Zheng He (1371-1433), the great Ming navigator

China is celebrating the 600th anniversary of its greatest adventurer, the "Three-Jewel Eunuch Admiral," and hailing him as the inspiration for its current success.

Almost a century before Columbus, at a time when China was the richest and most advanced country in the world, Zheng He [Cheng Ho] sailed further than anyone before him, at the head of an armada bigger than the combined fleets of all Europe.

His giant "treasure ships," packed with the finest goods and most sophisticated weaponry of the time, went to 37 countries over 28 years, exacting tribute for the Dragon Throne and extending China's influence across much of the globe.

But around the time of his death, a new Chinese ruler, suspicious of the outside world, banned all further expeditions, ushering in 500 years of isolation and leaving the way open for countries such as Spain and Portugal, and later Britain and America, to rule the waves instead.

While he remains little-known to most people even in his own country, Zheng He is now being turned into a communist hero and held up as the pioneer of the open-door policies that have brought China once again to the brink of being a world power.

Castrated

Chinese Columbus Ming Dynasty Admiral Zheng He (1371-1433) made seven voyages throughout the Indian Ocean and Indonesia carrying gifts to more than 30 governments. The fourth voyage, 1413-1415 is recorded as comprising 63 large vessels, numerous smaller ships, and almost 28,000 men. The treasure ship above had a recorded length of 440 feet.

Zheng He was born in the poor, mountainous Chinese province of Yunnan in 1372, just as Genghis Khan's Mongols were being overthrown by a new, home-grown dynasty, the Ming.

His family were Muslims from Central Asia who had fought for the Mongols. When Ming armies came looking for rebels, they captured the 10-year-old boy and, as was the custom with young male prisoners, castrated him.

"He was ashamed of being a eunuch," said Professor Liu Ying Sheng of Nanjing University, adding there was little information about this aspect of Zheng He's life.

"All we know is that he was sent to serve the emperor's son at his military base in Beijing... And when this prince later attacked the capital, Nanjing, and took over power as the Yungle Emperor, Zheng He so distinguished himself in battle that he ended up as one of his closest aides."

The new emperor was keen to prove his legitimacy and show off his empire's wealth and power. He also wanted to develop trade - something previously despised.

Early 17th century Chinese woodblock print, thought to represent Zheng He's ships

The chief court eunuch was promoted to admiral and told to produce a fleet to sail to the Western Seas.

Ming dynasty records show that each treasure ship was 400 feet (122 metres) long and 160 feet (50 metres) wide. Bigger, in other words, than a football pitch.

Some say no ship that size could be seaworthy. We do know that they were larger than any ships before them, and many times the size of those sailed later by Columbus.

They were better equipped too, with magnetised compasses and watertight bulkhead compartments of a kind the West would have to wait hundreds of years for. They even had their own on-board vegetable patches.

In 1405, Zheng He set out with a fleet containing more warships than the Spanish Armada, on the first of seven epic voyages.

On board the 317 ships, with red sails and silk pennants at every mast, were 28,000 men with orders to proceed to the ends of the Earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas.

In his bestselling book 1421, former British naval officer Gavin Menzies claimed Zheng He's ships ended up reaching America and circumnavigating the world.

While some specialists agree that the Chinese got to Australia 300 years before Captain Cook, most believe many of Mr Menzies' claims remain unproven.

Impressive reach

The giraffe brought by Zheng He from Africa in 12th year of Yongle (1414 AD)

But Zheng He did sail throughout South-East Asia and the Indian Ocean, and on to the Persian gulf and Africa, creating new navigational maps, spreading Chinese culture and bringing home discoveries, treasures and tribute ranging from eye-glasses to giraffes.

He opened up trade routes that are still flourishing today, and gained strategic control over countries that are now once again looking to China as undisputed regional leader.

The eunuch admiral became known as "Three Jewels" - in Chinese, San Bao. Some say he is the original Sinbad the Sailor.

Such is his popularity among South-East Asia's Chinese communities that people still touch his statue for good luck at temples dedicated to his memory.

In Singapore, the Friends of Admiral Zheng He are building a replica of a treasure ship as part of national celebrations of this year's anniversary.

"Asia's role in maritime history has not been recognised," according to the group's leader, Chung Chee-kit.

Ever since China decided to call back its fleets, it has seen itself as a land rather than sea power and has looked on seafarers and merchants as little more than pirates, he said.

Hero once more

Zheng He (1371-1433)'s junk ship

But today things are changing, and suddenly Zheng He is a hero in his own country.

China is building its own replica ship and hopes to use it to retrace the original journeys. The man in charge is another Admiral Zheng - a retired naval officer from the People's Liberation Army.

Zheng Ming is working to raise awareness of the Ming Dynasty voyages, now seen as a model for China's "peaceful rise."

"China is calling on its people to blaze forth Zheng He spirit, accelerate the development of the oceanic economy and contribute to the country's reunification, friendly relationships, and co-prosperity among good-neighbourly countries," he said.

Zheng He's tomb is a humble affair hidden away in paddy fields outside Nanjing. Almost the only people to visit it until now have been his family - descendants of his adopted nephew.

As we watched a huge new cultural centre being erected next to the tomb, one of them told me how proud he was of his ancestor, who had done so much to "open China to the world."

It had taken a long time, he said, to reassert his rightful place in history.

Swimming Dragons can be heard on BBC Radio 4 on Friday 3 June at 1000 GMT.

The Chinese Columbus?

Zheng He ran one of the greatest fleets of all time. Did he discover the New World?

By Caroline Hsu

Comparison — Zheng He (1371-1433)'s treasure ship (400 feet) and Columbus' St. Maria (85 feet)

In the graceful East Asian reading room at the Library of Congress, one can view a 21-foot-long map—a series of coastlines and Chinese place names traced in black ink on thin, almost translucent paper. This is the Wu Bei Zhi, a copy of the actual map used by Zheng He, the famed 15th-century Chinese explorer who made seven voyages from Asia to Africa at the height of Chinese maritime dominance.

Zheng He (pronounced jung huh) was a skilled commander who may have stood nearly 7 feet tall. He was also a eunuch and a devout Muslim—in short, an unlikely commander of the largest maritime expedition the world had ever seen: 28,000 people sailing on 300 ships. It was a fleet whose size and grandeur would not be matched until World War I. Zheng He himself rode in the jewel of the fleet, an enormous hardwood treasure ship filled with porcelain, silks, books, musical instruments—the finest material and cultural exports China had to offer. The ship boasted nine masts and 12 enormous red sails and measured some 400 feet—about the size of a small aircraft carrier. For comparison's sake, when Christopher Columbus sailed to America nearly a century later, his three ships held 90 men each, and the longest of them was the 85-foot Santa Maria.

Zheng He, Chinese admiral — Illustration from a printed fictional account of the sea voyages of the Chinese eunuch Zheng He (1371-1433), with a caption alongside.

But while Columbus and other European explorers are celebrated in every American child's history books, Zheng He remains relatively uncelebrated even in his home country. After his last expedition, in 1433, the Chinese ruling class went through a major philosophical shift, gradually turning inward to deal with famine, plague, and military threats. Confucian court officials closed down ports, forbade sea voyages of almost any kind, and systematically suppressed all traces of the Zheng He journeys. "China never even claimed that Zheng He was a great explorer," says Chi Wang, head of the Chinese section at the Library of Congress.

Yet here in the West a sort of Zheng He craze is going on. It's attributable largely to the 2002 bestseller 1421: The Year China Discovered America, in which British writer Gavin Menzies claims to have irrefutable evidence that Zheng He's fleet didn't turn back after reaching the east coast of Africa as previously believed. Menzies argues that the fleet actually continued around the Cape of Good Hope, discovered the Americas some 70 years before Columbus, and went on to circumnavigate the world, 100 years before Magellan. The fleet probably had the seamanship and resources to complete such a voyage. Menzies's scholarship has been attacked by academics, but if book sales are any indication, the theory has struck a nerve.

How did a Muslim eunuch come to command such a powerful force and accomplish these feats at sea? Zheng He was one of thousands of Muslims living in a surprisingly diverse China of six centuries ago. Both his grandfather and father were known as hajji, meaning that they had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, a journey that Zheng also later completed.

In 1381, when Zheng He was 10 years old, the imperial Army attacked his province, an isolated area on China's lawless southwestern border that was a hideout for outlaws from the ousted Mongol regime. Zheng's father was killed in the fighting. As was the custom in times of war, young male children of the enemy were castrated. (Survivors of the brutal procedure were sometimes handed their preserved genitals in a jar, which they would keep with them throughout their lives in the hope that after burial they would be made whole in the afterlife.)

Zheng's castration had historical reverberations. As a eunuch, he was taken as a servant into the household of his enemy, Zhu Di, the emperor's fourth son. Though robbed of a family, he was well cared for and educated—in fact, given advantages that he probably never would have received otherwise.

Eunuch power

Junk ship of Zheng He (1371-1433), the great Ming navigator

Though the custom of castration seems bizarre today, eunuchs were actually a powerful force in the society of imperial China. Part of their power came from their intimate access to powerful women and their children. Child eunuchs often grew up with future princes and emperors. Indeed, eunuchs garnered so much wealth and political influence from their close contact with royal families that commoners sometimes had their sons castrated in the hopes of improving the family lot.

Zheng He grew up strong and intelligent, apparently impressing his young master, Zhu Di. In short order he went from houseboy to right-hand man, plotting strategies with the prince and riding next to him in battle. He later assisted Zhu Di in a brilliant and bloody coup to usurp the throne. When Zhu Di became the third Ming emperor of China in 1402, he soon named his loyal eunuch and friend admiral and commander in chief of the huge treasure fleet.

The admiral's ships sailed to many lands in Southeast Asia, where the admiral not only collected cultural observations but also used his influence and military strength to manipulate regimes. Although China was a lone superpower at the time, with the military force to crush almost any opposition, the foreign policy of 15th-century China was oddly modern. Unlike other warlike invaders and colonizers, the Chinese preferred trade sanctions. Trade-friendly regimes were rewarded, while fractious states were undermined—not through direct confrontation but through aid to enemy states. Siam and Sumatra, for example, which were growing powerful, were subdued when China decided to recognize Malacca, an upstart city-state in Siamese (modern Thai) territory. Standing between Siam and Sumatra, Malacca became the precursor to present-day Malaysia.

"The Chinese had no desire to establish colonies," says Louise Levathes, author of When China Ruled the Seas. "Their focus was trade—acquiring things the empire needed, such as medicinal herbs and incense, hardwoods, pepper, precious stones, African ivory, Arabian horses for the imperial cavalry," she says. "They clearly knew about Europe from Arab traders but thought that the wool and wine, all they heard Europe had to offer, were not very interesting."

Zheng's fleet made seven voyages in all, and the commander probably died near Calicut, in present-day India, at about age 62. Upon returning to China, Zheng's crew found that the expeditions, rather than being celebrated as heroic, were slandered by the Confucian court officials as indulgent adventures that wasted the country's resources. Zheng He's trip logs were "lost" by officials seeking to suppress further overseas travels.

In many respects, Zheng He stood at a pivotal point in world history, according to many scholars of the colonial period. Had his magnificent fleets been maintained and had China not turned inward and willingly lost its vast scientific and military advantage, Europeans most likely could not have taken over the spice trade and subjugated the Asian and African continents. And had China had the interest, it could have colonized Australia and the Americas before the Europeans.

The Kangnido map (1402) predates Zheng He's voyages, and suggests that he had quite detailed geographical information on the totality of the Old World, from Europe and Africa in the west, to Korea and Japan in the east.

That, of course, is an alternative history that didn't happen. Although there is compelling evidence that the Chinese reached Australia and South America before Cook and Columbus, contact probably occurred centuries before Zheng He set sail. Zheng He's greatest legacy is the vast diaspora of Chinese entrepreneurs who, with Zheng He as inspiration, broke with imperial edicts and the classical Confucian custom of staying near home and ancestry to seek out lives of commerce in foreign lands. The trickle of deserting sailors from the fleet opened a floodgate of emigration that continues to this day: Ethnic Chinese still dominate the economies of many Southeast Asian countries. In Indonesia, Zheng He is revered as a local god; thousands visit a temple dedicated to him every year. Even in Africa, there are many who claim Chinese heritage. Indeed, some believe they are descendants of Zheng He's shipwrecked sailors.

Today, more than 34 million Chinese live overseas in 140 countries, spreading over all the known lands depicted in the 21-foot scroll map, the Wu Bei Zhi, and beyond. A beguiling passage on a 1432 stone tablet erected by Zheng He survives in Fujian province, a maritime area that has provided much of the Chinese diaspora. It reads: "We ... have beheld in the ocean huge waves like mountains rising sky high, and we have set eyes on barbarian regions far away hidden in a blue transparency of light vapors, while our sails, loftily unfurled like clouds day and night, continued their course [as rapidly as] a star, traversing those savage waves as if we were treading a public thoroughfare."

China's Golden Age On the Seas

By 1421, the Chinese had developed an extensive knowledge of astronomy and navigation. Their vast fleets included 250 large treasure ships that would dwarf European vessels, including Columbus's flagship, the Santa María.

Chinese treasure ship: 400 to 500 feet long, nine masts

Santa María: 85 feet long, three masts

The ships carried porcelain and silk from China and returned from voyages with live exotic animals. Their hulls were constructed of multiple watertight compartments, useful in the event of a breach.

Sources: 1421: The Year China Discovered America, by Gavin Menzies; When China Ruled the Seas, by Louise Levathes; The Rise and Fall of 15th Century Chinese Seapower, by Michael Bosworth; Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Did you know?

The first European to see North America may have been Bjarni Herjolfsson. According to Norse sagas, the Viking trader was sailing from Iceland to Greenland in 986 when he got lost in the fog. He made his way to "a flat and wooded country"—Canada, no doubt—but never left the boat. The sagas tease him for his timidity. But he did share his news with (and sell his ship to) the next Euro-visitor to the Americas, Leif Ericson.