indonesian archipelago.
The foreign embassies
who had come to China at the end of the sixth voyage (1421-22) of Zheng Hi
arrived at court only in 1423 because of the time needed to transit overland or
through the Grand Canal to Beijing. They included envoys from Brava and Mogadishu
in Africa and from Hormuz and Aden in Arabia. Since then Malacca had sent
tribute twice (1424, 1426), Semudera once (1426),
Thailand three times (1426-28), Champa, badly affected by Chinese recognition
in 1427 of the renewed independence of Vietnam-three times (1427, 1428, 1429),
and the declining Majapahit kingdom on Java four
times (1426-29). Except for Bengal, whose solitary tribute mission of 1429 was
the most distant to arrive by sea in this period, those were all of the
embassies from the countries on Zheng He's normal itinerary. The virtual
cessation of diplomatic activity after 1422 indicates clearly that the
overwhelming military power represented by Zheng He's fleet-the Xiafan Guanjun, or Foreign
Expeditionary Armada-was the key to maintaining the kind of diplomatic
relationships that Emperor Yongle, at least, wanted to have with the countries
of Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean .
For the very last
voyage (1431-33of Zheng Hethere is a detailed
itinerary, Xia Xiyang ("Down to the Western
Ocean"), which is preserved in the miscellany Qianwcn
Ji ("A Record of Things Once Heard") of Zhu Yunming (1461-1527), a
reclusive scholar of the Soochow (Suzhou) area who became famous for his
unconventional views and for his attacks on the Neoconfucianism
that had become a stifling orthodoxy in his lifetime. The Qianwcn
Ji in turn was included in the collection Jilu Huibian (literally, "Collection of Records,"
published about 1617), which included many unofficial accounts of military
campaigns and related activities in the early part of the Ming.
According to the Xia Xiyang the fleet of the seventh voyage departed Longwan (Dragon Bay at Nanjing, near the Longjiang, ' Shipyard) on 19 January 1431. Four days later
they came to Xushan, an island in the mid-Yangtze
whose current identity is uncertain, where they hunted animals by beating them
into a circle in the manner made famous by the Mongols. On 2 February 1431 they
went by Fuzi Passage (now Baimaosha channel) into the
broader waters of the estuarial Yangtze, and on the next day reached Liujiagang. Liujiagang is 184
miles from Nanjing, according to modern charts, and the fleet went slowly on
this leg of its voyage. How long they remained there is not certain, but Zheng
He and his colleagues were in no hurry, having planned to forfeit the 1430-31
winter monsoon and to spend the rest of 1431 organizing the fleet and-not
necessarily a secondary purpose-completing temples to Tianfei.
The fleet then left Liujiagang and arrived at Changle
(here called Changlegang, 402 miles from Liujiagang) on 8 April 1431, where they remained until
mid-December. Toward the end of this period Zheng He and his associates erected
the Changle inscription, which described the
extensive work done on the Tianfei temples while the
fleet was in residence. The long layover was dictated by the need to wait for
the winter monsoon, but since the decision to begin the overseas voyage with
the 1432 winter monsoon was certainly deliberate, it is probable that the fleet
left Nanjing essentially empty and was fully ph)visioned
and otherwise fitted out at Changle. This may have
been the normal practice for all of the voyages.
The fleet went out
through Pive Tiger Passage (Wuhumen),
the normal route used by the fleet to leave the Min River estuary, on 12
January 1432 and arrived at Zhan City (Zhancheng; the
term usually refers to the kingdom of Champa, but here it refers to its capital
near present-day Qui Nhon in Vietnam) on 27 January. Zhan City was the first
overseas stop of the fleet on all seven voyages. Ma Huan says that it could be
reached from Fujian in ten days with a favorable wind, but the Xia Xiyang notes that this particular voyage took sixteen days,
which we must shorten to fifteen since neither the departure date nor the
arrival date can count as a full day of sailing. The distance sailed is 1,046
miles on modern charts, which works out to about 70 miles per day, or an
average sustained fleet speed of about 2.5 knots (one knot is 1.15 miles per
hour; the nautical mile used for computing these speeds is 6,116 feet).
The fleet left Zhan
City on 12 February 1432 and reached Java on 7 March. Here again the 25
recorded sailing days must be reduced to 24 full days. Ma Huan does not give
sailing directions, but Fei Xin gives "twenty days and nights from Zhan
City" as the duration of a typical voyage to Java. The Xia Xiyang notes that the port of destination was Surabaya (Silumayz), well to the east on the island of Java and near
the historical heartland of the Majapahit kingdom.
The distance sailed on this leg is 1,383 miles on modern sailing charts. The
fleet needed to sail west of Borneo before turning east into the Java Sea, and
the voyage to Surabaya would require tacking rather than just running before
the monsoon winds. The average speed on this leg was about 58 miles per day, or
2.1 knots.
The fleet remained in
Java waters for months, setting sail only on 13 July 1432 and arriving at
Palembang (Old Harbor) on 24 July. This time the Xia Xiyang
records the length of the voyage correctly as eleven days, and the distance
sailed is 756 miles from Surabaya to the mouth of the Musi River leading to
Palembang, for an average speed of about 69 miles per day, or 2.5 knots-or
perhaps somewhat faster, since the end phase of the voyage involved moving at
least some of the ships up the river to Palembang itself. One of the unanswered
questions of the Zheng He voyages concerns whether his largest ships sailed up
the river to Palembang; the silence of the sources on this question argues that
they did, which is further indication of their shallow draught. Again Ma Huan
gives no sailing directions, but Fei Xin gives "eight days and nights from
Java" as the duration of a normal voyage to Palembang.
The fleet did not
remain long at Palembang; it departed on / 27 July 1432 and arrived at Malacca
on 3 August after a voyage that the Xia Xiyang
reckons as seven days. The distance is 354 miles from the mouth of the Musi
River and the average speed about 51 miles per day, or 1.8 knots. This part of
the voyage included some difficult navigation: down the river from Palembang,
through the narrow Bangka Strait , and past the Lingga
and Riau archipelagos, whose piratical maritime populations were normally a
threat to shipping but apparently not to Zheng He's armada. Ma Huan's sailing
directions to Malacca are eight days with a fair wind from Zhan City to Longya Strait (Singapore Strait), then two days west
(actually, northwest). Fei Xin says eight days and nights from Palembang,
essentially the duration of the voyage in 1432.
Leaving Malacca on 2
September 1432, the fleet reached Semud era on 12
September after a voyage of (and recorded as) ten days. Semudera
is the present Lhokseumawe district in the region of
northern Sumatra, now commonly known as Aceh; it is 375 miles northwest of
Malacca. The leisurely progression of Zheng He's fleet on this leg of the
voyage works out to an average speed of less than 1.4 knots. The winds might have
been bad; Ma Huan says five days and nights with fair wind from Malacca will
get a ship to Semudera, but Fei Xin gives nine days
and nights, closer to the actual duration of this leg of the voyage in 1432.
Semudera and the little countries that were its neighbors were
more important for their location than for their wealth or their products, and
Ma Huan wrote that Sell1udera was "the most important place of assembly
[for ships going to[ the Western Ocean ." On 2 November 1432 Zheng He's
fleet set sail from Semudera, and on 28 November it
reached Beruwala (Bieluoli;
given in a note in Xia Xiyang) on the west coast of
Ceylon after a 26-day voyage that the Xia Xiyang
incorrectly records as 36 days. This voyage is 1,096 miles for modern ships,
and Zheng He's fleet in late 1432 traveled it at an unimpressive average speed
of 42 miles per day, or 1.5 knots. This was the most frightening leg of the
voyage. Cyclones develop in the Bay of Bengal and the adjoining sections of the
Indian Ocean, and voyagers in Zheng He's day had no way to predict them other
than by a general awareness of the seasons. The fleet was far from land in all
directions, calculating its Course by dead reckoning and relying on the help of
the Goddess for its safety; the references to immense waterspaces
and huge waves.
The fleet left Ikruwala on 2 December 1432 and arrived at Calicut on 10
December. The Xia Xiyang reckons the voyage as nine
days, which we must shorten to eight. The length of this leg was 408 miles,
giving an average speed of 51 miles per day, or 1.8 knots.
On 14 December then,
the fleet left Calicut bound for Hormuz, which they reached on 17 January 1433
after a voyage that the Xia Xiyang reckons as 35
days, which we must reduce to 34 full days. The elapsed distance was 1,461
miles, which works out to an average speed of 43 miles per day, or 1.6 knots.
Ma Huan gives 25 days and nights from Calicut (and Fei Xin an utterly
improbable ten days and nights) as the duration of a normal voyage.
Hormuz is the
westernmost destination mentioned in the Xia Xiyang,
and the fleet, or at least the main poriipn of it,
remained there for less than two months, beginning its return voyage on 9 March
1433. Reference to other sources, primarily the Mingshi,
however makes it seem that seventeen countries, other than the eight
destinations listed in the Xia Xiyang, were visited
by ships and/or ambassadors connected with the expedition. In the five cases of
Canbali (Coimbatore), Lasa, Djofar,
Mogadishu and Brava, the Mingshi explicitly mentions
Zheng He in connection with the seventh expedition.
The visit of elements
of Zheng He's fleet to Thailand on the seventh voyage is not mentioned in the Mingshi, but the enduring relationship of Thailand with
Ming China paralleled Zheng He's voyages rather than being a part of them in
the strict sense. The little countries of Aru, Nagur, Lide, and Lambri were near neighbors of Semudera
in northern Sumatra, and they certainly received visits from one or more of
Zheng He's ships as the armada passed through. Whether the Andaman and Nicobar
island chains should properly be called a "country" might be debated,
but the fleet's visit there is solidly attested by Fei Xin's account, dated
within the 26-day period of the fleet's passage between Sumatra and Ceylon.
Quilon and Cochin are on the way to Calicut, and Coimbatore (if it was Canbali) could be visited only by someone who went overland
from Calicut. For other reasons it seems likely that a substantial detachment
of the fleet operated from Calicut after Zheng He took the main body to Hormuz,
so an overland mission of that kind was possible even if it was not led by
Zheng He in person.
This accounts for
nine of the seventeen countries, in addition to the eight destinations
mentioned in the Xia Xiyang, that were probably
visited by Zheng He's last expedition. The other eight are Bengal, the
Laccadive and Maldive island chains, four locations in Arabia (Djofar, loasa, Aden, and Mecca)
and two in Africa (Mogadishu and Brava). The eunuch Hong Bao, one of Zheng He's
colleagues and collaborators in both the Liujiagang
and Changle inscriptions, and the Chinese envoy to
Thailand in 1412, was involved with both Bengal and Mecca and perhaps with the
others.
It seemed strange,
that the chapter on Bengal came near the end of Ma Huan's book, after Aden and
before Hormuz and the final chapter on Mecca. This argument adds to the
circumstantial evidence supporting a detached role for Hong Bao's squadron, but
there is no reason to believe that the breakup of the fleet occurred before Semudera. Hong Bao's squadron, including Ma Huan, went
straight from Semudera to Bengal and then back around
India to Calicut, arriving there after Zheng He and the main fleet had gone on
to Hormuz. It would have to have been a powerful squadron to overawe Bengal,
and this might have provided enough ships for later detachments to African and
Arabian destinations.
Bengal's king
Ghiyath-ud-Din (Aiyasiding)
sent a tribute mission to China in 1408; in 1412 another embassy from Bengal
announced the death of Ghiyath-ud-Din and the
succession of his son Sa'if-ud-Din
(Saiwuding). In 1414 his successor Jalalud-Din (1414-31)-described merely as "the
succeeding king" by the Mingshi-had sent the
giraffe described as a qilin to China, and the
following year Emperor Yongle sent a ¡®Grand Director¡¯, who had accompanied
Zheng He on his second and third voyages, to confer
presents on "the king of this country and his queen (or queens; fei) and ministers (dachen).
The Mingshi account of Bengal then skips from 1415 to 1438,
when they sent another qilin; after one more mission
in 1439, tribute missions from Bengal ceased. By then Shamsud-Din
Ahmad (1431--42) was king. When Ma Huan visited the country in 1432, he found
Bengal hot, wealthy, and densely populated and speaking Bengali (Banggeli). He mentions that two crops of grain could be
grown in one year, and he describes as an oddity the Muslim lunar calendar
without intercalary months, something one would think that a Muslim like Ma
Huan would have encountered before. He notes with approval government
institutions that remind him of China: punishments that include beating with
the light or heavy bamboo and banishment, officials with ranks (guanpin), government offices (yamen), and documents bearing
seals (yinxin).
Hong Bao and Ma Huan
are next seen at Calicut. Ma Huan's chapter on Mecca (Tianfang)
concludes:
In the fifth year of
Xuande (1430) an order was respectfully received from the imperial court that
the Grand Director and eunuch official Zheng He and others were to go to the
foreign countries to open and read the imperial commands and bestow gifts and rewards.
A detached squadron [of the fleet] came to the country of Calicut. At this time
the eunuch official and Grand Director Hong Bao saw that the said country had
sent men to go there. He thereupon selected an interpreter and others, seven
men in all, and sent them bearing as gifts musk, porcelains, and other things.
They joined a ship of the said country and went there. They returned after a
year, having bought various unusual commodities and rare valuables, including qilin (presumably giraffes, as usual), lions, "camel
fowl" (tuoji, a common term for ostrich), and
other such things. Also they painted an accurate representation of the Heavenly
Hall. rAil of these itemsl
were returned to the capital. The king of Mecca (Moqie) also sent official ambassadors with local products,
and [these were] accompanied by the interpreter land the others, in all] seven
men who had originally gone there, and these were presented to the Court.
An entry for Mecca,
under the same name Tianfang ("Heavenly
Cube," referring to the Qa'aba) that Ma Huan
uses to head his chapter, appears in the very last chapter of the Mingshi and is clearly derived from Ma Huan's account,
which it repeats in slightly more elegant language. A squadron of the Chinese
fleet arrived in Calicut, and men from the squadron joined a Calicut ship
already scheduled to travel to Mecca. There they bought strange gems and rare
treasures, as well as giraffes, lions, and ostriches for their return.
"The king of that country also sent servants to accompany them as
ambassadors coming with tribute to the [Ming] court," and the emperor
"rejoiced and gave them even more valuable gifts [in return]."
This Mingshi passage clears up the references to the "said
country" and "there" in Ma Huan's account, and it confirms that
the Chinese who went to Mecca did not go on a Chinese ship. Aden therefore is
as far as the Chinese fleet, or any part of it, sailed in that direction. It is
certainly peculiar that the only strange and rare things that are mentioned by
name as having been "bought by" (rather than presented to) the
Chinese visitors (who are not described as envoys) are three fauna (giraffe,
lion, ostrich) typically associated with Africa rather than Arabia. Yet Ma
Huan's description of Mecca contains so much convincing detail that it is
difficult to doubt that he saw it in person.
To get to Mecca, Ma Huan
relates, one sails three months from Calicut to the port of Jidda and then
journeys overland to Mecca. All the people speak Arabic (Alabi). The Great
Mosque bears the "foreign" (fan) name of Qa'aba
(Kaiabai), and near it is the tomb of Ishmael
(Isma'il, Simayi). The Muslim pilgrimage and its
ritual of circumambulating the Qa'aba are described,
and the city of Medina is mentioned, though Ma Huan errs in making it only a
day's journey from Mecca.
Since Hong Bao from
Calicut sent the seven intrepid travelers on their voyage to Mecca, it is
probable that he also sent squadrons or detachments of the fleet to Djofar, Lasa, and Aden on the south coast of Arabia and to
Mogadishu and Brava on the Somali coast. All these locations had been visited
previously, beginning with the fifth voyage, and the sailing directions for all
of them in the Mingshi are various distances from
Calicut (Djofar, Lasa, Aden), Quilon (Mogadishu), or
Ceylon (Brava). The Maldives are also located with reference to Ceylon. One
therefore imagines that the fleet, many of whose leading personnel had sailed
these waters before, had peeled off detachments as it rounded Ceylon and
southern India and had left a substantial squadron in Calicut under Hong Bao
while the main body under Zheng He went on to Hormuz. The wording of the Mingshi entry for Mecca, the vague sailing directions given
for Malindi ("a long way from China"), and the lack of sailing
directions for Zhubu (located correctly as being near
Mogadishu), argue that squadrons of Zheng He's fleet never visited these
destinations, even though they were known to exist, and that envoys (or
merchants posing as envoys) from these nations made their way to pickup points from which they could be transported to China
on Zheng He's ships. It might be noted that the Mingshi
does have entries on Portugal (Folangji, whose
location is "near Malacca"), the Netherlands (Helan, located
"near Portugal"), and Italy (Yidaliya,
"located in the Great Western Ocean, and not communicated with since
antiquity"), none of which was visited by Zheng He's fleet even though a
later Chinese reader might think they had been from the description of their
locations in the Mingshi.
The Xia Xiyang says that the main body set sail from Hormuz on 9
March 1433 and arrived in Calicut on 31 March, calling this a voyage of 23
days, which we must reckon as 22, for an impressive average speed of about 66
miles per day (1,461 miles in all), or 2.4 knots. We must infer that the
squadrons sent to the other destinations had already assembled at Calicut, for
the entire fleet did not remain long. On 9 April it departed Calicut, and on 25
April it reached Semudera. Again the 17 days of the
Xia Xiyang must be reduced to 16 to account for the
arrival and departure dates not being full days of sailing. There is no mention
of a stop at Beruwala on Ceylon on the way out, and
really no time for a stop there or at any of the other south Indian ports that
Zheng He's fleet had visited previously, because now the winds and waves were
cooperating and the fleet, no doubt running straight out before the southwest
monsoon, averaged 93 miles per day, or 3.4 knots, over a stretch of open ocean
that J. V. G. Mills calculated at 1,491 miles. Six days later, on 1 May, the
fleet left Semudera and arrived at Malacca on 9 May;
once again reducing the length of the 375-mile voyage from nine days to eight,
the fleet's average speed was 47 miles per day, or 1. 7 knots.
The next entry in the
Xia Xiyang says "fifth month, tenth day (28 May
1433): returning, [the fleet I arrived at the Kunlun Ocean," referring to
the seas around Poulo Condore
and the Con Son Islands off the southern tip of present-day Vietnam. The fleet
had only reached Qui Nhon or Zhan City sixteen days later, on 13 June. Mills
calculates the entire distance from Malacca to Qui Nhon as 983 miles and notes
cautiously that "we are not told how many days were taken" on this
leg of the voyage. It seems more likely that the fleet left Malacca on 28 May
and proceeded to Zhan City at a respectable average speed of 61 miles per day,
or 2.2 knots. The word hui (returning) had been used to refer to the fleet's
departure from Hormuz, and its presence here suggests that the date of the
fleet's arrival in the Kunlun Ocean has dropped out in the recopying process.
Accepting the text as it stands would require the fleet's leaving Malacca after
a stay of only a few days and then spending sixteen days moving up the Champa
coast at a much lower than average rate of speed.
The fleet spent only
three full days at Zhan City and then set sail on 17 June, the first day of the
sixth lunar month. The Xia Xiyang records several
sightings on the next leg of the voyage, incidentally providing confirmation
that the navigators of Zheng He's fleet were happy to sail by landmarks when
they could find them, rather than by dead reckoning. The fleet did not anchor
until it came to Liujiagang (here called Taicang,
from the name of the prefecture) on the 21st day, or 7 July 1433. Mills reckons
this leg at 1,429 miles; Zheng He's fleet had accomplished the voyage in 20
days at an average speed of 71 miles per day, or 2.6 knots.
The average speed on
these thirteen measured legs of the seventh voyage was 58 miles per day, or 2.1
knots. The better performance on the Calicut to Semuclera
leg of the return voyage probably reflects the full force of the monsoon winds
driving the ships. The Chinese term shunfeng used in
the sailing directions found in the sources, which Mills translates as
"with a fair wind," might also be translated as "running before
the wind." It implies wind from straight aft or on either quarter, so that
the ship is not delayed by tacking.
By the standards of
Western navies during the sailing ship era, these speeds are not high. In 1805
Lord Nelson with ten ships of the line-large warships designed for fighting
power rather than speed-crossed the Atlantic at an average speed of 135 miles per
day, or 4.9 knots. Mid-nineteenth-century clipper ships, during a period in
which sail and steam were in serious competition, often achieved sustained
speeds in the double digits.
According to the Xia Xiyang, the fleet commanded by Zheng He "arrived in
the Capital" on 22 July, and five days later its personnel were rewarded
with ceremonial robes, other valuables, and paper money. These events are not
mentioned in the Xuanzong Shilu, but the latter source does have one final
entry related to Zheng He's voyages: Xuande, eighth year, intercalary eighth
month, xinhai, the first day of the month (14
September 1433). The king of Semudera Zainuliabiding (Zain al-'Abidin) sent his younger brother Halizhi Han and others, the king of Calicut Bilima sent his
ambassador Gebumanduluya and others, the king of
Cochin Keyili sent his ambassador Jiabubilima
and others, the king of Ceylon Bulagemabahulapi
(Parakramabahu VI) sent his ambassador Mennidenai and
others, the king of Djofar Ali (Ali) sent his
ambassador Hazhi Huxian
(Hajji Hussein) and others, the king of Aden Mowukenasier
(AI-Malik az-Zahir Yahya b. Isma'il) sent his
ambassador Puha and others, the king of Coimbatore (Devaraja) sent his ambassador
Duansilijian and others, the king of Hormnz Saifuding (Sa'if-ud-Din) sent the foreigner
(fcmren) Malazu and others,
the king of "Old Kayal" (Jiayile) sent his
ambassador Aduruhaman (Abd-ur-RahnJ;]n) and others, and the king of Mecca (here Tianfang) sent the headman (toumu)
Shaxian and others. [They all] came to court and
presented as tribute giraffes (qilin), elephants,
horses, and other goods. The emperor said: "We do not have any desire for
goods from distant regions, but we realize that they [are offered] in full
sincerity. Since they come from afar they should be accepted, but [their
presentation] is not cause for congratulations."
The emperor's remarks
are not as ungracious as they seem; the "congratulations" that he
rejects are the flattery of officials and courtiers to the effect that his
virtuous rule has attracted yet another qilin to
China. Yet obviously the emperor's remarks do not have the "full
sincerity" that he claimed to detect in the presentation of tribute. The
emperor himself had noted that tribute missions from the Western Ocean
countries had ceased after the sixth of Zheng He's voyages, and he certainly
understood that the tribute missions whose offerings he was disparaging were
the result of the reappearance of Zheng He's armada in those waters. This
final, if oblique, reference to Zheng He's expeditions in the primary sources
is thus added proof that the function of the voyages was to enforce outward
compliance with the forms of the Chinese tributary system by the show of an
overwhelming armed force. The emperor did not live to see the long-range
consequences of this, but the tribute missions from the Western Ocean countries
had again ceased, this time forever.
For updates
click homepage here