Zheng He was an unlikely admiral for the Chinese fleet. He was a Muslim eunuch from land-locked Yunnan who had been brought as a boy prisoner to the Ming court and castrated. Yet, he led seven major naval expeditions between 1405 and 1433 that visited South-East Asia, India, Sri Lanka, Arabia and East Africa. The ‘treasure fleets’ were of an astonishing scale, with over hundred ships and tens of thousands of men.
