Zheng He's Treasure Voyages (1405–1433): Ming China at Sea

Zheng He’s treasure voyages were seven state-sponsored naval expeditions that sailed from Ming China across the Indian Ocean between 1405 and 1433. Led by the court eunuch Zheng He, fleets of large wooden “treasure ships” carrying tens of thousands of men visited Southeast Asia, India, the Persian Gulf, Arabia and the East African coast. They were the largest maritime undertakings in the world at the time, and their sudden end has fascinated historians ever since.

Background: a new emperor looks outward

The voyages were the project of the Yongle Emperor, Zhu Di, who seized the throne from his nephew in the Jingnan Campaign of 1399–1402. As a usurper he was keen to show the world, and his own subjects, that Heaven favoured his rule. Bringing foreign rulers into the Chinese tribute system, in which states sent envoys and gifts to acknowledge the emperor’s supremacy and received generous presents in return, was a traditional way to display that legitimacy.

His father, the Hongwu Emperor, had restricted private overseas trade under the Ming sea ban. The voyages did not lift that ban. Instead, they brought foreign contacts under direct state control: trade would flow through official missions rather than private merchants. Historians also suggest other motives, including a search for the deposed Jianwen Emperor, whose body was never identified and who was rumoured to have fled abroad, and a wish to secure the sea lanes against pirates. The search for Jianwen appears in the official Ming History but most scholars treat it as a minor factor at best.

Who was Zheng He?

Zheng He was born in 1371 in Kunyang, Yunnan, into a Muslim family named Ma; his birth name was Ma He. His father and grandfather had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. When Ming armies conquered Yunnan around 1381–1382, the boy was captured, castrated and sent to serve in the household of Zhu Di, then Prince of Yan, in the northern city of Beiping (later Beijing).

He became one of the prince’s trusted aides and fought for him during the civil war. After Zhu Di became emperor, he gave Ma He the new surname Zheng in 1404 and appointed him Grand Director of the Directorate of Palace Servants, one of the highest posts open to a eunuch. Contemporaries described him as tall and imposing. As a Muslim who also honoured Buddhist teachers and the sea goddess Tianfei (Mazu), he was well suited to dealing with the many religions of the Indian Ocean world.

The ships and the fleet

The fleets were built mainly at the Longjiang shipyards in Nanjing and in Fujian province. The largest vessels were called baochuan, or “treasure ships”. According to the official Ming History, the biggest measured 44 zhang by 18 zhang, figures often converted to roughly 120–137 metres long and 50 metres wide. Many modern historians and naval engineers consider these dimensions exaggerated, or doubt that such ships could have sailed, and propose lengths of about 60–75 metres instead. Even at the lower estimates, they dwarfed the ships of Columbus later in the century.

The first fleet is usually said to have included 62 large treasure ships and, in some accounts, more than 300 vessels in total, with supply ships, horse transports, water tankers and warships. Ming records put the crew of the first voyage at about 27,800 men. Besides sailors and soldiers there were diplomats, interpreters of Arabic and Persian, doctors, astrologers and craftsmen. The ships carried silk, porcelain, lacquerware and copper coins as gifts and trade goods.

The seven voyages

First voyage (1405–1407). The emperor ordered the expedition in July 1405. The fleet sailed via Champa (central Vietnam), Java and Sumatra to Sri Lanka and Calicut on the Malabar coast of India, the main goal of the early voyages. On the way home in 1407 it defeated the Chinese pirate leader Chen Zuyi at Palembang in Sumatra; he was taken to Nanjing and executed.

Second voyage (1407–1409). This expedition returned foreign envoys and took part in the investiture of a new ruler of Calicut. Whether Zheng He himself sailed on it is debated by historians.

Third voyage (1409–1411). The fleet again reached India. In Sri Lanka it clashed with the local ruler Alagakkonara; Ming troops captured him and took him to Nanjing, where he was later released. A trilingual stone inscription in Chinese, Tamil and Persian, dated 1409 and found at Galle in 1911, records the fleet’s offerings to the Buddha, to a Hindu deity and to Allah.

Fourth voyage (1413–1415). For the first time the main fleet sailed beyond India to Hormuz, the great trading port at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Detachments visited other ports. In Sumatra the Chinese captured a rival claimant to the throne of Semudera named Sekandar and took him to China. The Muslim interpreter Ma Huan, whose book is a key source, joined the expedition.

Fifth voyage (1417–1419). The fleet escorted home envoys from some 19 states and visited Hormuz, Aden and the East African ports of Mogadishu, Brava and Malindi. African animals, including the giraffes that caused a sensation at court, reached China around this time; see the tribute giraffe of 1414.

Sixth voyage (1421–1422). Another large escort mission returned envoys to their homelands, with squadrons again reaching Arabia and East Africa. Soon after, in 1424, the Yongle Emperor died, and his successor, the Hongxi Emperor, suspended the voyages. Zheng He was made commander of the garrison at Nanjing.

Seventh voyage (1431–1433). The Xuande Emperor, Yongle’s grandson, revived the expeditions once more. The fleet left Nanjing in January 1431 and reached Hormuz; a small party including Ma Huan travelled on to Mecca. Zheng He died in 1433, probably on the return voyage near Calicut. The fleet arrived back in Nanjing in July 1433.

Diplomacy, trade and force

The voyages were mainly diplomatic and commercial. Envoys from dozens of states travelled to China on the fleets, and several rulers came in person. The sultan of Brunei died during a visit to Nanjing in 1408 and was buried there. The rising port of Malacca gained Ming protection, which helped it resist pressure from Siam and grow into a leading trade centre.

The fleets were also heavily armed, and Zheng He used force three times: against Chen Zuyi at Palembang, against Alagakkonara in Sri Lanka, and against Sekandar in Sumatra. These episodes show that the expeditions could intervene in local politics to install or protect rulers friendly to the Ming. Historians still debate whether the voyages should be seen as peaceful exploration, armed diplomacy or an early form of maritime power projection.

Key people

• Zheng He (1371–c. 1433): eunuch admiral and chief envoy who led all or most of the seven voyages.
• Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424): ordered the first six voyages as part of an ambitious foreign policy.
• Xuande Emperor (r. 1425–1435): ordered the seventh and last voyage.
• Wang Jinghong: eunuch deputy commander on several voyages, who later led a smaller mission.
• Ma Huan (c. 1380–c. 1460): Muslim interpreter whose book Yingya Shenglan (“The Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores”) describes the lands visited.

By the numbers

The end of the voyages

After 1433 no further fleets were sent. The expeditions were enormously costly, and the state was also paying for campaigns against the Mongols, the move of the capital to Beijing and the rebuilding of the Grand Canal, which made the sea route for grain less important. Confucian officials at court regarded the voyages as an extravagance driven by eunuchs and argued that the exotic gifts brought back were of no use to the people.

A later story claims that in the 1470s the official Liu Daxia hid or destroyed the records of the voyages to stop the eunuch faction from reviving them. The story comes from later sources and its accuracy is uncertain. What is clear is that the navy declined over the following decades, and that Ming maritime policy turned towards coastal defence. Private trade continued, often illegally, and Chinese merchants remained active in Southeast Asia.

Legacy

Zheng He’s voyages came several decades before the Portuguese entered the Indian Ocean, and comparisons with Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India are often made. The Chinese fleets were bigger, but they were not followed by lasting colonies, fortified trading posts or a sustained state presence, which is why historians see them as a road not taken.

Today Zheng He is honoured across Asia. Temples and mosques named after him stand in Malaysia and Indonesia, where he is remembered among Chinese and Muslim communities alike, and China celebrates 11 July as Maritime Day in memory of the first voyage. Ma Huan’s account and the inscriptions set up by the fleet’s commanders at Liujiagang and Changle in 1431 remain the most important records of the voyages.

Myths and facts

Myth: Zheng He reached America in 1421. This idea, popularised by the British author Gavin Menzies, has no support in historical documents or archaeology and is rejected by professional historians.

Myth: China abandoned the sea and shut itself off completely. The end of the state fleets did not end Chinese seafaring. Merchants, fishermen and migrants continued to sail, and Chinese communities grew across Southeast Asia. What ended was large-scale official expeditions.

Fact: The size of the ships is genuinely uncertain. No hull of a treasure ship has been found. A rudder post about 11 metres long, discovered at the Nanjing shipyard site in 1957, suggests very large ships, but how large remains debated.

Timeline

• 1371: Ma He, later Zheng He, is born in Kunyang, Yunnan.
• 1404: the Yongle Emperor gives him the surname Zheng.
• 1405, July: the emperor orders the first voyage.
• 1407: the fleet defeats the pirate Chen Zuyi at Palembang and returns to China.
• 1411: the third voyage returns with the captured Sri Lankan ruler Alagakkonara.
• 1413–1415: the fourth voyage reaches Hormuz for the first time.
• 1417–1419: the fifth voyage reaches Aden and the East African coast.
• 1424: the Hongxi Emperor suspends the voyages.
• 1431, January: the seventh and final voyage leaves Nanjing.
• 1433, July: the fleet returns; Zheng He has died during the voyage.

Why it matters

The treasure voyages show the enormous resources and technical skill of early Ming China and its ability to project power far beyond its borders. Their abrupt end, just before Europeans arrived in Asian waters, remains a central puzzle in world history and a key example of how political choices, not technology alone, shape a state’s role at sea.