Cheng Ho or Zheng He (Hanzi traditional: 郑 和, Hanzi simple: 郑 和, Hanyu Pinyin: Zheng He, Wade-Giles: Cheng Ho; original name: 马 三宝 Hanyu Pinyin: Ma Sanbao; Arabic name: Haji Mahmud Shams) (1371 - 1433), is a famous Chinese mariner and explorer who did some exploration between the years 1405 to 1433.
Biography
Zheng, born as Ma He[1] (馬和 / 马和), was the second son of a Muslim family which also had four daughters, from Kunyang, present day Jinning, just south of Kunming near the southwest corner of Lake Dian in Yunnan.[2][3][4]
He was the great great great grandson of Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, a Persian who served in the administration of the Mongolian Empire and was appointed governor of Yunnan during the early Yuan Dynasty.[5][6] Both his grandfather and great-grandfather carried the title of Hajji, which indicates they had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. His great-grandfather was named Bayan and may have been a member of a Mongol garrison in Yunnan.[2]
In 1381, the year his father was killed, following the defeat of the Northern Yuan, a Ming army was dispatched to Yunnan to put down the army of the Mongol Yuan loyalist Basalawarmi during the Ming conquest of Yunnan. Ma He, then only eleven years old, was captured by the Ming Muslim troops of Lan Yu and Fu Youde and made a eunuch. He was sent to the court of one the emperors son, Zhu Di the Prince of Yan, where he was called San Bao (三寶/三宝, or 三保[7]) meaning Three Jewels. The young eunuch eventually became a trusted adviser of the Prince of Yan, and assisted the prince in his insurrection against his nephew the Jianwen Emperor. For his valor in this war, the eunuch received the name Zheng He from his master. Once Zhu Di deposed Jianwen and became crowned as Yongle Emperor (r. 1403-1424), Zheng He continued serving in his court as a Eunuch Grand Director (太監, taijian).[2][4][8] It was during the Yongle era that Zheng He, with the rank of Chief Envoy (正使, zheng shi) carried his first of six overseas missions.
In 1425 Yongles successor the Hongxi Emperor appointed Zheng He to be Defender of Nanjing. In 1428 the Xuande Emperor ordered him to complete the construction of the magnificent Buddhist nine-storied Da Baoen Temple in Nanjing, and in 1430 appointed him to lead the seventh and final expedition to the "Western Ocean".[9] It is commonly believed that Zheng He died during the treasure fleets last voyage, on the returning trip after the fleet reached Hormuz in 1433.
Voyages
Order | Time | Regions along the way |
1st Voyage | 1405–1407 | Champa, Java, Palembang, Malacca, Aru (id:Aru),Samudera, Lambri, Ceylon, Kollam, Cochin, Calicut |
2nd Voyage | 1407–1409 | Champa, Java, Siam, Cochin, Ceylon |
3rd Voyage | 1409–1411 | Champa, Java, Malacca, Sumatra, Ceylon, Quilon, Cochin, Calicut, Siam, Lambri, Kayal, Coimbatore,Puttanpur |
4th Voyage | 1413–1415 | Champa, Java, Palembang, Malacca, Sumatra, Ceylon, Cochin, Calicut, Kayal, Pahang, Kelantan, Aru, Lambri, Hormuz, Maldives, Mogadishu, Barawa,Malindi, Aden, Muscat, Dhofar |
5th Voyage | 1416–1419 | Champa, Pahang, Java, Malacca, Samudera, Lambri, Ceylon, Sharwayn, Cochin, Calicut, Hormuz, Maldives, Mogadishu, Barawa, Malindi, Aden |
6th Voyage | 1421–1422 | Hormuz, East Africa, countries of the Arabian Peninsula |
7th Voyage | 1430–1433 | Champa, Java, Palembang, Malacca, Sumatra, Ceylon, Calicut, Fengtu ... (18 states in total) |
Expeditions
Between 1405 and 1433, the Ming government sponsored seven naval expeditions. The Yongle emperor designed them to establish a Chinese presence, impose imperial control over trade, impress foreign peoples in the Indian Ocean basin and extend the empires tributary system. It has also been claimed, on the basis of later texts, that the voyages also presented an opportunity to seek out Zhu Yunwen (the previous emperor whom the Yongle emperor had usurped and who was rumored to have fled into exile) – possibly the "largest scale manhunt on water in the history of China".
Zheng He was placed as the admiral in control of the huge fleet and armed forces that undertook these expeditions. Wang Jinghong was appointed his second in command. Zheng Hes first voyage, which departed July 11, 1405, from Suzhou consisted of a fleet of 317 ships (other sources say 200 ships) holding almost 28,000 crewmen (each ship housing up to 500 men).
Zheng Hes fleets visited Arabia, Brunei, the Horn of Africa, India, Southeast Asia and Thailand, dispensing and receiving goods along the way. Zheng He presented gifts of gold, silver, porcelain and silk; in return, China received such novelties as ostriches, zebras, camels, ivory and a giraffe from the Swahili.
While Zheng Hes fleet was unprecedented (compared to previous voyages from China to the east Indian Ocean), the routes were not. Zheng Hes fleet was following long-established, well-mapped routes. Sea-based trade links had existed between China and the Arabian peninsula since the Han Dynasty (there being trade with the Roman Empire at that time.) During the Three Kingdoms, the king of Wu sent a diplomatic mission along the coast of Asia, reaching as far as the Eastern Roman Empire. During the Song Dynasty, there was large scale maritime trade from China reaching as far as the Arabian peninsula and East Africa.
Zheng He generally sought to attain his goals through diplomacy, and his large army awed most would-be enemies into submission. But a contemporary reported that Zheng He "walked like a tiger" and did not shrink from violence when he considered it necessary to impress foreign peoples with Chinas military might. He ruthlessly suppressed pirates who had long plagued Chinese and southeast Asian waters. For example, he would defeat Chen Zuyi, one of the most feared and respected pirate captains, and return him back to China for execution. He also waged a land war against the Kingdom of Kotte in Ceylon, and he made displays of military force when local officials threatened his fleet in Arabia and East Africa. From his fourth voyage, he brought envoys from thirty states who traveled to China and paid their respects at the Ming court.
In 1424, the Yongle Emperor died. His successor, the Hongxi Emperor (reigned 1424–1425), decided to stop the voyages during his short reign. Zheng He made one more voyage during the reign of Hongxis son Xuande Emperor (reigned 1426–1435), but after that the voyages of the Chinese treasure ship fleets were ended. Xuande believed his fathers decision to halt the voyages meritorious, and thus "there would be no need to make a detailed description of his grandfather’s sending Zheng He to the Western Oceans. This, and the fact that the voyages "were contrary to the rules stipulated in the Huangming zuxun, Ancestral Injunctions of the August Ming, the royal founding documents laid down by the Hongwu Emperor, account for the Ming "neglect" of Zheng He in official accounts and the scant records of the voyages available for later historians.
Zheng He died during the treasure fleets last voyage. Although he has a tomb in China, it is empty: he was, like many great admirals, buried at sea.
Islam
Accounts contemporary to Zheng Hes era suggest he may have been a Muslim; these include the writings of the Muslim Ma Huan.
Indonesian religious leader and Islamic scholar Hamka (1908–1981) wrote in 1961: "The development of Islam in Indonesia and Malaya is intimately related to a Chinese Muslim, Admiral Zheng He. In Malacca he built granaries, warehouses and a stockade. Indonesian scholar Slamet Muljana writes: "Zheng He built Chinese Muslim communities first in Palembang, then in San Fa (West Kalimantan), subsequently he founded similar communities along the shores of Java, the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines. They preached Islam according to the Hanafi school of thought and in Chinese language."[citation needed]
Li Tong Cai, in his book Indonesia – Legends and Facts, writes: "in 1430, Zheng He had already successfully established the foundations of the Hui religion Islam. After his death in 1434, Hajji Yan Ying Yu became the force behind the Chinese Muslim community, and he delegated a few local Chinese as leaders, such as trader Sun Long from Semarang, Peng Rui He and Hajji Peng De Qin. Sun Long and Peng Rui He actively urged the Chinese community to Javanise. They encouraged the younger Chinese generation to assimilate with the Javanese society, to take on Javanese names and their way of life. Sun Longs adopted son Chen Wen, also known as Radin Pada (Raden Patah), is the son of King Majapahit and his Chinese wife.
Zheng Hoo (Zheng He) Mosque. A mosque named after the famous navigator in the Indonesian city of Surabaya
The Hanafi Islam that some from the fleet may have propagated lost almost all contact with its parent in China, and gradually was totally absorbed by the local Shafi’i school of thought. Long before 600 years had elapsed, the presence of ethnic Chinese Muslims had declined to almost nil.
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