1. Zheng He was a Chinese admiral, explorer, diplomat, and bureaucrat during the early Ming dynasty.
44 Facts About Zheng He
1. 2.
Zheng He is often regarded as the greatest admiral in Chinese history.
3.
Between 1405 and 1433, Zheng He commanded seven treasure voyages across Asia under the commission of the Yongle Emperor and the succeeding Xuande Emperor.
4.
Zheng He was born Ma He to a Muslim family of Kunyang, Kunming, Yunnan, then under the rule of the Principality of Liang loyal to the Northern Yuan dynasty.
5.
Zheng He was a great-great-great-grandson of Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, who served in the administration of the Mongol Empire and was the governor of Yunnan during the early Yuan dynasty.
6.
Zheng He's grandfather carried the title hajji, and his father had the sinicized surname Ma and the title hajji, which suggests that they had made the pilgrimage to Mecca.
7.
In 1381, Ma Hajji, Zheng He's father, died in the fighting between the Ming armies and Mongol forces.
8.
Dreyer states that Zheng He's father died at 39 while resisting the Ming conquest, while Levathes states that Zheng He's father died at 37, but it is unclear if he was helping the Mongol Army or was just caught in the onslaught of battle.
9.
Zheng He was captured by the Ming armies in Yunnan in 1381.
10.
Zheng He was castrated between the ages of 10 and 14, and placed in the service of the Prince of Yan.
11.
Zheng He would be one of his commanders during that campaign.
12.
In 1424, Zheng He traveled to Palembang in Sumatra to confer an official seal and letter of appointment upon Shi Jisun, who was placed in the office of Pacification Commissioner.
13.
When Zheng He returned from Palembang, he found that the Yongle Emperor had died during his absence.
14.
Zheng He completed the construction of the temple in 1431.
15.
In 1431, Zheng He was bestowed with the title Sanbao Taijian, using his informal name Sanbao and the title of Grand Director.
16.
Zheng He was placed as the admiral in control of the huge fleet and armed forces that undertook the expeditions.
17.
Zheng He's fleets visited Brunei, Java, Siam, Southeast Asia, India, the Horn of Africa, and Arabia, dispensing and receiving goods along the way.
18.
Zheng He presented gifts of gold, silver, porcelain, and silk, and in return, China received such novelties as ostriches, zebras, camels, and ivory from the Swahili Coast.
19.
Zheng He's fleet followed long-established, well-mapped routes of trade between China and the Arabian Peninsula that had been used since at least the Han dynasty.
20.
Zheng He referred to the expatriate Chinese as "Tang" people.
21.
However, a contemporary reported that Zheng He "walked like a tiger" and did not shrink from violence when he considered it necessary to impress foreign peoples with China's military might.
22.
Zheng He ruthlessly suppressed pirates, who had long plagued Chinese and Southeast Asian waters.
23.
Zheng He waged a land war against the Kingdom of Kotte on Ceylon, and he made displays of military force when local officials threatened his fleet in Arabia and East Africa.
24.
Zheng He led seven expeditions to the "Western" or Indian Ocean.
25.
Zheng He brought back to China many trophies and envoys from more than thirty kingdoms, including King Vira Alakeshwara of Ceylon, who came to China as a captive to apologize to the Emperor for offenses against his mission.
26.
Zheng He's sailing charts, the Mao Kun map, were published in a book entitled the Wubei Zhi written in 1621 and published in 1628 but traced back to Zheng He's and earlier voyages.
27.
Niccolo de' Conti, a contemporary of Zheng He, was an eyewitness of ships in Southeast Asia, claiming to have seen five-masted junks weighing about 2,000 vegetes, that is Venetian butt.
28.
The main ships of Zheng He's fleet were instead six-masted 2000-liao ships.
29.
Traditional and popular accounts of Zheng He's voyages have described a great fleet of gigantic ships far larger than any other wooden ships in history.
30.
The Treasure Shipyard, where Zheng He's fleet is believed to have been built in the Ming Dynasty, once consisted of thirteen basins, most of which have now been covered by the construction of buildings in the 20th century.
31.
One theory is that Admiral Zheng He died in 1433, during or shortly after his seventh voyage.
32.
Zheng He came with 500 high-ranking young men and a few hundred handmaidens as her entourage.
33.
In 1961, the Indonesian Islamic leader and scholar Hamka credited Zheng He for playing an important role in the development of Islam in Indonesia.
34.
The Brunei Times credits Zheng He with building Chinese Muslim communities in Palembang and along the shores of Java, the Malay Peninsula, and the Philippines.
35.
Neglect of the imperial navy and Nanjing dockyards after Zheng He's voyages left the coast highly vulnerable to Japanese wokou during the 16th century.
36.
In contrast, Glahn asserts that "Zheng He reshaped Asia" because maritime history in the 15th century was essentially the Zheng He story and the effects of his voyages.
37.
On his travels, Zheng He built mosques and spread the worship of Mazu.
38.
Zheng He played an important part in developing relations between China and Islamic countries.
39.
Zheng He visited Muslim shrines of Islamic holy men in the Fujian.
40.
In modern times, interest in Zheng He has revived substantially.
41.
Zheng He is mentioned in part of the main storyline of the first-person shooter game Far Cry 3.
42.
In 2015, Emotion Media Factory dedicated a special multimedia show "Zheng He is coming" for amusement park Romon U-Park.
43.
Zheng He is the namesake of the ROCS Cheng Ho missile frigate in Taiwan.
44.
The People's Liberation Army Navy ship Zheng He is a Chinese training ship named for him.