Marie Koo

The Fourth Voyage Of Zheng He In January 1414, Zheng He commended 63 vessels and 28,560 men to settle a war in Semudera (an independent township on the northern coast of Sumatra) and captured one of the warlords as per the Empire’s order. This is just one example of the many military actions carried out by Zheng He’s fleet. In this voyage, on board was the Arab/Chinese translator Ma Huan (He went on three of the seven voyages). They sailed to Champa, Java, Sumatra, Malay, Maldives, Ceylon and India (Bengal, then Hormuz). In Maldives, the fleet procured ambergris, cowrie shells and coconuts (Ma Huan was so impressed with the fruit that in his travelogue, The Overall Survey of the Ocean's Shores, he made note of “ten uses for coconuts”). In Hormuz, they traded silk and porcelain for sapphire, ruby, topaz, pearl, coral bead, amber, wool, carpet and were gifted lion, leopard, Arabian horses. There they met merchants from East Africa and persuaded them to travel back to China with the fleet as ambassadors.