Day of Empire_ How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--And Why They Fall - Amy Chua [98]
Zheng He was a Chinese Muslim whose father and grandfather had been to Mecca. Yongle probably appointed him admiral because of his familiarity with foreign customs, particularly in Islamic countries. Because the Tang dynasty had sent expeditions abroad centuries earlier, Zheng He navigated with surprisingly accurate maps—one was longer than twenty feet and included detailed sailing directions as well as the names of African coastal cities like Mombasa and Malindi (both in modern-day Kenya). The hulls of Zheng He's ships had separate watertight compartments, allowing repairs to be made while the ship was still sailing. These compartments also held fresh water and fish to feed the many travelers.15
Zheng He's treasure ships were the largest in the world, capable of carrying 2,500 tons, and exceeding European ships in size and staff by a factor of ten. Onboard Zheng He's ships were
868 civil officers, 26,800 soldiers, 93 commanders, two senior commanders, 140 “milleriorns” [captains of a thousand men], 403 centurions, a Senior Secretary of the Board of Revenue, a geomancer, a military instructor, two military judges, 180 medical officers and assistants, two orderlies, seven senior eunuch ambassadors, ten junior eunuchs and 53 eunuch chamberlains.
This was in addition to an unspecified number of translators, scribes, interpreters, navigators, mechanics, negotiators, sailors, and cooks. The number of doctors and herb specialists alone totaled 180—the size of Vasco da Gama's entire crew. Unlike Colum-bus's crew, which had dirty drinking water and ate flour baked with sea water, Zheng He's men had “an abundance of grain, fresh water, salt, soya sauce, tea, liquor, oil, candles, firewood and charcoal.”16
Finally, the treasure ships also carried…treasure. Zheng He's ships brought back to the emperor the most valuable and exotic goods foreign rulers had to offer. But unlike the Mongols before them or the Portuguese after them, Zheng He's men did not plunder. Instead, they presented local rulers with symbolic gifts—colored silk, umbrellas, books, or calendars—in exchange for such rarities as “dragon saliva” (ambergris), prize horses, parrots, peacocks, sandalwood, gold, silver, “cat's eyes of extraordinary size, rubies and other precious stones, large branches of coral, amber and attar of roses” as well as strange “auspicious beasts” such as “camel-birds” (ostriches), giraffes, rhinoceroses, “gold-spotted leopards,” zebras, and lions.17
Then in 1424 it ended, almost as abruptly as it had begun. Emperor Yongle died, and the Ming government suspended all further voyages. After reluctantly allowing Zheng He to make one final expedition in 1433, the imperial court banned the construction of all oceangoing vessels. The great treasure ships were put into “storage,” eventually to rot away. Zheng He's sailors were reassigned to the Grand Canal, as tax collectors. Finally, an imperial edict prohibited the existence of any ship with more than two masts, and, astoundingly, the official records of Zheng He's expeditions were destroyed.
Many factors contributed to this “triumph of introversion.” Officially, the Confucian mandarins who locked away the treasure ships asserted that the expeditions were too expensive, but historians generally agree that this was at least in part a pretext to wrest power away from their rivals, the palace eunuchs, who controlled the imperial navy. Like the first Ming emperor, the Confucian bureaucrats were also conservative, hostile to commerce, and resistant to any social change, including overseas expansion. Most important of