Okay, I want to start today with a little pop
culture detour. Oh, I like where this is going.
If you're a sci -fi fan, and I mean specifically
a Star Trek fan, you probably remember in Picard,
there's this incredible, super advanced starship
called the USS Zheng He. Mmm, a beautiful ship.
And if you're a reader, maybe a Werner Venge,
you'll know a deepness in the sky in the interstellar
trading culture called the King Ho. Which is
such a fantastic reference, by the way. Vinge
uses it to, you know, imply this whole civilization
built on trade and connection, not just conquest.
It's about endurance. Exactly. But here is the
thing that always gets me. These futuristic spacefaring
namesakes. They track back to a real person.
A real person, yeah. A guy from the 15th century
who commanded a fleet that, and I'm not exaggerating,
makes the Spanish Armada look like a collection
of bathtub toys. It really does. I mean, the
comparison isn't even close. We are talking about
an era where European navies were terrified to
lose sight of the coastline. Right. Columbus
had three small ships. Three tiny ships. And
meanwhile, on the other side of the world. This
man was commanding what were, for all intents
and purposes, floating cities. So today's deep
dive is into the life and voyages of Admiral
Zheng He. And our mission really is to unpack
a few specific things. One, how does a captured
boy who went through some pretty horrific trauma,
we will get into that, end up becoming one of
the most powerful commanders in global history?
It's an incredible story of ascent. Two. Were
his ships really as big as the legends say? Because
I know there is some serious scientific beef
with the numbers. Oh, massive controversy. It's
basically a cage match between physics and history.
I love it when physics picks a fight. Yeah. And
three, this is the big one. Why did it all stop?
Why did China, with this unbelievable maritime
advantage, suddenly decide to just burn the logs,
dismantle the fleet, and lock the doors? That
is the tragedy at the heart of the story. It's
not just an adventure story with pirates and
giraffes. Though we are definitely getting to
the giraffe. Oh, we are. But this is a story
about a massive ideological clash. It's about
the internal politics of the Ming Dynasty that,
and this isn't an overstatement, literally reshaped
the modern world. How so? If they hadn't stopped,
you and I... We might be speaking a different
language right now. The entire course of history
would have changed. Okay, I am very ready for
the giraffes and the pirates. But let's start
at the beginning. Because Zhen Zheng, he wasn't
born Zheng He. Oh, not at all. And he certainly
wasn't born an admiral. Far from it. He was born
in 1371 with the name Ma He. And the location
here is really, really important. He was born
in Yunnan. Which is in the southwest of China.
Right. And at that time, Yunnan was still under
the control of the Mongols. It was one of the
last vestiges of the Yuan dynasty. Okay, so he's
born on the frontier, not in the heartland. Exactly.
And there's another layer to his identity that
people often miss or are just surprised by. His
religion. He was Muslim. Correct. He was born
into a Muslim family, the Hui people. The surname
Ma is actually a Chinese derivation of Muhammad.
I did not know that. Yeah. And get this. His
father and his grandfather both held the title
of haji. Which means they had made the pilgrimage
to Mecca. Exactly. So just try to imagine young
Mahi. He grows up in a household that is, by
its very nature, outwardly looking. He knows
the geography to the west. He's probably hearing
stories about the long... Yes. He's taken by
the Ming general Fu Yude. And there's this famous
story. It might be apocryphal, but it's telling.
The general supposedly asked the boar where the
Mongol pretender was hiding. And Mara, he defiantly
said he jumped in a lake. That is a wildly bold
move for a 10 -year -old prisoner of war. Yeah.
Go check the lake. It is. But that defiance didn't
save him from what came next, as was the custom
for young male prisoners who were to be put into
imperial service. Yeah. He was castrated. I want
to pause here for a second because we often hear
the word eunuch in history and just gloss over
it. We think of it as a title, a job. But for
a 10 -year -old boy, this is a life -altering,
brutal mutilation. It is horrific. It was an
incredibly high -risk procedure. Many, many boys
died from infection or just blood loss. And socially,
it severed his connection to his ancestors. In
that culture, carrying on the family line is
everything. So by being made a eunuch, he was
essentially unmoored from his own family tree.
He became the property of the state. So he survives
this. He's placed into service. Now, usually
this would mean a life of total obscurity, right?
Folding laundry in the servant quarters, maybe?
That would be the typical path. But Ma, he lands
in a very specific, very powerful household.
He was placed in the household of Zudai, the
prince of Yan. And this is the relationship that
changes everything. Because Zudai isn't just
any prince. No. Zudai is the fourth son of the
emperor, but he's the most capable one. He's
stationed up in Beiping, what we now call Beijing.
On the northern frontier. Right. And what are
they doing on the northern frontier? They are
constantly fighting hostile Mongol tribes. So
Ma, despite technically being a household servant,
essentially grows up as a soldier. So they're
forging a bond in the mud and the blood of the
border wars. Precisely. And Ma, he grew up to
be, well, an absolute unit. The historical descriptions
of him are just wild. I read this. They said
he was seven chi tall. What does that even translate
to? So depending on the conversion you use for
Ming measurements, that's anywhere from six and
a half to a full seven feet tall. Seven feet
tall. In the 14th century. Yeah. The sources
say his waist was five qi in circumference. He
had glaring eyes and a voice loud as a bell.
I think my favorite description was that he walked
like a tiger. Which just paints such a picture,
doesn't it? This wasn't some stereotypical quiet
palace administrator shuffling around in silk
robes. No. He was a warrior. And he gained the
prince's trust on the battlefield. In 1390, he
accompanied the prince on a campaign against
the Mongol commander Naga Chu and played a key
role in a massive victory. So he's proving his
loyalty and his skill. But then... The stakes
get way, way higher. The old emperor dies. Right.
And the throne passes to his nephew. And suddenly,
Zhu Di isn't a loyal prince anymore. He's a threat.
He's a rebel. This is the Jingnan campaign. Basically,
the nephew, the Jianwan emperor, starts purging
his powerful uncles. Zhu Di decides he's not
going to wait around to be executed, so he rebels.
And it's a brutal civil war. It is. And Ma Na,
he is right there in the thick of it. In 1399,
at the Battle of Zenglunba, he defends the city
reservoir against the imperial armies. He's defending
the water supply. The city's main water supply.
It's a crucial tactical position. If they lose
the water, the city falls. Ma. He holds the line.
It's a pivotal moment in the war. And they win.
Zudi marches into the capital, takes the throne
in 1402, and becomes the Yungle Emperor. He does.
And as a thank you, he gives Ma Yi a massive
promotion and really a new identity. Yes. In
1404, the new emperor confers the surname Zheng
upon him. Why Zheng? It was named after the location
of that battle at the reservoir, Zhenglumba.
It was an honorific. And he's promoted to Grand
Director or Taijin of the Directorate of Palace
Servants. So the captured castrated boy from
Yunnan is now one of the most powerful men in
the Forbidden City. Top of the food chain. And
almost immediately, the emperor decides he wants
to do something completely unprecedented. He
wants to build a fleet. Not just a navy. This
was different. No, this was a massive projection
of power. A statement to the world. Why? What
was the point? It was a mix of things. Ego, insecurity,
ambition. Remember, the Yongle Emperor was a
usurper. He had taken the throne by force from
his own nephew. He needed legitimacy. Desperately.
He wanted the whole world to acknowledge him
as the center of civilization. But there was
also a rumor. Go on. A rumor that the nephew
he overthrew, the Jianwen Emperor, hadn't actually
died in the palace fire, but had escaped overseas.
So the voyages were partly a manhunt. Possibly
the largest scale manhunt on water in human history.
That is incredible. Okay, let's get into the
treasure fleet itself, because the numbers here
are just st - They are genuinely hard to wrap
your head around. The first voyage launches in
1405. It consisted of 317 ships. 317. And nearly
28 ,000 crewmen. 28 ,000 people. That's not a
fleet. That's a floating metropolis. It really
was. And the composition of the crew tells you
everything about the mission. This wasn't just
about sailing from point A to point B. Of course
you had sailors. But they also had 180 medical
officers and pharmacologists on board. They had
geomancers to... Soldiers, obviously. And they
had so many translators for so many different
languages that they had to establish a foreign
language institute in Nanjing just to prep for
these voyages. Talk to me about the ships themselves,
because this is where the whole sci -fi comparison
feels real. They weren't all just standard boats.
No, it was a specialized naval task force. You
had the famous treasure ships or Baochuan. These
were the massive flagships, the command centers.
But then you also had equine ships. Ships just
for horses. Ships designed specifically. specifically
to carry horses, and tribute and repair materials
for the fleet. Wait, why horses? If you want
to project power, you need cavalry. But horses
are notoriously fragile at sea, so these ships
were designed with special stables below deck,
proper ventilation, and ramp systems for loading
and unloading. That's incredible foresight. Then
you had supply ships carrying staple foods, rice,
grain, you name it. And this is the really brilliant
part. They had dedicated water tankers. Ships
filled entirely with fresh water. Yes. Think
about the logistics of that. If you have 28 ,000
men on a long voyage, you cannot rely on catching
rain or finding a river every couple of days.
No way. The water tankers gave them a strategic
range that other navies simply didn't have. They
could stay at sea for weeks, even months, without
stopping for provisions. Okay, we have to stop
and address the elephant in the room, or maybe
the whale in the room. The size of the treasure
ships. Ah, yes. I've read that they were over
400 feet long. I've also read that that is physically
impossible for a wooden ship from that era. This
is the great size debate, and it gets very, very
heated among naval historians and engineers.
So what's the source for that number? The primary
source, a text called the Eunuch Sanbao Western
Records, claims the largest treasure ships had
nine masts and were 44 Zhang long. And a Zhang
is a Chinese unit of measurement. It is. Now,
if you use the standard conversion where one
Zhang is about 3 .2 meters, then these ships
were roughly 127 meters or 417 feet long. Okay,
I need us to just stop here and visualize this.
417 feet. For context, the Santa Maria, which
Columbus sailed decades later, was maybe 60 feet
long. On a good day? You could park five or six
Santa Marias on the deck of one of these treasure
ships and still have room for a game of badminton.
Pretty much, yeah. So why do modern engineers
say this is impossible? What's the problem? It
comes down to two words. Hogging and sagging.
Hogging and sagging. Sounds like what happens
to me after a big holiday dinner. What does it
mean for a ship? It's essentially the same principle.
Imagine a very long wooden plank floating on
waves. When a wave crest lifts the middle of
the ship, the ends drop down due to gravity.
That's hogging. When waves lift the ends of the
ship, the middle drops down into the trough.
That's sagging. So the ship is constantly flexing.
Massively flexing. And on a wooden ship that's
400 feet long, the flexing creates enough torque
to literally snap the keel or pop the planks
loose from their fastenings. So the ship just
tears itself apart by sitting in the water? Theoretically,
yes. That's why many Western engineers look at
that number and just say, Impossible. Physics
doesn't allow it. What about other big wooden
ships? Well, the biggest wooden ships the Europeans
ever built, like the HMS Victory or the later
American schooner Wyoming, they topped out around
300 to 330 feet. And the Wyoming famously leaked
like a sieve. It needed steam pumps running constantly
just to stay afloat. But the Chinese records
are so specific. They wrote down 44 Zhang. So...
Were the records just lying? Was it imperial
propaganda? My ship is bigger than your ship?
That's one theory, but there is a very strong
counter -argument. We have physical evidence.
What kind of evidence? In Nanjing, at the site
of the old treasure shipyard, archaeologists
found massive rudder posts. We're talking solid
teak timbers, about 11 meters long. An 11 -meter
rudder post. That's 36 feet of solid wood, just
for the searing column. Exactly. Now, naval engineering
rules of thumb suggest that if you have a rudder
post that big, you need a hull of roughly 400
feet to justify its size. You wouldn't put a
semi -truck steering wheel on a Mini Cooper.
So we have a physical part that fix a giant ship.
But what about the hogging and sagging? How do
you beat the physics? This is where the X factor
might come in. It's the construction method.
European ships were built with a strong central
keel and ribs like a skeleton. Right. Chinese
junks used watertight bulkheads. They were partitioned
internally like a stick of bamboo. The honeycomb
structure. Exactly. That cellular structure is
infinitely stronger and more rigid than the European
skeleton method. So the argument from the other
side is European. couldn't build a 400 -foot
ship with your tech, so you assume we couldn't
either. But our technology was fundamentally
different and better suited for it. And even
if we are skeptical and we say maybe the measurement
unit was smaller. Even if you go with the most
conservative estimate for the Zeng. Based on
some Ming cannon measurements, the ships still
come out to about 70 meters or 230 feet. Which
is still massive. It is still four times the
size of Columbus's flagship. So whether you believe
the 400 foot number or the 230 foot number, it
was a technological marvel that no one else on
Earth could match at the time. So how did they
navigate these massive fleets? They don't have
GPS. They're out in the middle of the Indian
Ocean. They had something called the Mao Kun
Map. It's this incredible navigational chart,
basically a long strip map, that shows sailing
routes with very specific compass bearings. A
compass. And not just any compass. They used
a 24 -point compass system, which is much more
precise than the 8 or 16 points used by Europeans
at the time. They also use star charts. The list
fuel navigation. Right. Measuring the altitude
of specific... Stars above the horizon to determine
their latitude? Very sophisticated stuff. And
there was a spiritual element to the navigation
too, wasn't there? Oh, a huge one. And this is
fascinating because, remember, Zheng himself
was Muslim. But the fleet as a whole relied heavily
on Tianfei, who is also known as Mazu, the goddess
of sailors. There are records in the Chang 'e
inscription, a stone tablet they erected, describing
divine lanterns appearing on the masts during
storms. Divine lanterns. What does that mean?
It sounds like St. Elmo's fire. That's exactly
what it was. An electrical plasma discharged
during a thunderstorm. But when the sailors saw
that eerie purple glow on the masts, they didn't
panic. No. They interpreted it as the goddess
Mazu appearing in person to protect the fleet.
It gave them the psychological confidence to
sail into the unknown, into the worst storms.
So we have this incredible fleet. Now let's talk
about the mission itself. Yeah. Where do they
actually go? We call them the admiral of the
Western Ocean. But for China, the Western Ocean
is the Indian Ocean. Correct. Over the course
of seven voyages spanning nearly three decades,
they visited what is now Vietnam, Thailand, Java,
Sumatra, all the way to India, the Persian Gulf,
and down the Swahili coast of East Africa, places
like Mogadishu and Malindi in modern -day Kenya.
And the purpose? You said it wasn't conquest?
Not in the way the British Empire later did it?
No, it wasn't colonization in the European sense.
They weren't setting up plantations or trying
to directly govern these places. It was all about
the tributary system. Explain that. The goal
was to establish a Chinese presence, control
the major trade routes and get foreign rulers
to formally acknowledge the Ming emperor as the
superior power, the son of heaven. So it's basically
bend the knee. Give us a symbolic gift, and in
return, we'll give you even better gifts and
grant you access to trade with us. Exactly. It
was soft power backed up by a very, very big
stick. They sent out gold, silver, porcelain,
and tons of silk, and they brought back exotic
goods. What kind of stuff? Ivory, spices, medicinal
herbs, precious woods, jewels, and famously,
animals. Ostriches, zebras, camels. And the giraffe.
We have to talk about the giraffe. It's the classic
story. The giraffe came from Malindi in East
Africa. When it arrived in Nanjing, it caused
an absolute sensation. But not just because it
was a weird -looking animal. The Chinese court
scholars identified it as a quillen. A quillen
is a mythical beast, right? It's like a Chinese
unicorn. Yes, a gentle, hooved creature associated
with sages and perfectly benevolent rulers. It's
a hugely auspicious omen. The legend says a quillen
appears only when a sage emperor acts with perfect
wisdom and morality. So when Zheng, he brings
back what is actually a giraffe, the courtiers
can turn to the emperor and say, Look, this proves
you have the mandate of heaven. Your virtue is
so great that even the mythical beasts of legend
are showing up to pay tribute to you. That is
fantastic PR. I'm such a good emperor. Nature
is literally inventing new animals just for me.
Precisely. It was a massive boost to the Yongle
emperor's legitimacy, which, as a usurper, he
desperately needed. But we shouldn't let the
giraffe distract us from the fact that these
voyages weren't always peaceful. You said Zheng
walked like a tiger. And he acted like one when
he had to. Right. I want to dispel this modern
myth that this is just a friendly cruise around
the ocean. There were battles. Significant battles.
For example, in Sumatra, there was an infamous
pirate captain named Chen Zui. He was the scourge
of the Strait of Malacca, commanding a huge fleet
of pirate junks. Okay. Zeng, he didn't just chase
him off. He baited him into a trap. How so? He
feigned weakness to draw the entire pirate fleet
in, then unleashed the superior firepower and
numbers of the treasure fleet. He annihilated
them. He killed 5 ,000 pirates, burned 10 of
their ships, captured seven more, and took Chen
Zui alive. And what did he do with them? He dragged
them all the way back to Nanjing for a very public
execution. Wow. That sends a message to every
other pirate in the ocean. It certainly does.
The message is the Ming emperor protects these
trade routes. Do not mess with them. But it gets
even crazier in Ceylon, modern day Sri Lanka.
This is a story that just blew my mind. He basically
launched a special ops mission against a king.
Essentially, yes. The local kingdom of Kote.
The king there, Vera ala Keshwara, was hostile
to the fleet and refused to pay tribute. He actually
tried to ambush Zheng, his shore party. Big mistake.
Huge. Zheng. He realized the king had sent all
his troops down to the coast to try and cut off
the Chinese retreat to their ships. So what does
he do? What? He takes 2 ,000 of his elite troops,
circles around through the jungle, and attacks
the capital city from behind. While the king's
entire army was down at the beach waiting for
him. Exactly. He stormed the palace, captured
the king, his queen, the whole royal family,
and the crown jewels. When the king's army realized
what had happened and rushed back, Zheng... He
fought his way back to the ships. with the hostages.
He kidnapped a king. He took him all the way
back to China to personally apologize to the
emperor. And interestingly, the emperor eventually
released him and sent him back, but only after
he installed a more compliant ruler in his place.
So this idea that it was purely a friendship
tour is a total myth. It was diplomacy, but it
was gunboat diplomacy or maybe treasure ship
diplomacy. There's also a really interesting
cultural footprint he left behind. You mentioned
he was Muslim, but he was serving a Confucian
court and he was on. He was incredibly syncretic.
And there's no better example of this than the
Gali trilingual inscription. What's that? It's
a stone tablet that was found in Sri Lanka. It
was erected by Zheng He back in 1409. It has
text inscribed in three different languages.
Which ones? Chinese, Tamil, and Persian. And
what does it say? The Chinese text praises Buddha.
The Tamil text praises Shiva, the Hindu deity,
and the Persian text praises Allah. All on the
same stone. All on the same stone. And all three
sections list offerings that the fleet made to
their respective deities. It's this masterclass
in diplomatic inclusivity. He's basically covering
all his bases, saying, we respect and honor whoever
runs this place spiritually. It's smart politics,
but it also reflects the reality of the Indian
Ocean at that time, which was a very multicultural,
multi -religious trade zone. It was. And Zing,
he himself played a major role in the spread
of Islam in Southeast Asia. like Java and the
Malay Peninsula, he's not just remembered as
an admiral. He's a key figure in their religious
history. He established Chinese Muslim communities
in Palembang and other port cities. And even
though he never personally made the Hajj to Mecca
on his last voyage, he sent some of his sailors
to go and complete the pilgrimage, fulfilling
that duty for the fleet. So we have seven massive
voyages, decades of maritime dominance. The Indian
Ocean is effectively a Chinese lake. And then...
It just stops. It just stops. The ships are left
to rot. The records are burned. What happened?
This is the why that everyone asks. This is one
of the great what -ifs of all of human history.
And the answer isn't simple. It wasn't just a
matter of they ran out of money. It was a full
-blown ideological war at the heart of the imperial
court. A war between who? Between the eunuchs
and the scholars. In the blue corner, you have
the UNIC faction, led by figures like Zheng He.
They are military -minded, they're expansionists,
they're merchants at heart, and they want to
spend money to project Chinese power across the
world. They're the interventionists. And in the
red corner, the Confucian scholar bureaucrats.
These are the guys who got their positions by
passing the incredibly rigorous civil service
exams. They are deeply, deeply conservative.
And their philosophy is what? Their philosophy
is, China is the middle kingdom. We are the center
of the world. everything we need right here.
Agriculture is the root of a stable society.
Trade is for parasites and merchants are untrustworthy.
So they looked at these glorious ships and they
didn't see exploration or glory. They just saw
waste. They saw a colossal waste of money and
resources. They saw luxury goods, gems, spices,
weird animals that did nothing to help the average
farmer in the Yangtze Delta. And more importantly,
they saw their rivals, the eunuchs, getting rich
and powerful from these voyages. Stopping the
fleet was a way to break the power of the eunuch
faction. The turning point really begins with
the death of his patron, the Yongle Emperor,
in 1424. Yes. When Yongle died, the political
winds shifted instantly. His son, the new Hongxi
emperor was very much aligned with the scholars.
On the very day of his accession, he ordered
the voyages to stop. Just like that? Just like
that. Zheng, he was grounded. He was made the
military defender of Nanjing. A prestigious job,
but he was stuck on land. But there was one last
hurrah, right? The seventh voyage? Yes. The Hongxi
emperor died very young, after less than a year.
His son, the Xuande emperor, took the throne.
He was a bit more open -minded, and in 1430 he
authorized one final grand voyage. And this was
a voyage where Zheng, he likely died. It was.
We don't know for sure how he died. He was in
his early 60s by then. The common belief is that
he died of illness on the return journey, perhaps
off the coast of India. And he was buried at
sea. Buried at sea, which seems fitting. The
tomb that exists for him in Nanjing is empty.
It's a cenotaph. It's a cenotaph, yes. It contains
his clothes and his headgear, but no body. The
admiral of the Western Ocean belongs to the ocean.
After he dies, the erasure begins. It wasn't
just that they stopped sending ships out. They
actively tried to delete the memory of what they
had accomplished. This is the part that is just
painful for any historian. Years later, there
was a proposal to restart the voyages. The vice
minister of war at the time, a man named Liu
Daxia, was asked to produce the logs of Zheng.
He's voyages so they could plan the route. And
Ludaxia reported that the logs were lost. Lost
in air quotes. Very big air quotes. It is widely
believed that he either hid or personally burned
them. He famously said that the voyages were
deceitful exaggerations of bizarre things and
that they wasted myriads of money and grain.
He believed he was doing the country a favor.
By destroying the records so no future emperor
would be tempted to repeat the mistake. Exactly.
That is just, it's a crime against history. It
is tragic. But to be fair to the scholar faction,
they weren't just being grumpy and insular. They
had a very legitimate and growing security concern.
The Mongols were regrouping on the northern frontier.
The primary threat to the Ming dynasty wasn't
from the sea. It was from the steppe. In 1449,
the Tumu crisis happened. The reigning emperor
was actually captured in battle by the Mongols.
A massive humiliation. A world -shaking humiliation.
The court decided they could not afford a massive
navy and a massive land defense. They had to
choose. Boats versus walls. And the wall won.
They poured all their money and resources into
reinforcing the Great Wall. The navy was defunded.
Eventually, it became a capital offense to build
a ship with more than two masts. This is the
policy known as Heijin, the sea ban. China turned
inward. And this happened almost at the exact
same moment that the Portuguese and Spanish were
starting to push outward. It's an incredible
historical pivot. It is. Just as China locks
its door to the sea, Europe kicks theirs wide
open. So let's talk about his legacy. For a long
time, Zheng, he was sort of forgotten in official
Chinese history, wasn't he? He was a footnote
for centuries. The Confucian historians who wrote
the official records didn't want to glorify a
eunuch admiral who represented everything they
opposed. But he lived on in folklore. He did,
especially in Southeast Asia where his fleets
had visited. The Sampho temples? Yes. In Indonesia,
Malaysia, Thailand, he is venerated as a folk
deity. There are temples dedicated to Sampho,
which was his nickname, Sanbao. He's seen as
a protector spirit. a bringer of prosperity.
And there's that story of the Peranakan people.
The legend says that a Chinese princess, Hang
Li Po, was sent to marry the Sultan of Malacca,
and she was accompanied by 500 youths from Zheng
He's fleet. They settled down, intermarried with
the local Malays, and created the unique Peranakan
or Straits Chinese culture. It's a lineage that
traces its origin story directly back to these
voyages. But in modern China, his reputation
has made a huge comeback. A massive comeback.
Since the early 20th century, and especially
in the last few decades, he has been completely
rehabilitated. He's now a national hero, a symbol
of Chinese innovation, maritime strength, and
what's often termed a peaceful rise. Right. The
narrative now is that he came to trade and make
friends, not to conquer, unlike the Europeans
who came later. Although, as we discussed with
the King of Sri Lanka and the pirates of Sumatra,
peaceful might be doing some heavy lifting in
that sentence. A fair point. Yeah. It was hegemony.
It was a different kind of hegemony than what
the Portuguese brought, which was much more brutal,
but it was hegemony nonetheless. The historian
Jack Goldstone has an interesting take on why
it all stopped. He argues it wasn't just about
culture or ideology. Right. Goldstone argues
it was at its heart a rational budget decision.
It wasn't that China failed or lacked curiosity.
They simply looked at the balance sheet. And
the voyages cost an absolute fortune. The tribute
and trade goods they brought back, while exotic
and prestigious, weren't generating enough raw
profit to cover the overhead of a 28 ,000 -man
expedition. So if you have a limited budget and
a guy with a sword is standing at your back door...
You build a wall, not a boat. You build a wall.
It makes perfect economic sense, even if it's
historically tragic. It still hurts to think
about what was lost. That momentum. The loss
of momentum is exactly it. So let's summarize
what we've unpacked here. You have Zheng. He
is a figure who bridged so many worlds. Born
a Muslim, served a Confucian court, worshipped
a Taoist sea goddess. A castrated servant who
rose to become one of the most powerful admirals
in history. A diplomat who wasn't afraid to wipe
out an entire pirate fleet when necessary. And
he commanded a technological achievement, the
treasure fleet, that was centuries ahead of its
time. Whether those ships were 400 feet long
or only 230 feet long, they were engineering
marvels. Absolutely. But the very system that
created him, that top -down centralized imperial
power, was also the system that destroyed his
legacy. How so? Because one emperor could say,
go, and the next could say, stop. The entire
enterprise evaporated overnight because it relied
entirely on political will, not on a groundswell
of organic commercial demand like in Europe.
It highlights the fragility of state -sponsored
exploration. It can be turned off like a light
switch. Precisely. Okay, here's the final thought
I want to leave you with today. We often think
of the Age of Discovery as a purely European
phenomenon. Columbus, Magellan, Vasco da Gama.
But decades before any of them, Jang, he had
the technology, the resources, and the manpower
to go literally anywhere on the planet he wanted.
He could have rounded the Cape of Good Hope.
The ships were capable. The navigational charts
were there. He could have theoretically even
crossed the Atlantic. But they turned back. They
looked out at the vast horizon and said, no,
we have everything we need right here. So here's
the thought. Imagine a world where the Ming court
makes a different calculation. Okay. Imagine
they decide the giraffes and the trade routes
are worth the cost. Imagine if, in 1492, when
Christopher Columbus lands in the Caribbean,
he looks out at the horizon, and instead of seeing
empty ocean, he sees the red silk sails of a
nine -masted Chinese treasure ship waiting for
him. Wow. How different would our world be today?
That is a staggering thought. The map of the
world, the dominant languages, the religions,
the flow of power, everything would be flipped
on its head. We might very well be having this
conversation in Mandarin. It's the ultimate historical
what if. Thanks for diving deep with us today.
It's always a pleasure. Keep looking at the horizon.
We'll see you on the next deep dive.