The route of the 7th voyage of Zheng He's fleet.

Cities visited by Zheng He's fleet or its squadron on the 7th or any of the previous voyages are shown in red.

Zheng He's first voyage, which departed July 11, 1405, from Suzhou, consisted of a fleet of 317 ships ( other sources say 200 ships ) holding almost 28, 000 crewmen ( each ship housing up to 500 men ).

Zheng He's fleets visited Arabia, Brunei, the Horn of Africa, India, Southeast Asia and Thailand, dispensing and receiving goods along the way.

While Zheng He's fleet was unprecedented, the routes were not.

Zheng He's fleet was following long-established, well-mapped routes.

* According to the 1421 theory, Zheng He's fleets return to China.

While Chinese boats continued traveling to Japan, Ryukyu, and many location in South-East Asia both before and after the Yongle era, Zheng He's expeditions were China's only major sea-going explorations of the world ( although the Chinese may have been sailing to Arabia, East Africa, and Egypt since the Tang Dynasty, from AD 618 – 907 or earlier ).

By 1430 Zheng He's expeditions has established Muslim Chinese and Arab communities in northern ports of Java such as in Semarang, Demak, Tuban, and Ampel, thus Islam began to gain foothold on Java's northern coast.

Early 17th century Chinese woodcut | woodblock print, thought to represent Zheng He's ships

The dimensions of Zheng He's ships according to ancient Chinese chronicles are disputed by modern scholars ( see below ):

A painting by the court artist depicting one of Zheng He's giraffes in 1414.

A smaller Mazu temple exists in the Treasure Boat Shipyard Park, located at the site of the Longjiang Shipyard where Zheng He's treasure ships were built.

The book is written informally, as a series of vignettes of Menzies ' travels around the globe examining what he claims is evidence for his " 1421 hypothesis ", interspersed with speculation and description of the achievements of Admiral Zheng He's fleet.

Menzies claims that knowledge of Zheng He's discoveries was subsequently lost because the Mandarin bureaucrats of the Imperial court feared that the costs of further voyages would ruin the Chinese economy.

Rivers writes that Menzies contradicts himself by saying elsewhere in his book that Taccola had started his work on his technical sketches in 1431, when Zheng He's fleet was still assembled in China, and that the Italian engineer finished his technical sketches in 1433 — one year before the purported arrival of the Chinese fleet.

Already in May 1421, during the reign of the Yongle Emperor, an order was issued for the suspension of Zheng He's maritime expeditions, apparently on account of their cost ( although the order apparently did not affect the 6th voyage of Zheng He, staged around that time ).

Zhu Gaochi, as soon as he became the Hongxi Emperor in September 1424, canceled Zheng He's maritime expeditions permanently and abolished frontier trade of tea for horses as well as missions for gold and pearls to Yunnan and Vietnam.

The author Gavin Menzies argues in 1421: The Year China Discovered America that the tower was built by a colony of Chinese sailors and concubines from the junks of Zheng He's voyages either as a lighthouse, or, based on Penhallow's findings, as an observatory to determine the longitude of the colony.

However, the accusation by certain parties that the historical details of Admiral Zheng He's Expeditionary Naval Force puts the Malay kingdom's sovereignty in a bad light, appeared to be questionable as it is well recorded that Zheng He, who voyaged to Malacca several times, did establish a regional headquarters in Malacca in the 15th century to conduct regional diplomatic and entrepot activities in Southeast Asia due to the close relation between the emperor of China and the kingdom of Malacca as well as the importance of Malacca as an entrepot in Southeast Asia.

* Fei Xin, Zheng He's translator

A replica of Long Ya Men at the Labrador Nature Reserve, put up in 2005 as part of the Singapore Zheng He's 600th Anniversary Celebrations

* December 19 – Zheng Zhenduo, Chinese author and translator ( d. 1958 )

Ma Huan, the Muslim voyager and translator who accompanied Admiral Zheng He on three of his seven expeditions to the Western Oceans, describes the king of Cochin as being a Buddhist.

Zheng He ( 1371 – 1433 ), formerly romanized as Cheng Ho and also known as Ma Sanbao and Hajji Mahmud Shamsuddin, was a Muslim Hui-Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral, who commanded voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Somalia and the Swahili coast, collectively referred to as the " Voyages of Zheng He " from 1405 to 1433.

Zheng, born as Ma He ( 馬和 / 马和 ), was the second son of a Muslim family which also had four daughters, from Kunyang, present day Jinning, just south of Kunming near the southwest corner of Lake Dian in Yunnan.

Leading contemporary visual artists include Ai Weiwei, Cai Guoqiang, Cai Xin, Fang Lijun, Huang Yan, Huang Yong Ping, Kong Bai Ji, Lu Shengzhong, Ma Liuming, Ma Qingyun, Qiu Shihua, Song Dong, Li Wei, Christine Wang, Wang Guangyi, Wang Qingsong, Wenda Gu, Xu Bing, Yang Zhichao, Zhan Wang, Zheng Lianjie, Zhang Dali, Zhang Xiaogang, Zhang Huan, Zhu Yu, Yan Lei, Ma Kelu, Ding Fang, Shang Yang, Wei, Ligang ( modern calligraphist ), Yue Min Jun, Zheng Fan Zhi, Liu Fengzhi, and Zhang Yue.

* " Bad diplomatic relations between Zhou and Zheng ; Emperor Gaozu of Han requesting for a bowl of broth ; Kui Xiao giving away his son ; Ma Chao betraying his father ; ( these are ) examples of extreme cruelty.

** Supporters included Woo, Lu, Ma, Li, Xing, Wang Sui, Hu, Yang Qu, Gao, Chen, and Zheng.

* Ma Huan, a companion of Zheng He

Associated with Ma Jin, Zheng won the Mixed Doubles title at the 2010 BWF World championships.

We are told that Ma Xu ( a youth ca 110 ) and Zheng Xuan ( 127-200 ) both studied the Nine Chapters on Mathematical procedures.

His accounts are contemporary, and fairly consistent with those of the Chinese writers who were on Zheng He's ships, such as Ma Huan ( writing in 1433 ) and Fei Xin ( writing in about 1436 ).

* Zhu C, Zheng CG, Ma CM, Yang XX, Gao XZ, Wang HM, Shao JH.

By 667 BC, Qi had clearly shown its economic and military predominance, and Duke Huan assembled the leaders of Lu, Song, Chen, and Zheng, who elected him as their leader.

In 667 Duke Huan met with the rulers of Lu, Song, Chen and Zheng and was elected leader.

** Consort Zheng Achun ( 鄭阿春 ) ( d. 326 ), mother of Princes Huan and Yu, posthumously honored as Empress Dowager Xuan

In 806 BC King Xuan, the penultimate king of the Western Zhou Dynasty, enfeoffed his younger brother Prince You at Zheng ( present-day Hua County, Shaanxi ), who became posthumously known as Duke Huan of Zheng.

Duke Huan was succeeded by his son Duke Wu, who helped King Ping of Zhou establish the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in Luoyang, and his feudal state of Zheng was also moved east to present-day Henan.

The ancient geographical treatise Shui Jing Zhu records that Lord Huan of Zheng, a local lord from the Western Zhou Dynasty, was slain in a battle with non-Chinese Rong people, and the citizens fled south to found a new settlement, giving rise to the area's name.

Prince You, known posthumously as Duke Huan of Zheng ( 鄭桓公 ), established what would be the last bastion of Western Zhou going on to serve as Minister over the Masses ( 司徒 ) under King You of Zhou.

Duke Zhuang of Zheng ( 743 – 701 BCE ) was arguably a forerunner of the Five Hegemons, though Zheng derived its dominance by dramatically different means compared to those of the later hegemons by defeating an alliance of feudal states led by Zhou itself and wounding King Huan of Zhou.

* 1 Duke Huan of Zheng ( 鄭桓公 / 郑桓公 ) ( 806 – 771 BCE ), founder, killed at the end of the Western Zhou period

* 2 Duke Wu of Zheng ( 鄭武公 / 郑武公 ) ( 771 – 744 BCE ), son of Duke Huan, helped establish the Eastern Zhou Dynasty