Zheng He

person · earth · Indian Ocean, from Nanjing to East Africa

A Muslim eunuch admiral of the Ming court who commanded seven state fleets into the Indian Ocean between 1405 and 1433, reaching Southeast Asia, Ceylon, the Malabar coast, Hormuz, the Arabian peninsula and the East African ports around Malindi. The fleets were an order of magnitude larger than anything Europe sent for another century: contemporary Chinese sources describe dozens of large ships and crews numbering in the tens of thousands, and the voyages were diplomatic and tributary in purpose rather than commercial — they carried envoys, gifts and force, not merchants buying cargo. Then they stopped. After 1433 the Ming state ceased ocean-going expeditions, redirected resources to the northern land frontier and the Grand Canal, and later restricted private overseas shipping. Zheng He is in this Journey for a negative reason: the capability existed decades before the Portuguese reached the Cape and was abandoned by a deliberate decision, which is why "they had better ships" is not an explanation of what happened next.