Two believers bound by faith and history

Frescoes hold hints about the nature of a famed explorer and a fellow Ming eunuch's relationship

When Li Tong commissioned the building of the Fahai Temple about 600 years ago he could barely have imagined that one day it would link him to one of his contemporaries, the world-famous Chinese mariner and explorer Zheng He (also known in English as Cheng Ho).

Commanding a fleet some of whose ships were 120 meters long - Christopher Columbus's Santa Maria, by comparison, was 26 meters - Zheng made expeditionary voyages to parts of Asia and Africa from 1405 to 1433.