The Boundless Sea

by David Abulafia

  All this time, his links to Islam must have been weakening, and, like the Chinese around him, he became eclectic in his religious practice, joining his crew in praying to the sea goddess Tianfei at the start of his expeditions. To cite an inscription he laid down in 1431, ‘the divine majestic spirit of the Heavenly Princess, who is entitled by imperial edict “she who defends the country and shelters the people, whose miraculous spirit responds visibly to prayers, and whose vast benevolence saves all”, spreads across the oceans’. The goddess, also known in local dialect as Mazu, was said to have been the daughter of a humble fisherman; she was born in AD 960 and possessed the power of prophecy; she could therefore warn her brother that he was at risk of being drowned at sea, and so saved his life.25 Zheng He became very large, supposedly seven feet tall and ten feet around the waist, though the Chinese ‘foot’ was shorter than the twelve-inch foot of today. He had a small nose but high cheekbones and a broad forehead. There are a good many pictures and statues of him, the product of imagination, as he was deified after his death and has been worshipped by expatriate Chinese as their patron ever since – his cult continues in the oldest surviving Chinese temple in Malaysia, the Cheng Hoon Teng temple in Melaka, built in 1645.26

  II

  The story of Zheng He has grown in the telling, then, and the question that needs to be asked is whether the size of the fleet and the number of those on board have also been exaggerated. The novel by Luo Maodeng fantasized about the size of the ships, but many of those who subsequently wrote about the voyages assumed that Luo had access to precise information. Fei Xin, who was there, wrote of ‘27,000 government troops’ aboard the fleet that set out in 1409, and the numbers given for each expedition are broadly comparable. Very large figures in the thousands were just a Chinese way of saying ‘innumerable’; it is quite reasonable to insist on scaling down these numbers, which represent a large medieval city on the move, and which raise insoluble problems about how it was possible to feed all these people, even if the fleet put into port every week or two. Interestingly, Fei Xin also mentioned ‘48 sea-going ships’, and that looks a very tight fit for 27,000 troops and an entire storehouse of fine porcelain, silks and other gifts (even bulkier on the return, when the tribute included a menagerie of lions, giraffes and zebras).27 And yet other estimates for these fleets suggest that at least 250 ships set sail, so one could try to argue that Fei only counted the Treasure Ships. One has to distinguish big junks from small sampans, lighters and supply ships, including those filled with fresh water and towed behind larger vessels. Marco Polo’s description of the largest Chinese ships insists that they were manned by 200 sailors, even, in one text of his book of travels, by 300. He describes tugs that were used to help these great junks along, with fifty or sixty sailors at the oars. Ships were constructed out of fir wood, to the best of his knowledge, though evidence from underwater archaeology and the written sources we have indicates that cedar and camphor wood were often used as well, and they would have lasted better; the Yuan shipbuilding industry had denuded parts of China of tree cover, and Yong-le’s schemes, if they were really on the scale that was reported, must have had the same disastrous effect. Polo described capacious vessels, bigger than those that sailed the Mediterranean, and others who saw or heard about them knew that they contained many cabins for the wealthier or more important passengers. They do seem to have been much more comfortable than European ships, where everyone was crowded together under the open skies and living, sleeping and cooking space was very confined.28

  A reconstruction in print of the ships by Edward Dreyer sets the size of the largest vessels in these fleets, the so-called Treasure Ships, at around 400 feet long and about 170 feet broad, with nine masts.29 It is generally assumed that those who built these ships adapted the design from the traffic that regularly sailed up and down the Yangtze and the other broad Chinese rivers and canals, where big ships were constructed with flatter bottoms than one would expect to find at sea and with large numbers of masts. Detailed records of shipbuilding survive from this period, and the sheer scale of the industry is very impressive; even so, most vessels never ventured into saltwater.30 What was suitable for the relatively calm and shallow waters of a river would certainly not suit the open ocean, where a proper keel would be needed to guarantee stability, and where too many sails could make ships more difficult to manoeuvre in storms. A displacement of over 18,000, or even 24,000, tons would make these ships into the very largest ones constructed out of wood, setting aside one or two of the vanity vessels built for the Ptolemaic rulers of Hellenistic Egypt that probably never ventured out of the harbour at Alexandria.31

  All this sounds incredible, especially since there are no references to the loss of ships at sea during the expeditions, though that must have happened occasionally. The arguments in favour of smaller fleets with fewer people on board are compelling. At 200–250 feet in length, manned by about 200 crew, these ships enter the realms of plausibility.32 This scaling-down of the size of the ships and of the fleets and their crews should not suggest that the arrival of a grand imperial navy in Melaka or Calicut or Aden was anything less than an extraordinarily impressive event, as ship after ship came into sight offshore, unfamiliar in its rigging, with dragon pennants flying. Even if we reduce the size of the company to, say, 10,000 on each expedition, we still have that sizeable medieval town on the move, with all the logistical problems of supplying water and food and of maintaining discipline and health on board during voyages that reached as far as Africa and Arabia.

  III

  The first expedition took place in 1405–7, soon after Yong-le had gained power. The sixty-two Treasure Ships built in the Lonjiang shipyard in Nanjing and floated down the Yangtze River to reach the sea stood at the heart of the fleet; these were the ships on which the gifts to China’s vassals were to be loaded. From Champa, which was happy to recognize Yong-le’s authority as a defence against its neighbour and rival Annam, the first voyage headed towards Java, where the local kings had been a source of trouble to Hong-wu, but where a large community of Chinese merchants lived, servicing the island’s booming economy based on spices and other rare goods. The current king was ‘arrogant and disrespectful and wanted to harm Zheng He. He heard about this and went away.’33 For the moment Zheng He was content to parade his ships and awe the Javans, as his destination lay through the Strait of Malacca, past Melaka itself and around the Andaman islands (described by Marco Polo as a wild and dangerous place) and right across the Bay of Bengal to Ceylon, where he expected no favours from the local ruler, so he pressed on up the western coast of India to Calicut and Cochin. Calicut made a good impression on Zheng’s officers, to judge from positive comments by Ma Huan: ‘the people are very honest and trustworthy. Their appearance is smart, fine and distinguished.’ He called Calicut ‘the great country of the Western Ocean’, while Fei Xin noted that ‘it is also a principal port for all the foreigners of the Western Ocean’. Ma Huan also reported a garbled story about ‘Mou-xie who established a religious cult’ and the Golden Calf that he heard in Calicut, not realizing that this was the same person as the Musa, or Moses, revered by his fellow Muslims. And yet he also recognized that there were very many Muslims in Calicut; a past king of Calicut had said: ‘You do not eat the pig; I do not eat the ox.’34

  After spending winter 1406–7 in Calicut, Zheng He made his way back past Melaka, with an eye on the troubled situation in Sumatra, where a Chinese pirate named Chen Zu-yi had taken control of Palembang. The old capital of Śri Vijaya was no longer the great trading centre it had once been, a role that was passing even now to Melaka, but the town had recovered something of its lost importance at the end of the fourteenth century, as closer ties with China were created.35 The Ming ban on private trade seems to have caused no problems, for it was easy to ignore commands from Beijing in far-off Sumatra. However, the presence of a powerful Chinese pirate threatened this special relationship, and Zheng He was determined to assert Ming authority over the S
outh China Sea; as a result, the Chinese merchants in Palembang greeted the Ming fleet with delight. However, Zheng was unimpressed when Chen Zu-yi came to offer his submission. Suspecting that this was simply a ruse to gain time before Chen and his pirate fleet could slip away, Zheng He attacked the pirates, who had at least seventeen ships – no match for Zheng’s fleet. An official history of Yong-le’s reign claims that more than 5,000 pirates were killed, while Chen Zu-yi was carried back to Beijing and beheaded by imperial order; ‘after this the seas were restored to peace and order’.36 This was the one violent confrontation in what had otherwise been a peaceful mission, or rather a display of Chinese power so impressive that no one in his right mind would oppose the power of the Ming emperor. The Ming navy had taken advantage of the monsoons to time its journeys out and in, but even so on the final leg a great storm arose and the sailors were struck with fear. They prayed fervently to Tianfei and were rewarded with a miraculous light that settled on the top of the mainmast of one of the ships and that they knew was a sign of the goddess’s protection (St Elmo’s Fire, a common electric effect during storms at sea). To cite a later inscription on which Zheng He recorded his memories of earlier expeditions:

  We have traversed over a hundred thousand li of vast ocean and have beheld great ocean waves, rising as high as the sky and swelling and swelling endlessly. Whether in dense fog and drizzling rain or in wind-driven waves rising like mountains, no matter what the sudden changes in sea conditions, we spread our cloudlike sails aloft and sailed by the stars day and night. Had we not trusted her divine merit, how could we have done this in peace and safety? When we met with danger, once we invoked the divine name, her answer to our prayer was like an echo; suddenly there was a divine lamp which illuminated the mast and sails, and once this miraculous light appeared, then apprehension turned to calm.37

  Zheng He’s fleet arrived back in Nanjing in October 1407, accompanied by emissaries from around the South China Sea and from as far away as Calicut and Melaka, who presented their tribute to the imperial court and were rewarded with copper cash and paper money, though it is not clear what use paper money would have had in far-off kingdoms.38

  Aware that the gifts of money were not entirely what was expected, the emperor began to plan Zheng He’s second voyage, of 1407–9, whose declared function was to present letters of appointment to the king of Calicut, including a silver seal of office, and to present gifts of silk robes, caps and belts to the king and his chief advisers, who would be ranked in best Chinese fashion. Similarly, the rulers of territories en route to Calicut, such as Siam, Java and Melaka, were to be honoured with imperial letters.39 The expedition probably split up into squadrons that visited different ports and then regrouped. However, a particular show of force was needed in Java, whose king had resisted Chinese authority in the past and was wise enough to agree to a tribute payment and compensation for past offences.40

  The wish to discipline those who were reluctant to accept Ming overlordship was also apparent on the third voyage (1409–11), which this time did not avoid Ceylon. The king of Ceylon, Alagakkonara, was accused of insulting Zheng He and even of trying to assassinate him, luring Zheng inland and plotting to send his own ‘bandits’ to raid the Chinese fleet. Zheng’s way back to his ships was blocked by felled trees, though messages were sent to his fleet via unblocked roads. Zheng led his soldiers into battle across back roads and launched a surprise attack on the capital; he captured the king, who was carried back to China, although the emperor decided he was just an ignorant barbarian, and did not execute him. Instead, in a show of Ming authority, he nominated a replacement for him from the royal family of Ceylon, ‘in order to continue the sacrifices of the kingdom of Ceylon’.41 The Sinhalese version of these events is rather different, and reveals that the court in Ceylon was trying to save face: here, Chinese envoys arrived at the royal palace loaded with gifts; but this was just a ruse, and once inside the compound they seized the king and carried him off.42

  It has also been suggested that the real aim of the attack on Ceylon was to steal a tooth relic of the Buddha, one of the most important of all Buddhist relics on the island. In 1284 Khubilai had already despatched ships to Ceylon requiring this relic to be handed over; the king of Ceylon demurred. A later account of the voyages does claim the relic was carried back to China, and attributes the calm seas through which the fleet passed to its magical power.43 The story is surely a fable; but this would fit well with the idea that Yong-le’s political programme was moulded as much by Khubilai’s ambitions as by those of his father. The nearest one can reach to the argument that this expedition was a Buddhist project is the text of an inscription that Zheng He left at Galle on the coast of Ceylon. The inscription uttered praise to Buddha for watching over the fleet:

  Wherefore according to the Rites we bestow offerings in recompense, and do now reverently present before the Lord Buddha, the World-Honoured One, obligations of gold and silver, gold-embroidered jewelled banners of variegated silk, incense-burners and flower-vases, silks of many colours in lining and exterior, lamps and candles with other gifts in order to manifest the high honour of the Lord Buddha.44

  But that was only the section in Chinese; the text was repeated in Persian and in Tamil, and there it was Allah and a Hindu god who were invoked. Allah, Buddha and the Hindu god are all offered 1,000 pieces of gold, 5,000 pieces of silver, as well as silk, perfumes and temple ornaments. Taken as a whole, we witness here ‘a co-ordinated imperial offensive to persuade the heavens and their diverse deities to smile on Chinese maritime activities’.45 This eclecticism was typical of Chinese attitudes to religion.

  IV

  The three first expeditions had happened in rapid sequence. After Zheng He’s return in mid-1411 the emperor, distracted by plans for a land campaign against the Mongols, waited until December 1412 before he ordered Zheng He to set out once again, bearing gifts for sundry kings in the South China Sea and beyond. Among the places visited were Palembang and its replacement as the main trading centre near the Malacca Strait, Melaka, ruled by Parameśvara. A lengthy inscription left there by Zheng He included an eloquent poem:

  The vast south-western sea reaches unto the Middle Kingdom,

  Its waves cresting high as the heavens,

  Watering the earth, the same way for countless aeons …

  Its righteous king, paying his respects to imperial

  Suzerainty, wishes his country to be treated as one of

  Our imperial domains and to follow the Chinese way …46

  Melaka was developing into an important base for Zheng He’s activities, thanks to its strategic position and to the creation of the Chinese settlement there. Zheng He needed to find a place where the fleet could be serviced, and Melaka was as much a naval base as a centre of Chinese trade.47 The rise of Melaka thus owed a great deal to Chinese influence, and to the patronage of Zheng He just at the moment when Rajah Parameśvara was bringing the city into existence. Fei Xin saw Melaka when it was still ‘a single hill with few people on it’, located in an unproductive area, with simple houses; but once Zheng He had brought it under Chinese sovereignty and had raised it to the status of an imperial county things clearly improved.48 Still, it had its rivals, notably Semudera on the northern tip of Sumatra, ‘the most important port of assembly for the Western Ocean’. On his return from the Indian Ocean, Zheng He would display another rare show of force and send in his troops to suppress a rebellion against the king of Semudera, thereby showing what advantages could be gained from submission to the Chinese emperor.49 Yet India was not the intended destination. The Chinese fleet majestically sailed past the Maldive and Laccadive islands, but its target was a place the Chinese must have heard about at length when they visited Calicut, Hormuz at the gateway of the Persian Gulf.50 The voyage from Calicut to Hormuz took thirty-four days, which was rather slower than the norm (about twenty-five days), but this was surely due to the need to keep a fleet together and to the less flexible manoeuvrability of the very
largest ships, by comparison with Arab and Persian dhows.51 The mystery is what Zheng He can have wanted from a trading city so far from China. Perhaps, then, it would be wrong to rule out curiosity entirely, or even the traditional Ming contempt for trade, since the Chinese court was fascinated by exotic goods from the ‘Western Ocean’ and beyond. The interpreter Ma Huan was impressed with the place and took special interest in the jugglers, acrobats and street magicians, above all by acrobatic goats that could balance on a couple of tall poles and dance a jig up in the air.52

  One voyage generated another, as tribute was received, as ambassadors from foreign kingdoms were received at court, and as Zheng He was ordered to return to distant waters with letters of appointment and seals of office. He departed on his fifth voyage by way of Quanzhou in summer, 1417, leaving behind a tablet on which he recorded his offering of incense to the sea goddess; he took on board a massive cargo of porcelain, of which more shortly. He was now sent beyond Hormuz (‘Ho-ru-mo-ssu’) to a town on the southern shores of Arabia called Lasa, thought to have been a port in Yemen. In Luo Maodeng’s romanticized account of the voyages, Zheng He encountered greater resistance as he ventured into uncharted waters, and had to blast the walls of Lasa with his cannons, though there is no other evidence for that happening.53 But a much more important destination was the Rasulid kingdom of Yemen, whose capital, Aden, had for centuries been a control centre for traffic heading up to Egypt, down the coast of east Africa and across to western India, including Calicut. Its prosperity boomed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, partly thanks to the lively India trade of the Egyptian merchants of Cairo and Alexandria, but also thanks to its command of a surprisingly fertile interior. It has been seen already that this was an area where frankincense and myrrh were easy to obtain, and tribute paid in this form would please the Ming court enormously, in view of the difficulties and expense of obtaining these luxuries overland or by way of endless intermediaries along the ‘Silk Route of the Sea’. It is hardly surprising that its rulers were determined to protect their independence in the face of attempts by the Mamluk rulers of Egypt and Syria to extend their power right down the coasts of the Red Sea, and accepting Chinese claims to overlordship, and subsequently sending a series of missions to Beijing, did not seem a ridiculous idea, when Zheng He could come all that way with his grand fleet.54 Ma Huan thought that ‘the people are of an overbearing disposition’ and noted that the sultan had a large, well-drilled army. He was impressed by the wealth of Aden, visible for instance in large precious stones he called ‘cat’s eyes’, and in the fine filigree jewellery worn by women.55