49 Fun Facts About Zheng He

Zheng He's treasure fleets are famous for crossing which ocean?

The Indian Ocean was the 'Western Ocean' to the Chinese, and his fleets crossed it decades before the first European ships rounded Africa to reach it.

How many treasure voyages did Zheng He command?

Seven: six sailed for one emperor, and after a halt of several years a successor sent the fleet out one last time.

Which hull feature had Chinese junks like Zheng He's used for centuries?

Watertight bulkheads split the hull into sealed compartments, so a single breach flooded one section instead of sinking the whole ship.

Which emperor, the builder of Beijing's Forbidden City, sent Zheng He's fleets to sea?

The Yongle Emperor had seized the throne in 1402, and historians think a show of power abroad helped shore up his shaky claim to it.

Which instrument let Zheng He's navigators hold a course when out of sight of land?

The magnetic compass, a Chinese invention, steered the fleet along with printed star charts; the sextant and the marine chronometer were still some three centuries away.

Zheng He was born in which southwestern province bordering Laos and Myanmar?

Yunnan is landlocked and mountainous, an unlikely cradle for the admiral of the largest fleet of its age.

Which Islamic title, borne by Zheng He's father and grandfather, shows both had made a great journey?

Hajji is earned by making the hajj, so the future admiral grew up among men who had already travelled as far west as his fleets would one day sail.

How did the boy who became Zheng He first come into the service of the Ming?

As a prisoner of war: Ming troops conquering his home province seized him at about ten and put him to work as an army orderly.

Which luxury goods filled Zheng He's treasure ships on the way out, as gifts for foreign rulers?

Silk and porcelain headed the cargo, with lacquerware and brocades, all chosen to show foreign courts the wealth of the empire that sent them.

Zheng He belonged to which group at the Ming court, often trusted with armies and embassies?

Eunuchs were his emperor's chosen agents, and Zheng He had proved himself as an officer in the revolt that won that emperor the throne.

Zheng He's master won the Ming throne by overthrowing which young relative?

Nephew: the young emperor had tried to strip his uncles of their regional power, and the prince answered with a three-year civil war.

Which spice did Zheng He's fleets load at Calicut, their main destination in India?

Pepper drew the fleets to Calicut: the port on India's southwest coast was a great centre of the spice trade, and the first three voyages ended there.

Zheng He's first voyage made its first foreign stop at Champa, a kingdom in which modern country?

Vietnam's coast was Champa, the fleet's gateway to the south; none of his expeditions ever turned north toward Korea or Japan.

Whose famous journey came before Zheng He first sailed in 1405?

Marco Polo's travels ended more than a century earlier, and he had already described Chinese ships with four masts and sixty cabins.

Columbus had three ships; Zheng He's first fleet had about how many?

About 300: most accounts count 317 vessels, 62 of them giant treasure ships, an armada sized so that foreign courts would grasp China's power at a glance.

Ma Huan, a Chinese Muslim, sailed on three of Zheng He's voyages in which role?

Interpreter Ma Huan, who had learned Arabic, wrote down the customs of the ports he saw and became the main chronicler of the voyages.

Which African animal, brought to the Ming court by Zheng He's fleet, was hailed as the mythical qilin?

A giraffe was greeted at court as a qilin, a unicorn-like beast linked with ages of peace and wise rule, so the court read it as praise for the emperor.

Whom did Zheng He defeat at Palembang and carry back to China for punishment?

A pirate chief, Chen Zuyi, had preyed on ships in the strait from his base on Sumatra until Zheng He broke his fleet in battle on the way home.

On which island did Zheng He seize a king and carry him to China?

Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon: after fighting broke out his troops seized the king, whom the emperor later freed and sent home.

What was Zheng He's fifth voyage mainly for?

Taking envoys home: rulers from many countries had sent ambassadors to the Ming court, and the emperor ordered the fleet to carry them back with letters and gifts for their kings.

What brought Zheng He's voyages to a sudden halt in 1424?

The emperor died, and his successor suspended the expeditions; the admiral was posted ashore, and only one more voyage ever sailed, years later.

With the voyages halted, Zheng He was made defender of which city, the old capital where his ships were built?

Nanjing had lost the court to Beijing but kept the shipyards, and the admiral, posted ashore to command its garrison, oversaw the rebuilding of its great temple with the famous porcelain pagoda.

What secret aim does Ming history hint at for Zheng He's first voyages?

To hunt the escaped Jianwen Emperor is the motive the official history hints at: his death in the 1402 palace fire was never proven, and a living rival could have rallied a revolt.

Foreign rulers who welcomed Zheng He's fleets were expected to send what to the Ming emperor in return?

Tribute was the point of the system: a ruler who sent gifts and envoys was recognised by China and won the right to trade with it.

Zheng He's fleets waited weeks in port before setting out, until which winds turned in their favour?

The monsoon set the timetable: the fleets left China on the winter winds blowing southwest and paused in foreign ports until the wind was right for the next leg.

Which Portuguese explorer reached India by sea in 1498, decades after Zheng He's last visit there?

Vasco da Gama reached Calicut with four small ships, almost a century after the first treasure fleet anchored at the same port.

What makes historians doubt Zheng He's ships reached 400 feet?

Hull strength is the problem: wooden hulls that long flex and leak in ocean swells, and the largest Victorian wooden warships only approached that size with iron bracing.

Which famous 1765 warship do the claimed treasure ships dwarf at nearly twice its length?

HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship, is about 69 metres long against more than 120 claimed for the treasure ships, a gap so wide that many scholars think the old figures were exaggerated.

Which part of a ship, 36 feet long when dug up at Zheng He's old shipyard, points to truly giant hulls?

A rudder post that long, scaled up by the proportions of a traditional junk, suggested a hull as long as the chronicles claim, though most other finds point to far smaller ships.

Which inland waterway let Ming China move grain north without a sea-going fleet?

The Grand Canal, renovated from 1411, carried southern grain to Beijing by barge, so demand for ocean-going ships collapsed.

The 2002 bestseller 1421 made which claim about Zheng He's fleets that historians reject?

They reached America, claimed former submarine officer Gavin Menzies, who put the landing decades before Columbus; the book sold a million copies, but historians dismissed it for lack of evidence.

Born Ma He, the admiral was given the surname Zheng by his emperor as a reward for what?

Bravery in a civil-war battle earned it: he beat back the ruling emperor's army at Zhenglunba, near Beijing, and the prince he served, once crowned, named him for the place.

Which goddess did Zheng He honour with the Tianfei Palace after his first voyage?

Mazu, titled Tianfei or Heavenly Consort, was the patron goddess of Chinese seafarers; his crews made offerings to her before sailing, and he set up stone tablets in her honour.

What is unusual about the three texts carved on the tablet Zheng He's fleet left at Galle?

Each honours a different faith: written in three languages, one text praises the Buddha, one a Hindu god and one Allah, and similar lavish gifts are listed for all three.

At which Southeast Asian port did Zheng He build a walled depot for his fleets?

Malacca got a fortified Chinese depot where the fleets stored goods and regrouped, and with Ming backing the young port grew into the great market of the strait.

In which country do worshippers honour Zheng He at the Sam Poo Kong temple in Semarang?

Indonesia is home to Sam Poo Kong, a temple on Java where the Muslim admiral is revered almost as a god by people of several religions.

China's Maritime Day, 11 July, marks which moment in Zheng He's life?

First sailing: China created the holiday in 2005, 600 years after the fleet set out, reviving an admiral who had long been nearly forgotten at home.

In a storm, Zheng He's crews saw a glow on their mast tips and read it as a sign of what?

Divine protection: the crews believed their goddess had calmed the storm, and Zheng He had the episode carved in stone before his last voyage; the glow was probably St. Elmo's fire.

Which science-fiction franchise gave the name Zheng He to a rescue fleet's flagship?

Star Trek: Picard ends its first season with Will Riker arriving aboard the USS Zheng He at the head of a rescue fleet.

Which court faction pushed hardest to end Zheng He's voyages, calling them a waste of money and grain?

Confucian scholar-officials saw the fleets as costly vanity run by their palace rivals, and one of them is said to have seized the voyage records in 1477 to block a revival.

Zheng He's family belonged to which of China's ethnic minorities?

Hui, China's mainly Muslim, Chinese-speaking minority, descend partly from Central Asian Muslims who came as traders and officials, married locally and settled for good.

Zheng He's lifelong nickname, Sanbao, is usually read as which Buddhist concept?

The Three Jewels (the Buddha, his teaching and the monastic order) is the usual reading of Sanbao, though it is also written with characters meaning three protections; temples across Southeast Asia carry the name.

Roughly how many crewmen sailed with Zheng He's first fleet in 1405?

28,000 rounds up the 27,800 men on record; the soldiers among them let the fleet defend itself and turned every port call into a show of Chinese might.

Zheng He's family claimed descent from Sayyid Ajjal, a provincial governor under which dynasty?

Yuan rule under the Mongols brought Central Asian Muslims such as Sayyid Ajjal into China as administrators, which is how his descendants came to live in the far southwest.

Zheng He's fleets brought back ostriches, zebras, camels and ivory from which part of Africa?

The Swahili Coast of East Africa, at ports such as Mogadishu and Malindi, was the farthest the fleets went, and its envoys sailed back with the animals to astonish the court.

Some ships in Zheng He's fleet carried no cargo, troops or horses at all; what were they filled with?

Fresh water filled dedicated tanker ships, which sailed beside horse transports, supply ships and patrol boats to keep a crew the size of a town alive between ports.

Pushing west beyond India, Zheng He's fleet reached which wealthy island trading port?

Hormuz, on the Persian Gulf, dealt in pearls and precious stones, and from there his ships went on down the Arabian coast to Aden.

A century after Zheng He's last voyage, what did a Ming imperial order demand be done with China's ocean-going ships?

Destroy them: the 1525 order condemned all the larger classes of ship, by which time the navy had already shrunk to a fraction of its former size.

Zheng He's fleets brought home a perfume ingredient the Chinese called 'dragon saliva'; what is it better known as?

Ambergris, a waxy lump from the gut of sperm whales, was dragon saliva to the Chinese, so a whale's cast-off became a prized perfume ingredient in the fleet's cargo.