Sophia’s Visions · Other lives · China and the Indian Ocean, 1405–1433 · B2–C1
Zheng He: the Fleet That Never Sailed Again
Sophia’s Visions: fourteen centuries from now, the greatest fleet the world has ever seen will sail from China to Arabia and Africa, seven times, and then the voyages will simply stop. Judging past decisions (they should have…, they needn’t have…, they didn’t need to…, they could have…), with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Tonight I saw ships, Marcos. Not ten, not a hundred: more than two hundred and fifty, some of them so long that a race could be run on their decks.
Whose ships? Rome has nothing like that. Nobody has anything like that.
The Seres, the silk people, at the other end of the world. And the man who led them was a Muslim, a prisoner of war, and a servant of the emperor.
And what did they do with the greatest fleet in the world?
In 1368 the Ming dynasty drove the Mongols out of China. Its armies later conquered Yunnan, in the far south-west, where many families were Muslims. In 1381, during that conquest, a boy of about ten called Ma He was captured. He was castrated, as many boy prisoners were, and sent to serve in the household of a prince, Zhu Di.
The boy grew up to be a soldier. When Zhu Di rebelled against his nephew, the emperor, and seized the throne in 1402, Ma He fought at his side. The new emperor, known as Yongle, gave him a new name: Zheng He. Yongle wanted the world to know about his reign, and his rulers to send tribute: gifts that recognised the emperor as their superior, answered with even richer gifts from China.
Or try our free games and lessons.