Cet article en FR

By launching its « 21st Century Maritime Silk Road », China is reconnecting with a particularly rich naval and maritime past. Its first activities in this field date back, as far as navigation in the China Sea is concerned, to the Zhou dynasty (771-256 BC).

(See also my article The Maritime Silkroad, a history of 1001 Cooperations )

By Karel Vereycken

By the Han period (1st to 3rd century CE), China was already familiar with naval techniques, including a primitive form of compass and the famous junks capable of reaching the coasts of Africa.

An activity, undoubtedly carried out by Chinese, Indian and Arab navigators, which developed, notably from the great Indian port of Calicut, over a thousand-year period, in particular under the Tang (618-907) and the Song (960-1279).

« The annual import into China of ivory, rhinoceros horn, pearls, incense and other products found specifically along the coasts of Yemen and East Africa, amounted (around 1053) to 53,000 units of account, » according to the chroniclers of the dynasty of the time.

In exchange for imperial silk, ceramics and porcelain, Chinese sailors also bought large quantities of pearls and precious objects. Many Song and Tang Chinese coins have been found, as well as porcelain, in the coastal regions of Somalia, Kenya and Tanganyika as well as the island of Zanzibar.

The XVth Century

However, the expeditions of Admiral Zheng He (1371-1433) under the Ming dynasty, at the beginning of the XVth century, are something exceptional because they were strongly oriented towards scientific exchanges.

Zheng was born a Muslim. Grandson of the governor of Yunnan Province, he became a eunuch at the court of Zhu Di, the future Yongle Emperor (1402-1424).

The latter made history by launching a series of (very) major works:

• It reinvigorates the Silk Roads;
• He restored the astronomical observatory to its former functions;
• He moved the Chinese capital from Nanking to Beijing;
• In the heart of the capital, he had the Forbidden City built by 1 million workers and craftsmen;
• It modernizes the Grand Canal to guarantee the food security of the capital;
• He expanded the system of imperial examinations for the selection of scholars;
• He had 2,180 scholars write the largest encyclopedia ever written, comprising more than 11,000 volumes;
• He appointed Admiral Zheng He as commander-in-chief of a high seas fleet tasked with publicizing and recognizing the achievements of China and its Emperor throughout the world.

Thus, between 1405 and 1433, Admiral Zheng will lead seven expeditions which will land in almost all the countries, ports and sites that count in the Indian Ocean:

• Vietnam: the kingdom of Champa, city of Cochinchina;
• Indonesia: the island of Java and Sumatra, Aru Islands, city of Palembang;
• Thailand: Siam;
• Malaysia: port of Malacca, islands of Pahang and state of Kelantan (Malaysia);
• Sri Lanka: the island of Ceylon;
• India: Kozhikode (or Calicut), capital of the state of Kerala in India;
• The Maldives Islands;
• Iran: Hormuz Island in the Persian Gulf
• Yemen: Aden;
• Somalia: Mogadishu;
• Kenya: Kingdom of Malindi (Melinde);
• Sultanate of Oman: Muscat and Dhofar;
• Saudi Arabia: Jeddah and Mecca.

The Science of Navigation

His fleet, during the first expedition between 1405 and 1407, had no fewer than 27,800 men on board 317 vessels, including 62 « treasure ships », XXL ships capable of carrying 500 people.

The largest junk is 122 metres long and 52 metres wide, it has nine masts and 3000 tonnes, while Christopher Columbus’ caravels of 1492 are only 25 metres long and 5 metres wide, its sails hoisted on only two masts and carrying only 450 tonnes!

Imitating the partitioned stems of bamboo, these ships are composed of watertight compartments which make them less vulnerable to shipwrecks and fires. The ancestral technique of watertight compartments, taken up by Western shipbuilding in the 19th century, was registered in November 2010 by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity.

Historians note that in Europe, shipbuilding drew its inspiration from the swimming of fish. Throughout history, our ships have sought to cut through the waves and the bow remains one of the fundamental points of our shipbuilding.

However, the Chinese note that the fish that swims underwater cannot be an example for evolving on the water. Their reference animal is the duck. No bow when it is enough to fly over the surface. The junk was therefore designed according to the shape of this sea bird. From this one, it takes its elongation, its very low draft on the front of the hull and its great width.

According to some historians, on February 2, 1421, the Yongle Emperor gathered 28 leaders and dignitaries from Asia, Arabia, the Indian Ocean and Africa.

This summit, according to Serge Michel and Michel Beuret, was

« the most international conference ever organized and which would have testified to the influence of Ming China (1368-1644), an empire then open to the world. »¹

In France, in 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen…

A civilizational chasm

At the end of the 14th century, a gulf separated the level of development of China from that of a Europe ruined by the Hundred Years’ War, an unprecedented financial crash, famine and the Black Death.

For example, the library of the English king Henry V (1387-1422) consisted of only six manuscript volumes, three of which were loaned by a convent. The Vatican, for its part, possessed only about a hundred books before 1417.

While for the inauguration of the Forbidden City in Beijing in 1421, some 26,000 guests feasted on a banquet consisting of ten courses served on plates of the finest porcelain, in Europe, a few weeks later, at the wedding of Henry V to Catherine of Valois, it was salted cod on slices of stale bread that was served to the six hundred guests!

While the Chinese army could field a million men armed with firearms, the same Henry V of England, when he went to war against France the same year, had barely 5,000 fighters armed with bows, swords and pikes. And the English monarch, lacking a powerful navy, was forced to use fishing boats to cross the Channel…

Diplomacy and Prestige

Contrary to what has been said, the Ming dynasty was not concerned with seeking new trade routes, systematically supplying itself with slaves or finding land to colonize.

The sea routes used by Zheng’s fleet were already known and had been frequented by Arab merchants since the 7th century.

That this was a demonstration of Chinese prestige is demonstrated by the fact that in 1407 Zheng founded a language school in Nanking.

Sixteen translators would travel with the Chinese fleets, allowing the admiral to converse, from India to Africa, in Arabic, Persian, or even in Swahili, Hindi, Tamil and other languages.

Since religious freedom was one of the Emperor’s great virtues, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist scholars were included in the journey.

Equally remarkable was the presence of scientists on ships so large that they allowed scientific experiments to be conducted there.

The metallurgists who had embarked for the occasion prospected in the countries where the fleet stopped. The doctors could collect plants, remedies and treatments for diseases and epidemics.

Botanists tried to acclimatize useful plants or food crops. The ships also brought seeds that the Chinese hoped to cultivate abroad.

It was during these expeditions that China established diplomatic relations with around thirty countries. The story of these exchanges has come down to us thanks to the remarkable work of his traveling companion Ma Huan.

Also a Muslim, his writings are available in a book entitled Ying-yai Sheng-lan ( The Wonders of the Oceans ).

During their last voyage, the two friends were granted the right to go as far as Mecca with a view to establishing commercial exchanges.

On his fourth expedition, National Geographic claims, Zheng met with representatives of the Sultanate of Malindi (present-day Kenya), with whom China had established diplomatic relations in 1414.

As tribute, African dignitaries offered Zheng He zebras and a giraffe, an animal the Romans called the cameleopard (half-camel, half-leopard).

In China, the Emperor hoped to one day possess a qilin , that is to say an animal as mythical as the unicorn in the West, a cross between a deer or a horse with hooves, and a lion or a dragon with a brightly colored skin.

The emperor also wanted a painting of the giraffe, a copy of which was found in 1515 in a painting by the Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch, who had copied it from a book by Cyriacus of Ancome (1391-1452), a great Italian traveller.

Unfortunately, in May 1421, two months after the departure of the great fleet, the Forbidden City, struck by lightning, was reduced to ashes.

Interpreted as a sign from heaven, this will be the beginning of a period of national withdrawal which will lead China to abandon its projects, to even destroy, in 1479, all the documents relating to these expeditions and to interrupt its foreign trade until 1567.

Faced with the Mongol threat, China will then concentrate on the construction of the Great Wall, agriculture and education.

Today

It was not until 1963 that Zhou Enlai, during his tour of Africa, rehabilitated Admiral Zheng. In 2005, China celebrated the 600th anniversary of his first expedition and evoked his memory at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games.

For China, Zheng’s expeditions are emblematic of its ability to promote harmonious commercial development that broke with the Western and Japanese colonial practices from which China suffered during the « 150 years of humiliation. »

President Xi rightly said in 2014:

« Countries that have tried to pursue their development goals through the use of force have failed (…) This is what history has taught us. China is committed to maintaining peace. »

NOTE:

1. In his book 1421, the Year China Discovered America , the amateur historian Gavin Menzies, a former commander of the British Royal Navy, claims, on the basis of copies of old maps whose authenticity is more than questionable, that Zheng We’s men were able to reach America, even Australia, and this well before the Europeans. His publisher, who had his text completely rewritten by 130 communicators to make it a bestseller, granted him 500,000 English pounds to acquire the copyright worldwide. The Chinese, knowing full well that you have to be wary of the English especially when they flatter you, without closing the doors to further research, have so far resisted any idea of crediting his thesis. ↩︎