China’s Ming Voyages: The Truth about the Maritime Expeditions Led by Zheng He – Teaching Guide

Vocabulary of Note

• Cape of Good Hope – the extreme southwest coast of Africa, now called “the Cape of Hope.” By sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, you are sailing between the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans.

Names of Note

• Zheng He (Jung he) – Chinese admiral of the Ming dynasty armada that sailed throughout the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Arab and the southern Atlantic Ocean from 1403–1433. During China’s Ming dynasty (1368–1644); Zheng He was a Muslim (member of the Hui nationality in China; he was castrated as a child allowing him to function as a eunuch in the Chinese court.) Zheng He was also a diplomat for the Chinese emperor.
• Eunuch – Chinese palace official who has been castrated; a male rendered unable to impregnate a woman and have biological children
• Ming Taizu – the founder and first emperor of the Ming dynasty
• Zhu Di (Jew Di)– Taizu’s eldest son by a consort (not his principal wife), who became the 3rd emperor of the Ming dynasty
• Yongle (Yoong le)– reign name of Zhu Di
• Empress Ma – principal wife of Taizu
• Consort Gong – Mongolian consort or Taizu; mother of Zhu Di
• Vasco da Gama – explorer from Portugal; the first European to reach “Asia” and India by sea, by sailing around the extreme southwest coast of Africa, now called “the Cape of Good Hope” – in 1498. This was at a time when Europe, governed by Christian rulers, was looking for a sea route to Asia and the spice trade, because the traditional overland trade routes were now monopolized by rival Muslim rulers at the western end of the Mediterranean Sea.

Outline of Presentation – with [Timecode] & Slide #

Introduction: Timeline #5

Outline of Presentation [01:36]

I. Basic Facts of the Cheng He Expeditions

• Maps #8, 10, 11
• List of Voyages #9
• Purpose #12
• Not “voyages of exploration”
• Pursuing routes that had been traveled by merchants for years
• Purpose was to advertise and extend Ming power
• List of purposes [05:40]
• The Ships #13–19
• Large, but some claims made are not possible
• Research is telling us what’s possible #20–25
  • Note recent excavations at boatyard in Nanjing

II. Why did the Expeditions End? [17:35]

• Voyages of Cheng He were 60 years before Vasco da Gama #26
• Rounded the Cape of Good Hope and the Portuguese (followed by others) “highjacked” the old trading networks
• World history would have been quite different without European hegemony and colonization in Asia and Africa
• This is a Eurocentric question: it assumes that China should have been compelled, as were European nations, to engage in continual expansion of territory; makes the assumption that “continual expansion is the normal path of world history, with goal to dominate as much of the world as possible [19:20], #27
• Retrospective question as well
• China could not have known what was to transpire in world history, with colonization of the Americas and European domination of Asia and Africa
• Chronological context: China could not see the future [21:14]
• Columbus sails in 1492 (Ming voyages end in 1733) #28
• European colonization that led to developments
  • Raw materials for industrialization
  • Slave labor
  • New markets

III. Why did the Expeditions Start? [23:00] #29

• Far more interesting question for a Ming historian
• Early Ming history important context
• “Ancestral injunctions” of Chinese court provide guidelines for succession
• Of rulers within a family
• Ming Taizu = founder of the Ming dynasty (which replaces the Mongol Yuan dynasty)
• Zhu Di is Ming Taizu’s eldest surviving son, at the time of Ming Taizu’s death, but he is not the son of his primary wife; he is the son of a Mongolian consort of the emperor.
• Zhu Di is the governor of the area around Beijing (the northern capital) in the north; he attacks the court at Nanjing (the southern capital) and usurps the throne from his nephew
• Senior Confucian bureaucrats reject him
• Zhu Di has to establish his legitimacy; if the elites in the Confucian bureaucracy reject him then he has to gain wider support;
• Declares his reign will be one of “perpetual happiness,” Yong le, calls himself the “Yongle Emperor”
• Launches a public relations blitz internally
• Refers to the “Mandate of Heaven” #29
• Claims his mother is Empress Ma, the primary wife of Taizu #46–55
• Mongol legacy also apparent [36:20]
• Becomes patron of learning and of Confucian classics [40:06]
• “Yongle Encyclopedia” is a compendium of all works written in China at the time in history, philosophy, arts, and science. (Most of it was destroyed by British soldiers ransacking the imperial palaces in China after the Second Opium War, 1862.) #56
• The Voyages can now be seen as part of Yongle’s effort to legitimize his reign
• Over 90 envoys from overseas countries are brought to Nanjing by the expeditions and then returned to their countries the following year
• All bring gifts; all are greatly impressed by China
• Help establish outside legitimacy for Yongle reign

IV. Why DID the Expeditions End?

• Knowing why they started makes it easier to understand why they ended [42:00]
• Not for exploration, because following long known and used routes
• Not to support private traders (Chinese government suspicious of “private trade,” all sea trade went through specified, government-controlled ports)
• Not for territory
• Only for international legitimacy
• Note: the political action taken by the Armada leaders on three of the voyages was, in all cases, to suppress rebellion and support “rightful” leaders #56
• Cost of voyages was tremendous – in human and ecological (trees), and cost of provisions for entourage on the boats and envoys brought to Nanjing [44:00]
• Yongle emperor also undertakes other massive projects
• Treasury cannot support all of these projects simultaneously

V. Conclusion [47:30]