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  Fortunately, one part of the Yongle Dadian remains more or less whole at Cambridge University, where it has escaped the ravages of the Boxer uprising and more recently the lunacy of Mao’s Red Guards, who burned any intellectual book they could lay their hands on. The Cambridge book is about mathematics. Joseph Needham describes the truly amazing depth of Chinese mathematical knowledge shown in this book, which contains knowledge from the year A.D. 263 onward.17

  There are chapters giving practical advice on using trigonometry to determine heights of buildings, hills, trees, and towns on cliffs, and the circumference of walled cities, the depth of ravines, and the breadth of river estuaries.

  No fewer than ninety-five mathematical treatises of the Song dynasty are mentioned, some on such specialized subjects as the Chinese remainder theorum and cryptoanalysis—the use of mathematics to break codes. There are mathematical methods for calculating the area and volume of circles, spheres, cones, pyramids, cubes, and cylinders and for determining magic numbers and constructing magic squares, and the principles of square-root extraction and negative numbers. It was lucky Zheng He had a prodigious memory—he could recite the entire Koran by heart in Arabic at the age of eleven.

  As Needham points out, the discoveries made on the voyages of Zheng He’s fleet were incorporated into the Yongle Dadian. One can go further and say that one of Zhu Di’s leading objectives was to acquire knowledge gained from the barbarians. This is epitomized in the instructions given to the three previous eunuchs, Zheng He, Jang Min, and Li Qi in 1403—to be described in the next chapter.18

  The best way to acquire knowledge, Zhu Di knew, would be to share it—to show the barbarians how immensely deep, wide, and old was Chinese knowledge and Chinese civilization. Zheng He and his captains were thus key players in compiling the knowledge contained in the Yongle Dadian. For this of course they needed to have copies of the encyclopedia aboard their junks, and they needed also to brief interpreters about the contents so the message could be propagated. Zhu Di made enormous strides in improving Chinese printing methods, which enabled parts of the Yongle Dadian to be reproduced.19

  Even “Pascal’s” triangle was included in the Yongle Dadian—centuries before Pascal. The Chinese have always been practical. Mathematics was applied to surveying and cartography. By the Eastern Han dynasty (A.D. 25–A.D. 220), Chinese surveyors were using compass and squares, plumb lines and water levels. By the third century they were using the trigonometry of right-angle triangles, by the fourteenth century the Jacob’s staff to measure heights and distances.

  Ch’in Chiu-shao in his book Shu-Shu Chiu-Chang of 124720 (included in the Yongle Dadian) used knowledge of Chinese mathematics and Chinese surveying instruments to calculate the areas of rice fields, the volume of water required to flood those fields, and hence the size and flow rate of dykes that would be required. He gave different methods of building canals and the strength of lock gates that would be needed.

  One could carry out a similar exercise for military machines available to Zheng He and how these had been developed over the centuries. The Yongle Dadian included details on how to build mortars, bazookas, cannons, rocket-propelled missiles, flamethrowers, and all manner of gunpowder bombs. This vast encyclopedia was a massive collective endeavor to bring together in one place Chinese knowledge gained in every field over thousands of years. Zheng He had the immense good fortune to set sail with priceless intellectual knowledge in every sphere of human activity. He commanded a magnificent fleet—magnificent not only in military and naval capabilities but in its cargo—intellectual goods of great value and sophistication. The fleet was the repository of half the world’s knowledge.

  He also had well-educated officers who through interpreters could speak to the leaders of foreign countries in seventeen different languages including Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Tamil, Swahili, and Latin.21 Zheng He’s fleet resembled a floating university and probably had more intellectual knowledge in its library than any university in the world at that time.

  3

  THE FLEETS ARE PREPARED FOR THE VOYAGE TO THE BARBARIANS

  In order for the barbarians to follow the way of heaven, they would first need to find their way to the wellspring of Confucian virtue, the Middle Kingdom. Such a journey would require both maps and the ability to establish position at sea. Thus the provision of accurate charts and a viable system of navigation was of paramount importance—not only to facilitate the safe passage of Zheng He and his fleets but also to encourage the barbarians to return tribute to the new emperor.

  Zhu Di and his father, Hong Wu, had encouraged the development of every aspect of navigation. A handbook titled Notebook on Sea Bottom Currents, found in Quanzhou, states that, after announcing the ascension of the Yongle emperor (Zhu Di) to the throne, Zheng He and his admirals were instructed to search for navigation charts, collecting all the information about currents, islands, mountains, straits, and the positions of stars. They used this data to revise their navigation charts, including compass points and the cross-references of stars.

  The Chinese cultivated Arab navigators and astronomers, especially during the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). According to Gong Zhen, in 1403, two years before the first formal expedition, Zheng He, Jang Min, and Li Qi were sent by Zhu Di to visit countries of the western oceans. Their mission included recruiting foreign navigators capable of deep-sea navigation. For this and much other information in chapters 3 5, and 6, I am indebted to Tai Peng Wang’s research.1

  The writer Yan Congjian stated in Shuyu Zhouzi Lu (Compiled information about the remotest foreign countries):

  In the first year of the reign of the Emperor Hong Wu of the Ming dynasty (1368) the Emperor converted the Bureau of History into the Bureau of Astronomy. He also established the Bureau of the Chinese Islamic Astronomy. In the second year (1369) the Hong Wu Emperor summoned eleven Chinese Muslims including Zheng Ah Li, the Chinese Muslim Astronomical Officer, to the capital, Nanjing, “on a mission to improve on the Islamic calendars and to observe the astronomical-phenomena. They were each conferred upon with gifts and official titles accordingly.

  In 1382 the emperor summoned a group of scholars, including the Islamic observatory official Hai Da Er and a master of Islam named Ma Sa Yi Hei, to choose the best astronomy books among several hundred volumes of Xiyu Shu (Books from the western regions) at the Yuan court in Beijing. The next year, a Chinese translation of the selected books, Tian Wen Shu (Works of astronomy), was published.

  According to the Ming translator Ma Ha, the Tian Wen Shu was originally written by Abu Hassan Koshiya (A.D. 971–1029), a Yuan mathematician who played a dominant role in the development of spherical trigonometry. Ma Ha praises Koshiya as “one of the greatest scholars of all times who explained the ultimate theories of astronomy in all its great profundity and simplicity.”

  The Tian Wen Shu explained the Islamic concepts of longitude and latitude. So it is clear that early Chinese concepts of latitude, longitude, and a round earth go back at least to this Ming translation of Islamic geography books. In about 1270 the Arab astrologist Jamal ad-Din had made a terrestrial globe of the earth that correctly depicted the proportions of land (30 percent) and sea (70 percent). He gave the globe to Guo Shoujing, as will be described in later chapters.

  A reliance on Islamic navigators continued in Zheng He’s era. Zheng He himself was a Muslim, and given the advanced state of navigation and astronomy in the Islamic world, it’s no wonder he recruited other Muslims to his fleets. According to Chen Shuiyuan, a Taiwanese historian, many were located in Quanzhou, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world and home to special graveyards reserved for Muslim sailors. Zheng He and his team also searched the provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, and Zhejiang for superior navigators.

  Foreign navigators and astronomers who voyaged on Chinese ships were given Chinese names, such as Wang Gui, Wu Zheng, and Ma Zheng. When they returned after a successful mission, they were rewarded. In 1407, for example, foreigners returning to Qu
anzhou received notes equivalent to fifty taeles of silver as well as rolls of embroidered silk. In 1430, when a foreign Muslim named Sheban returned from the final expedition, the Xuan De Emperor promoted him to deputy battalion commander.

  In a paper titled “Instruments and Observation at the Imperial Astronomical Bureau During the Ming Dynasty,” Professor Thatcher E. Deane states:

  As with the development of the calendric systems…were most evident at the beginning of a dynasty, less so at the beginning of an individual emperor’s reign, and almost never at any other time when such expenditures were not direct investments in legitimising state and ruler. Hong Wu had an urgent need to improve the calendrical system because he was the first of the dynasty; Zhu Di was accused of usurping the throne so he also had a very strong need.

  Gifts for Foreign Rulers

  This obsessive focus on improving navigational techniques enabled Zheng He’s fleets to reach foreign countries, where, after presenting their credentials, the Chinese ambassadors would supply maps and astronomical tables to the rulers. The gift of knowledge was intended to make it possible for them to return tribute to the Middle Kingdom.

  We know from recent excavations at the Jingdezhen kilns (where the bulk of the ceramics carried in Zheng He’s fleets were fired) and from excavations in Cairo beside the Red Sea Canal, as well as from collections in Europe, that Chinese delegations offered personal gifts to foreign leaders. Ceramic copies of Mamluk candlesticks were given to the Mamluk sultans, along with blue and white flasks, ewers, porcelain cups, and pen boxes. A ewer cover decorated with an armillary sphere in cobalt was fired for the king of Portugal, as were ceramic tiles for Ottoman sultans.

  Gifts for more ordinary folk made the journey as well. Playing cards, chess, and mah-jongg sets were given to merchants. Children’s whirligig toys, kites, and hot-air balloons were dispensed.

  The saddest cargo of the great fleets were women. Traditionally, foreign rulers were each presented with one hundred slave girls. When the fleets returned, the Xuan De emperor observed: “Ten thousand countries are our guests.” The number of concubines and slave girls embarked must have been staggering. In a subsequent chapter, we’ll show how, after the Chinese squadron reached Venice, female slaves and their offspring made a significant impact on the domestic life and population of Venice, Florence, and Tuscany.

  Finally, a word about the most valuable part of the fleet—the sailors.

  Like their modern counterparts, their most prized possessions were mementoes of their loved ones at home—drawings, locks of a wife’s or children’s hair, little presents, perhaps a pet dog, a tub of roses, or a tame, flightless bird or pet duck. Chinese sailors were avid gamblers; playing cards and dice were part of everyday life, as was mah-jongg.

  Like today’s sailors, they would have been keen to better themselves. As the voyage progressed and boredom set in, they would have put aside novels for progressively more serious reading. By Zheng He’s era, printed popular books were widely available and all kinds of pocket encyclopedias were sold. Reference books ( jih yung lei shu) with illustrations and descriptions covered all manner of practical subjects: agriculture; salt and sugar manufacture; collecting ceramics and bronzes; ship and cart making; coal and fuel use; paper making and printing; welding technology; alcohol fermentation; pearl and jade collecting.

  The Nung Shu, a popular encyclopedia first published in 1313, provided descriptions and illustrations of agricultural machinery, including tilt and trip hammers; rotary grinding mills; winnowing fans; bellows powered by piston rods, connecting rods, and horizontal water wheels; flour-sifting machinery drawn by a water wheel; vertical water wheels for driving textile machinery; winders or windlasses with cranks for cranes, wells, and mine shafts; salt mills; pearl-diving apparatus; scoop wheels; pallet chain pumps driven by animals; chain pumps powered by horizontal water wheels; chain pumps operated solely by the current; rotary grinding mills operated by horizontal windmills; double-edged runner mills operated by horizontal water wheels; roller mills; cotton gins; and mills for grinding rice or corn. (See examples on pages in later chapters.)

  Doubtless these descriptions of how to make a wide variety of useful farm machinery would have had value to farmers in other countries. Once the Chinese sailors were ashore, they could have supplemented their wages by selling these books, just as sailors in my time would sell cigarette rations to the locals or give their rum tots to pretty girls.

  Another pocket encyclopedia, the Wu-ching Tsung-yao, a collection of the most important military techniques, gave detailed accounts of the construction and functions of a vast array of military machines. Here is Professor Joseph Needham’s translation of the text next to an eleventh-century description of how to make a flamethrower:

  On the right is the naphtha flame thrower ( fang meng huo yu). The tank is made of brass and supported on four legs. From its upper surface arise four vertical tubes attached to a horizontal cylinder above. They are all connected with the tank. The head and tail of the cylinder are large, (the middle) of narrow diameter. In the tail is a small opening the size of a millet grain. The head end has two round openings.

  The description continues for another six lines before instructions are given for loading the machine:

  Before use the tank is filled with rather more than three catties of the oil with a spoon through a filter (sha lo). At the same time gunpowder (huo yao) is placed in the ignition chamber at the head. When the fire is to be started one applies a heated branding-iron (to the ignition chamber) and the piston rod is forced fully into the cylinder.2

  Subsequent instructions describe how to cope with misfiring or breakdown.

  There are equally detailed descriptions of other military hardware in this remarkable book. The most formidable weapon described is a water-wheeled battleship dating from the Song dynasty (A.D. 960–1279). It details a twenty-two-wheeled ship commanded by rebels and an even bigger one owned by the government. “Against the paddle wheel fighting ship of Yang Yao, the government force used live bombs thrown from trebuchet catapults. For these they used pottery containers with very thin walls, within which were placed poisonous drugs, lime and fragments of scrap iron. When these were hurled onto the rebel ships during engagements, the lime filled the air like smoke or fog so that sailors could not open their eyes.”3

  What is extraordinary is that this military information seems to have been unclassified—it could have been acquired by anyone. It must have been of considerable value to realms that lacked sophisticated gunpowder weapons in the 1430s, including Venice and Florence. Perhaps Chinese officers supplemented their incomes by selling these military pocket encyclopedias.

  We can be confident that Zheng He’s fleets had every weapon then known to the Chinese: sea-skimming rockets, machine guns, mines, mortars, bombards for use against shore batteries, cannons, flame-throwers, grenades, and much more. His fleets were powerfully armed and well supplied by water tankers and grain and horse ships, which enabled them to stay at sea for months on end. In addition, the ships were repositories of great wealth—both material and intellectual.

  Of equal importance were the calendars carried by the fleets. Given the order to inform distant lands of the commencement of the new reign of Xuan De, an era when “everything should begin anew,” a calendar was essential to Zheng He’s mission.

  Today, calendars are little more than holiday presents—Pirelli Tire calendars, featuring beautiful women, gardening calendars awash with color, others that remind us of bank holidays, when to celebrate Easter and file our tax returns. In the 1430s, Europeans had no unified calendar, for they had not yet agreed how to measure time. The Gregorian calendar did not come into use until a century later. To Islamic people, however, a unified calendar was essential. The Muslim calendar was based on lunar months rather than the solar year. Each month had a different purpose, such as the month to make the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, which began on the first day of the new moon. The Muslim calendar also provid
ed the times of the five daily prayers.

  The calendar was likewise of great political and economic importance to the Chinese, who for thousands of years had led the world in calendar making. In Ancient Chinese Inventions, Deng Yinke describes their meticulous approach.

  In 1276 Kublai Khan, the first emperor of the Yuan dynasty, assigned the task of compiling a new calendar to astronomer Guo Shou Jing so that his new empire would have a unified calendar from north to south and the errors in previous calendars could be corrected. Guo was a scientist with an exceptional talent and dedication. On taking over the task, Guo said “a good calendar must be based on observations and observations depend upon good devices.” He went on to examine the Hun Yi (armillary sphere), the only instrument in the observatory of the capital Dadu (Beijing), and found that the North Star of it was set at 35° which was at the latitude of Kaifeng where the Hun Yi was made. This meant that the instrument had not been adjusted when it was transported to Dadu from Kaifeng…. Guo thus made it a priority to develop new devices. Within three years of strenuous efforts he worked out twelve astronomical devices which were far better in function and accuracy than previous ones. He also made a number of portable instruments for use in field studies outside Dadu.