Not once, but seven times, from 1405 to 1433, Admiral Zheng He sailed across the known world, around Southeast Asia and past the Middle East, eventually ending up in East Africa.
The Chinese emperor launched, under the command of Admiral Zheng He, the most ambitious naval expedition of all time, with twenty-eight thousand sailors on a fleet of 317 huge ships, each one five times longer than the ships of Columbus. The world would not see anything like it for another four hundred years. Not once, but seven times, from 1405 to 1433, Admiral Zheng He sailed across the known world, around Southeast Asia and past the Middle East, eventually ending up in East Africa. There are ancient woodcuts of the strange animals, like giraffes, that he brought back from his voyages of discovery being paraded before the court.
But when the emperor passed away, the new rulers decided that they had no use for exploration and discovery. They even decreed that a Chinese citizen could not own a boat. The fleet itself was left to rot or allowed to burn, and records of Admiral Zheng He’s great accomplishments were suppressed. Succeeding emperors effectively cut off contact between China and the rest of the world. China turned inward, with disastrous results, eventually leading to decay, total collapse, chaos, civil war, and revolution.
