Notes relating to Admiral Cheng Ho’s expeditions. Il
Hsu Yun-ts’iao’s 1976 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society addresses seven persistent questions surrounding Admiral Cheng Ho’s early fifteenth-century maritime expeditions, drawing on Ming dynasty official histories, stone inscriptions, and a previously unpublished handwritten manuscript to challenge popular assumptions about the fleet’s composition, routes, and the nature of the navigator himself.
Summary
The article is structured as a series of targeted responses to long-standing ambiguities in the Cheng Ho literature. Hsu begins by establishing that the term “San Pao” (Three Precious Eunuchs) was not a personal name or a reference to birth order, but a component of the formal title “San Pao Hsin Kuan” (Three Trustworthy Envoys) bestowed upon the three eunuchs—Yang Min, Cheng Ho, and Li Kai—when they were commissioned together for overseas missions. He supports this with a citation from an incomplete handwritten manuscript recording the 1421 commission to Bengal and thirty-six other countries, and argues that the character “Pao” (treasure) derives from the Sanskrit Buddhist term Triratna, which explains why Triratna temples across Southeast Asia have been popularly identified as Cheng Ho shrines (pp. 134–135).
On the question of whether Cheng Ho was genuinely castrated, Hsu dismisses the physiognomist Yuan Chung-Tch’eh’s description of a “sonorous voice” as a non-historical anecdote composed to explain noble character traits, and instead points to the long Han dynasty tradition of appointing eunuchs as diplomatic envoys, a practice well attested in the Han Shu and continued throughout the Ming (p. 135). He further clarifies that “West Ocean” (Hsi Yang) is a Yuan dynasty navigational term meaning “West Sea Route,” demarcated from the East Sea Route by the Karimata and Sunda Straits, and that the route was later redefined with Brunei as the dividing point in Chang Hsih’s post-expedition account (pp. 136–137).
The most substantial arguments concern the chart and the ships. Hsu contends that the famous “Cheng Ho chart” must predate the expeditions and likely originates from the Yuan dynasty, because it contains no place-names on Java or Borneo—regions Cheng Ho’s fleet did not traverse under the West Sea Route system—and misidentifies Borneo as “Wan Nien Island” (pp. 138–139). On ship size, he rejects the Ming Shih figure of 440 feet by 180 feet as physically impossible (a 7:3 ratio resembling “Noah’s Ark”), and instead calculates dimensions from the Lung Chiang Shipyard records at Nanking for a 2,000-liao capacity vessel, arriving at a whole length of 166 feet and a midship width of 24.3 feet—a 7:1 ratio that, while still enormous for the period, is nautically plausible (pp. 139–140).
Key Findings
- The title “San Pao Hsin Kuan” (Three Trustworthy Envoys) appears in a handwritten manuscript recording the 1421 (19th year of Yung Le) commission of Yang Min, Cheng Ho, and Li Kai to Bengal and 36 foreign countries (p. 135).
- An eighth voyage is documented in the Ming Shih and Ming Shih Lu: in the first month of 1424, Cheng Ho was sent to Palembang to invest Shih Chi Sun as governor, returning after the emperor’s death (p. 138).
- The Ming Shih records a fleet of 62 large vessels carrying 27,800 men, with individual ships stated at 440 feet long and 180 feet wide (p. 139).
- Hsu’s reconstruction from Lung Chiang Shipyard records yields a 2,000-liao vessel of 166 feet overall length and 24.3 feet midship width—approximately 38% of the Ming Shih length and 13.5% of its stated width (p. 139).
- The chart contains no place-names for Java, Tjirebon, or Borneo, and records Borneo as “Wan Nien Island,” indicating it was a pre-existing Yuan dynasty West Sea Route guide rather than a record of Cheng Ho’s own voyages (p. 139).
- The East/West Sea Route demarcation was originally at the Karimata and Sunda Straits; Chang Hsih’s later account shifts the boundary to Brunei, and by the Ching dynasty the distinction had largely dissolved into the generic term “Nanyang” (pp. 136–137).
Conclusion
Hsu’s central takeaway is that much of the popular mythology surrounding Cheng Ho—his deification, the attribution of Triratna temples to him, the claim of visits to Brunei and the Philippines, and the fantastical ship dimensions—stems from later accretion and commercial or devotional motivation rather than from primary evidence. The historical Cheng Ho operated within a well-defined Yuan-inherited routing system, used a pre-existing navigational chart, and commanded vessels that, while impressive, were far smaller than legend suggests.
Context
- The article draws on the Ming Shih, Ming Shih Lu, Yin Ya Shen Lan, Hsi Yang Ch’ao Kung Tian Lu, Shu Yueh Chou Ts Lu, Tung Hsi Yang Kao, and an unpublished handwritten manuscript; its principal historiographical contribution is the re-identification of “San Pao” as a formal envoy title and the argument that the famous chart predates the expeditions.