In the book, When China Ruled the Seas, Levathes talks about seven voyages made by the Chinese armadas during emperor Zhu Di's reign. Admiral Zheng was in control of many “Treasure ships”. These ships traded silk, porcelain, and many other fine goods. They sailed from India to East Africa, through Korea and Japan, and might have even traveled all the way to Australia. Levathes believes that it could have been very possible for China to have been able to create a great kingdom to rule over one hundred years before the Europeans even explored and expanded, with China's giant navy of about three thousand of these large treasure ships.
The chief purpose of the fleet was diplomacy. Zhu Di's intent to make known his rise to the dragon throne to the rest of the world was to make it known in the best possible way. He intended to use a fleet of massive treasure ships to do this. The ships in his fleet were a little over four hundred feet in length and could carry around three thousand tons. They were filled with the empire's finest porcelains, lacquer ware, and silk. They were definitely the largest ships that the majority of the people at that time had ever seen. This intimidated other countries, which Zhu Di liked because he wanted to have the “four corners of the earth” stoop down to China as being a middle kingdom. The amazing size and wealth that the fleet represented would make most rulers consider beginning trade with China. These “Treasure ships” were filled with expensive goods and were taken to trading ports all around the Indian Ocean. These ships would also occasionally intervene in the affairs of other nations in order to obtain the best trade conditions for China from these other nations.
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I also found it somewhat interesting that those who were in command of fleets and armies in China were mostly eunuchs. These eunuchs were fiercely loyal to the emperor. Levathes describes in depth how prisoners would be castrated and become eunuchs. Zheng He was the commander for Zhu Di fleet of treasure ships. Despite him being a eunuch he was not the stereotypical one; he had a big, booming voice and was about six feet tall. Zheng He died on the returning trip to China and is now renowned as one of the greatest real-life legends of all time.
I found this book to be a rather interesting read. I enjoyed how Levathes researched this book and wrote it to try to explain about this specific period of time and how it is very non-fiction.
When China Ruled the Seas: The reassure fleet of the dragon throne, (1405-1433) by Louise Levathes
On reason we should celebrate is his fleet made incredible distances and destinations, especially for the period of time he traveled in. Zheng He traveled 105,300 total miles in his life. (DOC A) One round trip from Nanjing, his home port in China, to Calicut, one of many destinations he traveled to on his voyages, was a total of 11,600 miles. (DOC A) It took 18,500 total miles to take a round trip from Nanjing to the east of Africa, which was another one of the popular ports that he traveled to. (DOC A) The distance that was
In the book, When China Ruled the Seas, Levathes tells us about seven voyages made by junk armadas during the Chinese emperor Zhu Di's reign. 'Treasure ships' as they were called, were under the command of admiral Zheng He, these ships traded silk, porcelain, and many other fine objects of value. They sailed from India to East Africa, throughout Korea and Japan, and possibly as far as Australia. She believes that China might have been able to create a great colonial realm one hundred years before the Europeans explored and expanded, from China's navy of some three thousand ships.
The author is graphic in his detail of the people and the places of importance during this time in history. The book is written more from a Northern point of view and so I didn’t get quite the same perspective of the Southern side but still learned more than I knew before.
My overall opinion of this book is good I really liked it and recommend it to anyone. It is a good book to read and it keep you interested throughout the whole book.
This is my personal reflection about this book. First and foremost, I would like to say that this book is very thick and long to read. There are about nineteen chapters and 278 pages altogether. As a slow reader, it is a quite hard for me to finish reading it within time. It took me weeks to finish reading it as a whole. Furthermore, it is written in English version. My English is just in average so sometimes I need to refer to dictionary for certain words. Sometimes I use google translate and ask my friends to explain the meaning of certain terms.
Did you like the book? would you recommend this book to others? Why or why
During the 15th century, the Chinese had one of the most advanced naval fleets known to man. As a result, China was able to establish many trade routes to places such as Africa, India, Singapore, etc… If the Chinese wanted to, they could have sailed all the way to Europe and even as far as North America. However, the Chinese ran into some political problems that prevented explorations in the future. If they had continued their voyages, it would have been possible for them to have discovered the New World before Columbus. Had China discovered America before Columbus, our world would be different from what it is today.
As in terms of economics, China grew prosperous through trade, military expansion, invention of tools and other means of convenience and through the market economy. From the Han Dynasty China began to build again. The Sui Dynasty constructed the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal was an artificial canal that extended 1,240 miles. It enabled merchants and farmers to travel by water, selling an abundance of rice and other crops. This canal was extremely expensive but throughout the years paid itself off by providing travel routes north and south of China. The Sui Dynasty also built palaces, granarie...
Accompanied by 27,000 men on 62 large and 255 small ships, the Chinese eunuch Zheng He, led 7 naval expeditions to Southeast Asia, Middle East and east coast of Africa in the span of 28 years during the Ming Dynasty. The scale of Zheng He’s fleet was unprecedented in world history. The large treasure ships used during the expeditions were purported to be 440 feet long and 180 feet wide (Dreyer, p. 102). Throughout his travels, Zheng He brought Chinese tea, porcelain and silk products to foreign countries and also brought back exotic goods to the Ming court such as spices, plants and leather. Although his voyages fostered commercial trades and cultural exchange between China and foreign countries, the goal of his expeditions stemmed from the political motivation to maintain the tributary system and his voyages had important political implication of causing Neo-Confucian opposition and suspension of the expedition.
Chapter 1: The Wan-Li Emperor, begins by explaining the major premise of the work: The concept of looking at a single year in the history of the leadership of China and evaluating the implications for understanding other aspects of history, including the decline of the Ming Dynasty. In this initial chapter, Huang provides an anecdotal history of some of the events that occurred, and includes within it a discussion of the set up of the leadership, the repercussions that occurred in the event of certain actions, including the prospects of an audience with the emperor. Huang reviews these issues as he considers that actions taken by the Wan-li emperor, who was only twenty-four in 1587 and who had been a veteran of ceremonial proceedings, and considers his history as an element of understanding the progression of leadership.
Sit, Tony. "The Life of Empress Cixi” (from Issue 10 of the China in Focus Magazine). Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU), 2001. .
This is an odd little book, but a very important one nonetheless. The story it tells is something like an extended parablethe style is plain, the characters are nearly stick figures, the story itself is contrived. And yet ... and yet, the story is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking because the historical trend it describes is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and believe it to be one of the best books I have ever read. It was extremely well written and challenging for me to understand at times. It conveys that dark side of human ambition very well, and it has given me much to think about.
The three main reasons Ming China ended its treasure fleet was Confucian beliefs, lack of money and resources, and the two most important people of the seven voyages were dead. Confucians were not greedy for to travel and explore like the Europeans. They believed that China should be focused on internal topics rather than involve in foreign affairs. The confucians held a more lot of power towards the end of the voyages so they had a big part in stopping any more voyages from happening. China was also running out of money very quickly. The emperor, Zhu Di emptied almost half of the treasury with his ambitious projects, like the treasure fleets, the Great Wall of China, and his father’s memorial. Many natural disasters were happening in China,
With deserts and the Himalayas running along most of the border, it was extremely difficult to cross over one of the most dangerous mountain ranges in the world and a few other scorching deserts with the little transport they had during that time. The only way merchants could come into the country was the southeastern coast of China, where most of the prosperous cities resided. What led China to become conceited was because they had an abundance of goods that most of the world wanted. In the 1760-1830s, China was famous for its porcelain (rich Europeans loved it), silk, and of course, tea. Since this Eastern Powerhouse’s goods were so popular, therefore, there were only a few things that interested them to trade with.