Ancient travels offer historical treasure
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A replica of ship from the fleet of Admiral Zheng He (1371-1433). Zheng undertook seven voyages around the rim of the Indian Ocean in the 1400s. The replica is on display at Zheng He Memorial Park in Suzhou. Photos by Wang Zhuangfei / China Daily |
Heritage of great admiral Zheng He illustrates history of Maritime Silk Road
Being captured, castrated and cast into servitude by soldiers who've just murdered your father makes for a rough childhood.
But they are also the hardships from which legends are made, and the story of Zheng He has not only survived six centuries, his likeness is worshipped in temples throughout Southeast Asia.
Lore has it that a general approached the 10-year-old asking if he had seen an enemy of the state. Zheng's mocking reply? "He jumped in the lake."
So the military took the boy, and his testicles, and placed him in the service of the prince of Yan, Zhu Di, who later became the Yongle emperor, thanks to a palace coup Zheng assisted as a commanding officer.
Zheng's military performance and loyalty earned him the title of Treasure Fleet Admiral once Zhu Di seized his nephew's throne.
Afterward, the ruler sent him to sea to explore and trade at ports near and far, paving the way toward the Maritime Silk Road's zenith. Zheng undertook seven voyages to Arabia, Southeast Asia and Africa between 1405 and 1433.
"We have traversed more than 100,000 li (a li is 0.5 kilometer) of immense water spaces and have beheld in the ocean huge waves like mountains rising in the sky," he wrote.
"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 a star, traversing those savage waves."
It's partly this history that has prompted six cities in Jiangsu to jointly bid for UNESCO World Heritage recognition.
The proposal advances the theory that these cities "were the convergence point of the Silk Road at land and sea", said He Yun'ao, a Nanjing University history professor in charge of developing the application.
The concept has won central government support. The proposal will likely be presented next year, He said.
The History of Ming written in the subsequent Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) also hints that Zheng's first expeditions were intended to nab Zhu Di's fugitive nephew. His fleets were unprecedented - more than 300 ships, the largest of which was said to be five times bigger than the one Columbus sailed, carrying nearly 28,000 crew members, including linguists.
They were cities at sea. Zheng sailed with supply ships, horse ships and battleships.
But the most mammoth, at nearly 140 meters long and 60 meters wide, were his seven-sail treasure ships. A replica of a rudder from Zheng's mother ship stretches 10 meters.
Boards were slathered with tung oil, and the ships' bottoms were divided into 13 watertight compartments so that a rupture from an unseen rock or cannonball wouldn't flood the entire hull.
The inspiration for the design-still used around the world today - was said to have come from the inside of a bamboo shoot.
Also displayed are seashells polished into translucent windows, since they proved more waterproof than glass.
None of Zheng's ships sank. There was also the question of internal security. Zheng's sailors required proper documents to board - in this case, stone plaques with inscriptions no one can decode today.
Near the hall is a scale replica of Zheng's ship that displays smaller models of his vessels inside. The concept resembles a ship ina bottle-just replace the bottle with a larger ship.
Another ship replica rises from the water at the 100-hectare Zheng He Memorial Park in Jiangsu's Suzhou city. It floats next to a statue of the explorer that is 18 meters high - because he was 1.8 meters tall - on a pedestal that is 2.8 meters high, since his voyages spanned 28 years.
The statue's countenance appears fierce, as Zheng was an imposing personality. It is said that he "walked like a tiger" and spoke with "the clamor of thunderous bells".
The Zheng He Memo-rial Hall's Tunnel of Time depicts the evolution of China's nautical excursions. There are also facsimiles of the goods he traded - porcelain, tea and a Nanjing brocade adorned with a dragon and phoenix. And there are copies of treasures he brought back - fragrances, precious stones and a rhino horn.
From East Africa's Swahili Coast alone, Zheng's ark carried such exotic creatures as zebras, camels and ostriches, not to mention ivory.
The giraffe he brought from Kenya was revered as a totem of the empire because of its resemblance to the qilin, a mythical Chinese beast believed to herald the arrival or death of a great sage.
Zheng was a devout Muslim, but Mazu, also known as Tianfei or Lin Mo, was the deity to which he was most devoted.
He would make sacrifices at the Tianfei Palace in Suzhou's Taicang city, as crews loaded his ships. (Zheng would pack his vessels in Taicang, since the city was a granary, and then head to Fujian's Quanzhou harbor to wait for welcoming winds to set off.)
A temple, first built in 1123, during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) was reconstructed in 1342, during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). It resumed official functions as a Taoist holy site in 2009 and was listed for national preservation in 2013.
Legend claims Tianfei answered Zheng's prayer during a tempest off Malacca and sent a magic lantern to illuminate the inky skies. Zheng then tricked and captured a Chinese pirate who had been controlling the Strait of Malacca.
The temple is nestled in a traditional community, where white-walled Jiangsu-styled residences are laced with cobbled streets and canals.
People can visit the port from which Zheng set off - a blade of bald land near today's Taicang Port, one of China's busiest.
For centuries, until China's opening-up and reform, Taicang was a more important commercial hub than Shanghai. The ships that bob in its waters nod to Zheng's legacy of Chinese trade at sea. Their journeys are postscripts to his epic story.
erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 12/07/2015 page7)
