years far beyond China’s shores. Just the bare outline of these seven
voyages is impressive enough.^12 The first expedition of 1405–07 com-
prised 317 ships, 62 of them so-called ‘treasure ships’, great five-masted
ocean-going junks up to 120 metres (400 feet) in length and 50 metres
(160 feet) wide, with up to nine masts, four decks, and watertight bulk-
heads. They were thus several times larger than the largest Portuguese
caravelles that sailed into the Indian Ocean a century later, and repre-
sented the pinnacle of fifteenth-century maritime technology. At its
height, Yongle’s navy counted 250 of these vessels of seven different
kinds, the largest capable of carrying 500 men, along with over 3000
warships provisioned by 400 armed supply vessels.
The first fleet carried 27 870 men, including officers, soldiers,
seamen, interpreters, medical orderlies, various artisans skilled in boat
repair and maintenance, and numerous officials in charge of every-
thing from rationing stores and purchasing supplies, to valuing and
keeping meticulous accounts of the treasure, gifts and trade goods
exchanged. This expedition, like subsequent ones, was under the
overall command of the grand imperial eunuch, Admiral Zheng He, a
Muslim from Yunnan who had gained imperial favour for his military
prowess. The fleet visited at least ten countries, as far as Cochin and
Calicut on the Malibar coast of southern India, where it stayed for
about four months awaiting a change in the monsoon winds before the
return voyage.
The next two voyages took place in 1407–09 and 1409–11. Both
again went to Calicut, though the third also visited Sri Lanka. The
fourth voyage, from 1413 to 1415, went beyond India for the first time,
as far as Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. It comprised 63
ships carrying 28 560 men. The fifth expedition of 1417–19 sailed
even further, down the coast of Africa as far as Malindi, just north of
Mombasa. No record survives of the complement of ships and men on
this or the sixth expedition (1421–22), which reached Aden and the
Somali ports of Mogadishu and Brava. On all these voyages, elements
of the fleet were directed to other ports of call, including the Andaman
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia