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December 21, 2009 – At Sea, 31º 02′S, 049º 58′W
by Herb McCormick
On Monday, just four days shy of Christmas and some three-hundred miles short of Punta del Este, Uruguay, their next port of call, the crew of Ocean Watch continued to make solid progress on the leg from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the nearby island of Ilha Grande. As mentioned in an earlier post, on this stretch of the journey, Ocean Watch is following a similar track to that sailed by Ferdinand Magellan and his small armada on an expedition in the 1500s that would lead to the first circumnavigation of the planet. (The Strait of Magellan, Ocean Watch’s next destination, is higlighted in the main photo above.)
We all know at least a bit about the exploits of Columbus and Magellan, taught to us at a tender age. Our knowledge of earlier seafarers who ranged far and wide, like the Vikings in the North Atlantic and the Polynesians in the South Pacific, is less refined, but certainly no less significant. Magellan reigned over a fleet of five boats and less than 300 men, which in retrospect, at least at first glance, seems like an incredible undertaking.
But maybe it wasn’t such a big deal after all.
That’s because you might find it remarkable, as I did just the other day, to learn that less than a hundred years earlier, in 1431, a fleet of 300 ships and 27,500 men set sail from China on an epic mission of trading and benevolence that made the voyages of Magellan and Columbus and even Captain James Cook – a personal hero – seem and look like mere child’s play. You might find it even more astounding, as I did, when you discover that a compassionate, 7-foot giant by the name of Cheng Ho led the vast, unparalleled adventure.
And no, I haven’t been into the eggnog.
In the spirit of giving, however, today we’ll share a tale that isn’t told in Western schoolrooms, but one that any lover of ships and the sea and maritime lore will find utterly and completely fascinating. It’s the story of a mountain of a man and a merchant Navy the likes of which had no precedent before or since.
It’s the story of the Treasure Fleet.
Here on Ocean Watch, one of our favorite pastimes is reading about historical voyages and expeditions, and the sailors and explorers who led them, particularly when we’re traversing the same territory that they did. So in the last fortnight, I’ve been entirely engrossed in Laurence Bergreen’s fabulous opus, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe. But it’s the back story that Bergreen spins, almost as an afterthought, about Cheng Ho and the Treasure Fleet that I can’t stop thinking about. I’ve gone back and read this passage several times now, and every time I do, I find it even more difficult to fathom. Cook was a genius, but Cheng Ho? He was The Man.
The son of a devout muslim, Ma Ho, as he was originally named, was captured as a young boy by the Chinese army and seemed destined for a life of servitude. Castrated at 13 – “a common practice in China,” writes Bergeen, “where eunuchs engaged in servant occupations” – he won an appointment in the court of the fourth son of the Chinese emperor, Prince Zhu Di. It turned out to be a fortuitous pairing for both ambitious young men.
In 1402 – ninety years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue! – Zhu Di became emperor and put in play his vision of building an international commercial empire; he chose his “loyal and capable servant,” to whom he’d conferred the name Cheng Ho, as the admirable of the fleet that would do his bidding. Burgreen picks up the narrative:
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| The sailing routes Magellan discovered (shown above) are still used by sailors today. |
“Cheng Ho oversaw the operation of huge shipyards in Nanking, the planting of thousands of trees to provide wood for the ships, and the establishment of a school to train interpreters in foreign languages. Cheng Ho hastened to complete a fleet consisting of fifteen hundred wooden ships (italics breathlessly mine), including the largest sail-powered vessels ever built (ditto). They were extraordinarily luxurious, with staterooms, gold fittings, bronze cannon (for display rather than combat), and silk furnishings. Their seaworthiness was greatly enhanced by bulkheads, watertight compartments whose design was inspired by the chambers of the bamboo stalk. It would be several centuries before Western ships incorporated the same technology.”
Okay, have I got your attention yet? Excellent. Let’s continue.
Some of the ships in the Treasure Fleet were up to 500-feet long. Some carried only food, some only horses, and some had a cargo of large tubs of soil to cultivate fruits and vegetables. None were invoked with a mission “to conquer or claim distant lands.” The Chinese, explains Bergreen, had no interest in establishing a colonial or military empire. “The goal,” he writes of the Chinese philosophy of exploration, “was to establish trade and diplomatic relations with the ‘barbarians’ beyond their borders and to conduct scientific research.”
With that objective, Cheng Ho went to sea.
The first important voyage was to India, but in the next couple of decades the Treasure Fleet would explore much of Africa, the Persian Gulf, Southeast Asia and India, mostly under the direct supervision of Cheng Ho, who became a national hero. However, in 1424, Zhu Di passed away and was succeeded by his son, Zhu Gaozhi, who canceled all future voyages of the fleet, closed the shipyards, and reassigned Cheng Ho to far lesser duties.
“Like other rulers during the Ming dynasty, Zhu Gaozhi was caught between followers of the Confucian traditions, who urged him to look inward and disdain traffic with foreigners, and the eunuchs who encouraged international trade and grew rich off the proceeds,” writes Bergreen.
That would’ve been that for the Treasure Fleet, he observes, had Zhu Gaozhi lived to a ripe old age. But he didn’t, dying soon after: “His twenty-six-year old son – Zhu Di’s grandson – (replaced him and) turned to the palace eunuchs, who quickly restored the Treasure Fleet to its former glory.” And so Cheng Ho returned to the ocean, and to glory, and in 1431 sailed as far as Australia, continuing the tradition he’d established earlier in the century. But it was his last adventure: Cheng Ho died on the voyage home.
So what happened to the Treasure Fleet?
“The emperor mothballed (it),” notes Bergreen, “shut down the Nanking shipyards, and destroyed records documenting its accomplishments. Chinese science and technology, especially regarding exploration, fell into decline. By 1500, an imperial edict made it a capital offense for a ship with more than two masts to put to sea; in 1525, officials set about destroying the larger ships of the Treasure Fleet. China abandoned the huge transoceanic trading empire created by the Treasure Fleet and, guided by Confucian precepts, turned inward, never to explore the ocean again.”
It had taken exactly one generation for China to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that it was the most accomplished (and powerful) nation in the world. Then it was over. The exploits and reputation of the Treasure Fleet “never made it to European shores (though European mariners would come across evidence of the vanished Chinese presence – silk, porcelain and other artifacts – wherever they traveled).
“Portuguese and Spanish explorers,” concludes Bergreen, “sailed into the vacuum of power left by China. Like the Chinese, they came in search of wealth, but quite unlike them, they battled fiercely for territory, for commercial and political advantage over one another, and for religious conquest.”
The latter killed Magellan…and many more just like him.
During this festive holiday week, at some point here on Ocean Watch we will raise a glass in honor of the gentle giant called Cheng Ho. Simply put, he traveled far and wide; he did so in the name of science and goodwill; he always wore a smile.
So, yes, here’s to the enormous spirit of the great Cheng Ho: he led a rich life we can all admire, and even hope to emulate in some small way.
- Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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