The period from 1403 to 1433 marks China's golden age in water navigation. Under the patronage of the fourth Ming emperor, Zhu Di, China assembled a massive naval force, larger and technologically more sophisticated than any the world had ever seen then or until at least a century later. The ships embodied numerous innovations in navigation and gunpowder weapons well ahead of any other country in the world then. That technology enabled the fleet to make seven voyages to lands around China, Ceylon, India, Saudi Arabia and the west coast of Africa. China may have had the capacity to disover the New World about a halfcentury before Portugal and Spain.

Yet by 1434, all this was history. The ships were grounded, shipyards shut down, records of the expeditions destroyed, maps probably burned and the golden age of Chinese navigation came to an abrupt end. By the time of the seventh and last great voyage in 1433, China was on the verge of discovering and mapping the whole world, 60 years ahead of the Europeans. Then, suddenly, China ceased to be a world power. This chapter describes some of these innovations and attempts to explain the rise and fall of Chinese navigational power.

Innovations of the Chinese Golden Age

Between 1403 and 1433, the Chinese fleet may have required the construction of over 2,000 ships. The fleet's ships were bigger and longer than any built before in China. Fleets of about 270 ships with crews of about 27,000 consisted of five categories: treasure ships carrying gifts and dignitaries; horse ships carrying horses; supply ships carrying grain, water and other supplies; billet ships for troop transport; and combat ships. Large ships may have had up to nine masts and 12 sails and been up to 440 feet long and 180 feet wide (see Figure 5.1). The largest of these ships dwarfed those of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, who was the first European to navigate from Europe to Asia some 60 years later (see Chapter 7). Still, the Chinese ships had a displacement more than 10 times that of da Gama's ships. Indeed, one study concludes that “the largest [fifteenth- century Chinese] ships may well have been the largest wooden ships ever constructed.”