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The Ming treasure voyages were maritime expeditions undertaken by Ming China's treasure fleet between 1405 and 1433. The Yongle Emperor ordered the construction of the fleet in 1403. The grand project resulted in seven far-reaching ocean voyages to the coastal territories and islands in and around the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. Admiral Zheng He was commissioned to command the fleet for the expeditions. Six of the voyages occurred during the Yongle Emperor's reign (r. 1402–24) and the seventh voyage occurred during the Xuande Emperor's reign (r. 1425–1435). The first three voyages reached up to Calicut on India's Malabar Coast, while the fourth voyage went as far as Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. In the last three voyages, the fleet traveled up to the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa. The Chinese expeditionary fleet was heavily militarized and carried great amounts of treasures, which served to project Chinese power and wealth to the known world. They brought back many foreign ambassadors whose kings and rulers were willing to declare themselves tributaries of China. During the course of the voyages, they destroyed Chen Zuyi's pirate fleet at Palembang, captured the Sinhalese Kotte kingdom of King Alakeshvara, and defeated the forces of the Semudera pretender Sekandar in northern Sumatra. The Chinese maritime exploits brought many countries into China's tributary system and sphere of influence through both military and political supremacy, thus incorporating the states into the greater Chinese world order under Ming suzerainty. Moreover, the Chinese restructured and established control over an expansive maritime network in which the region became integrated and its countries became interconnected on an economic and political level. The Ming treasure voyages were commanded and overseen by the eunuch establishment whose political influence was heavily dependent on imperial favor. Within Ming China's imperial state system, the civil officials were the primary political opponents of the eunuchs and the opposing faction against the expeditions. Near the end of the maritime voyages, the civil government gained the upper hand within the state bureaucracy, while the eunuchs gradually fell out of favor after the death of the Yongle Emperor and lost the authority to conduct these large-scale endeavors. The collapse of the expeditions was further brought about by authorities and elites who had economic interests antagonistic to the central state control of commerce, since the state-sponsored maritime enterprise had been key to counterbalancing localized private trade. Over the course of these maritime voyages, Ming China became the pre-eminent naval power by projecting its sea power further to the south and west. There is still much debate regarding issues such as the actual purpose of the voyages, the size of the ships, the magnitude of the fleet, the routes taken, the nautical charts employed, the countries visited, and the cargo carried. Background Creation of the fleet The Yongle Emperor of Ming China inherited a powerful navy from his predecessor, the Hongwu Emperor, and further developed it as an instrument for an expansive overseas policy. The Taizong Shilu contains 24 short entries for the imperial orders for shipbuilding, with figures pointing to at least 2,868 ships, from 1403 to 1419. Over the course of 1403, Fujian, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, and Huguang's provincial governments as well as Nanjing, Suzhou, and other cities' military garrisons were ordered to begin constructing ships. Under the reign of the Yongle Emperor, Ming China underwent militaristic expansionism with ventures such as the treasure voyages. In 1403, he issued an imperial order to start the immense construction project of the treasure fleet. The fleet was known as the Xiafan Guanjun (下番官軍; 'foreign expeditionary armada'), its original designation, in Chinese sources. It came to comprise many trading ships, warships, and support vessels. The Longjiang shipyard was the construction site for many of the fleet's ships, including all of the treasure ships. It was located on the Qinhuai River near Nanjing, where it flows into the Yangtze River. Many trees were cut along the Min River and upper reaches of the Yangtze River to supply the necessary resources for the fleet's construction. Existing ships were also converted to serve in the fleet for the voyages, but this can only be said with certainty for 249 ships ordered in 1407. The fleet's high-ranking officers, such as Admiral Zheng He, were from the eunuch establishment. Zheng served as the Grand Director in the Directorate of Palace Servants, a eunuch-dominated department, before his command of the expeditions. The emperor placed great trust in Zheng and appointed him to command the fleet. He even gave him blank scrolls stamped with his seal to issue imperial orders at sea. The other principal officers, such as Wang Jinghong, Hou Xian, Li Xing, Zhu Liang, Zhou Man, Hong Bao, Yang Zhen, Zhang Da, and Wu Zhong, were court eunuchs employed in the civil service. The rest of the crew was predominantly from the Ming military and mostly recruited from Fujian. Regions During the onset of their voyages, the Chinese treasure fleet embarked from the Longjiang shipyard and sailed down the Yangtze River to Liujiagang, where Zheng He organized his fleet and made sacrifices to the goddess Tianfei. Over the course of the following four to eight weeks, the fleet gradually proceeded to Taiping anchorage in Changle, where they waited for the favorable northeast winter monsoon before leaving the Fujian coast. The monsoon winds generally affected how the fleet sailed through the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. They reached the sea through the Wuhumen ('five tiger passage') of the Min River in Fujian. The port of Qui Nhon in Champa was always the first foreign destination that the fleet visited. The voyages sent the fleet to the Western Ocean (西洋), which was the maritime region encompassing today's South China Sea and Indian Ocean during the Ming dynasty. More specifically, contemporary sources including the Yingya Shenglan seem to indicate that the Eastern Ocean ended at Brunei and the Western Ocean was west of this place. During the first three voyages from 1405 to 1411, the fleet followed the same basic maritime route: from Fujian to the first call in Champa, across the South China Sea to Java and Sumatra, up the Strait of Malacca to northern Sumatra for assembly of the fleet, across the Indian Ocean to Ceylon, then along the Malabar Coast to Calicut. At the time, the fleet sailed no further than Calicut. During the fourth voyage, the route was extended to Hormuz. During the fifth, sixth, and seventh voyages, the fleet traveled further to destinations in the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa. For the sixth voyage, the fleet sailed up to Calicut, where several detached squadrons proceeded to further destinations at the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa. For the s.... Discover the Thomas Zheng popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Thomas Zheng books.