(^44) Chapter Two
ten days—far faster than cargo could travel through the Grand Canal.
But local rebellion and disorders in the south soon began to interfere
with massive long-distance shipment of grain and other commodities,
and piracy at sea became a problem as well. Hence even before the
final collapse of the Mongol rule in China (1368), shipments by sea
had diminished to trivial proportions. Indeed, the entire tax system
that concentrated extra grain in the north for use of the government
broke down. Local warlords arose, one of whom succeeded in ousting
his rivals and reuniting all of China under a new native dynasty, the
Ming (1368–1644).
To begin with, the new dynasty combined the military policy of the
southern Sung with that of the northern Sung. That is to say, the first
Ming emperors set out to maintain a vast infantry army to guard the
frontier against the nomads as well as a formidable navy to police
internal waterways and the high seas. In 1420, the Ming navy com
prised no fewer than 3,800 ships, of which 1,350 were combat vessels,
including 400 especially large floating fortresses, and 250 “treasure”
ships designed for long-distance cruising.^43
The famous admiral Cheng Ho commanded the “treasure” ships in
his cruises to the Indian Ocean (1405–33). His largest vessels prob
ably displaced about 1,500 tons compared to the 300 tons of Vasco da
Gama’s flagship that reached the Indian Ocean from Portugal at the
end of that same century. Everything about these expeditions eclipsed
the scale of later Portuguese endeavors. More ships, more guns, more
manpower, more cargo capacity, were combined with seamanship and
seaworthiness equivalent to anything Europeans of Columbus’ and
Magellan’s day had at their command. Everywhere he went—from
Borneo and Malaysia to Ceylon and beyond to the shores of the Red
Sea and the coast of Africa—Cheng Ho asserted Chinese suzereignty
and sealed the relationship with tribute/trade exchanges. In the rare
cases when his powerful armada met resistance, he used force, seizing
a recalcitrant ruler from Ceylon, for example, in 1411, and carrying
him back for disciplining at the Chinese imperial court.^44
Supplementing such official exchanges, privately managed overseas
trade burgeoned in China from about the thirteenth century. Mer
- Needham, Science and Civilization iyi China 4, pt. 3:484.
- It is possible that Cheng Ho’s first voyage was undertaken to secure China’s sea
approaches at a time of an anticipated overland attack by Tamurlane, who died in 1405
while preparing a massive assault on China. For this suggestion see Lo Jung-pang,
“Policy Formulation and Decision Making on Issues Reflecting Peace and War,” in
Charles O. Hucker, ed., Chinese Government in Ming Times: Seven Studies (New York,
1969), p. 54.