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Exploration
2: Zheng He
Essential
Questions
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Who is Zheng He and what is his historical significance?
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Why did China make the momentous decision to turn away from
the outside world?
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Why did tiny Portugal, in contrast, lead Europe into an age
of exploration?
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What
differences do you notice about these two ships? |
Several
decades before Columbus sailed to the New World, a Chinese admiral
named Zheng He made even more ambitious voyages. Between 1405
and 1433, Zheng He led seven major expeditions, commanding the
largest armada the world would see for the next five centuries.
Not until World War I did the West mount anything comparable.
Zheng
He's fleet included 28,000 sailors on 300 ships, the longest of
which were 400 feet and 160 feet wide. By comparison, Columbus
in 1492 had 90 sailors on three ships, the biggest of which was
85 feet long. Zheng He’s armada included supply ships to
carry horses and as many as 20 tankers to carry fresh water. His
crew included interpreters for Arabic and other languages, astrologers
to forecast the weather, astronomers to study the stars, pharmacologists
to collect medicinal plants, ship-repair specialists, doctors
and even two protocol officers to help organize official receptions.
Zheng
He’s fleet reached Africa and could easily have continued
around the Cape of Good Hope and established direct trade
with
Europe. But the Chinese regarded Europe as a backward region
and had little interest in the wool, beads and wine Europe
had
to trade. China preferred the goods that Africa traded -- ivory,
medicines, spices, and exotic woods.
In
Zheng He's time, China and India together accounted for more than
half of the world's gross national product. Indeed, as recently
as 1820, China accounted for 29 percent of the global economy
and India another 16 percent.
But
during the 1400s, China retreated into relative isolation. By
1500 the Chinese government had made it a capital offense to build
a boat with more than two masts, and in 1525 the Government ordered
the destruction of all oceangoing ships. A century earlier, China
had a fleet of 3,500 ships.
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