period under the Mongols, the maritime route boomed for the better part of
five centuries. Innovations in Chinese shipbuilding and maritime technology
allowed for the construction of larger, faster ships culminating in huge,
ocean-going junks equipped with new devices like magnetic compasses and
safety improvements like watertight compartments. The volume of traffic
increased many fold, led by mass-consumption bulk goods, including rice
and other foodstuffs, cotton textiles, and timber. The price of spices, at least
for the peoples of the Indian Ocean, dropped to a level where pepper became
a common staple. Chinese porcelain, a heavy but at the same time delicate
item for camel and donkey transport, became a standard commodity aboard
Indian Ocean ships. India prospered, and the trade up the Red Sea to the
Mediterraneanflourished. Small commercial states thrived on the ocean rim
from East Africa to Southeast Asia in a system of competitive free trade.
The big engine for this boom was China, which during the Song, Yuan
(Mongol), and early Ming dynasties (960–1433) experienced its greatest
expansion in maritime trade for the entire premodern period. The Song and
Yuan encouraged trade as a source of revenue, leaving it largely in private
hands while carefully watching and regulating as well as heavily taxing it.
The founder of the Ming dynasty, however, was so suspicious of private for-
eign trade that he forbade it. He and his immediate successors did favor a
revival of the ancient tribute system, channeling all foreign trade through
the government. In this vein the third Ming emperor inaugurated a series of
seven grand expeditions between 1405 and 1433. Under admiral Zheng He,
fleets of up to 60 ships carrying as many as 28,000 men were sent south and
west, some reaching the coast of East Africa and the Persian Gulf. The lar-
gest of these so-called“treasure ships”was up to 400 feet long (Columbus’
Santa Maria was 85 feet) and contained nine masts. The goal of the treasure
fleets was to seek symbolic submission and official acknowledgment of
China’s suzerainty from the various maritime states of Southeast Asia and the
Indian Ocean. In the process vast quantities of goods were exchanged, but
the objective was not to make a profit, which, given the huge expenses
involved, these missions most certainly did not. No trading posts, forts, or
long-term exchange networks were established: the treasure ships came and
went as phantoms in the night, leaving nothing tangible behind.
After 1433 the voyages stopped. Political infighting within the Chinese
court ultimately led to the rise of a faction of Confucianists who were set
against overseas trade in part because their defeated rivals, a faction of court
eunuchs, were very much in favor of it since some of them had made vast
fortunes in often very shady dealings. Among the Confucianists, anti-foreign
and anti-commercial strains blended. They saw the treasurefleets as a waste-
ful expense of funds better spent on defending China’s northern border, and
they dismissed the idea that trade could be profitable and beneficial for both
state and society. Shipyards were closed, and over time the knowledge of
how to build such magnificent vessels faded. An edict of 1525 ordered all
140 Epilogue