Ming China's treasure fleet undertook maritime expeditions 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 of 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. 1402–1424) 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. Furthermore, local authorities and elites 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
On 17 July 1402, in Ming China, Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan, ascended the throne as the Yongle Emperor. He inherited a powerful navy from his father, 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.
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