China's Forgotten Treasure Fleet

China. A waking giant. Emerging in the 21st century from behind the closed doors of a long and secretive past. Rewriting the rules of international trade. But China has been here before. 600 years ago, her bidding was done by a vast and unstoppable fleet, led by one remarkable admiral. It's a mafia-like operation. It's an overwhelming demonstration of power. One of history's most accomplished leaders at sea. Yet today he remains a mysterious figure outside his own country. The most successful admiral, probably the maritime history of the world. An unrivaled naval superpower in an age of discovery. Could China have conquered the world? As a modern day adventurer risks everything to sail in its wake. This is the story of one of the greatest armadas ever assembled. When China ruled the waves. The dawn of the 15th century. Europe is being ravaged by war and the Black Death. Columbus won't stumble across America for nearly another century. But China, the Middle Kingdom, is a sophisticated and powerful nation. And control of her destiny has just changed hands. In 1402, after a bloody rebellion, a new emperor, Zhu Di, snatches power from his own nephew to start an ambitious new era for the Ming dynasty. Ruthlessly executing those who might oppose him, he orders the construction of a new imperial fleet of an extraordinary scale. Major rivers, such as the Yangtze, made it easy to transport timbers to the coastal capital Nanjing to support a huge shipbuilding program. Seven enormous dry docks, each over 300 meters long, allowed the construction of three ships in each by a workforce of 20,000 to 30,000 people. Within three years, more than 1,600 ships had been refitted or built from scratch. The largest vessels were monstrous nine-masted junks known as treasure ships. Powered by huge red silk sails, it's thought their dimensions may have rivaled those of some World War II aircraft carriers. According to Chinese historical records, we know that the largest treasure boat is about 140 meters long and more than 50 meters wide. And I think it's a credible record because through archaeology, like the shipyard discovered in Nanjing, the capital of Ming, it was big enough to construct that kind of treasure boat. The design incorporated several Chinese innovations, including watertight compartments divided by bulkheads modelled on the structure of bamboo, which made them very strong and less likely to sink if hauled. Formidable dragon eyes were painted on the bow in the belief that the ship would be able to see where it was going. The junks could hold over 2,000 tons of cargo, but the emperor was not supersizing his fleet purely for the practical advantages. The size of the vessels in Zheng He's fleet reflects a number of factors. Prestige is a very obvious one. The bigger your ship, the more powerful you appear. If you go on to the 16th century, you'll find the crown heads of Europe all building monumental ships to say, look at me, I'm bigger than the next guy. You know, it's that red sports car thing. The large junks were complemented by smaller support boats and more warships than the entire Spanish armada. By 1405, the Treasure Fleet, as it was known, comprised 317 vessels and almost 28,000 men. Larger than the combined fleets of Europe at that time, a task force of this scale would not be seen again until World War I. To lead his imperial navy, Zhu Di appointed a loyal military commander named Zheng He, a man he trusted to take his empire to the world. With an admiral at the helm, the fleet was ready for the emperor's orders. Fast forward 600 years, and the birthplace of the fleet, Nanjing, is still present. But the modern city is a far cry from its days as an imperial capital when it was surrounded by a wall 12 metres high and 24 kilometres long. It's now a typical industrial city, and an urban wasteland has swallowed up the site of perhaps the largest shipyard in Chinese history. But for one 21st century explorer, this part of China's history is still very much alive. Rex Warner became fascinated with the story of the Treasure Fleet almost 20 years ago and has decided to retrace the steps of its legendary commander in the type of vessel that would have been used in the 15th century. He's found a rare breed of ship that has now virtually disappeared from China, an ocean-going junk, and has assembled the perfect crew to man it. The team plan to follow in the wake of the Treasure Fleet to some of its most famous ports of call and look for evidence it may have left behind. Calling cards that might still be found 600 years on. To do so, they will need to negotiate some of the most treacherous waters on the planet, in many ways still as dangerous to seafarers today as they were in the 15th century. But before they can go anywhere, their new home for the next four months, the Precious Dragon, needs an extensive refit in Hong Kong harbour. Experienced seawoman and first mate Nicky Alford oversees the work. Found by Rex in England, the Precious Dragon is a replica of a traditional Chinese fishing junk used 200 years ago, with a high poop deck that overhangs the stern and four-sided sails stiffened with bamboo battens. At just over 18 metres in length, she's not quite a treasure ship, and Rex's tiny crew of five will need to work together to make the most of her basic facilities. As the final preparations are made, Rex thinks it prudent to pay homage to the goddess Tianfei, the patron of Chinese sailors. Burning incense is a way of asking for good luck during their passage across the stormy and pirate-infested South China Sea. This temple was built in 1416, and for centuries Chinese sailors have held a strong belief in the goddess's power to deliver them from the dangers of the high seas. Finally ready to depart, the only thing the team needs now is some good weather. But gale-force winds keep them pinned in Hong Kong harbour for two days. When the winds subside, they can begin their journey into the past. The man heading up the treasure fleet was himself a larger-than-life character. Born in 1371, Ma He, as he was originally called, was captured at the age of ten by the First Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang during the suppression of an uprising. Aged thirteen, he was castrated, and as a eunuch put into the service of the emperor's fourth son, Zhu Di. When Zhu Di ascended the throne, he gave Ma He the honorific name Zheng He and made him his head eunuch. A special relationship had developed. In general, eunuchs are the slaves to the masters. But in each individual case, you find they also have a very different relationship with the masters. In many cases, they have a very personal, very close relationship, almost like brothers or father and son. So in Chinese history, you can find that many eunuchs gained extremely powerful positions. A eunuch's severed manhood was kept in a sealed case, ready to be reunited with its owner in the afterlife. Zheng He's was a forced castration, but also a prerequisite for a successful role in the royal court. It's like passing the civil service exam. You have to make a sacrifice to prove your loyalty. Because you don't have any future prospects, your loyalty to your master is unquestioned. You're not going to be setting up a rival dynasty because you're not going to have a rival dynasty. You're not going to interfere in the imperial harem because you're not interested in things like that. So what's going on is you're making a demonstration of loyalty. Zheng He had accompanied the emperor on many military campaigns and so had proved himself capable of commanding a force the size of the treasure fleet. This was the highest military post ever awarded to a eunuch and he was even allowed to issue imperial orders himself at sea. Vanity may also have influenced the emperor's decision. Zheng He himself was a very impressive, handsome, tall man and so he is the image the emperor would like to project as representing himself or representing the empire. One of Zhu Di's first orders may have been to hunt down his deposed predecessor but his real intention was to use the power of the fleet in a more subtle way. It's about prestige and power. It's about things that kings and emperors are always interested in. He was saying, look at me, I can do this. Here's something that my predecessors didn't do. They didn't send big fleets. They didn't operate in these areas. Look at me, I'm even bigger and stronger than the last guy. Zhu Di was not intending to wage war but instead to do business. Any transactions, however, would be very much on his own terms. On board the precious dragon, two and a half days from Hong Kong, the voyage has got off to an uncomfortable start. The wind has blown up to 30 knots and the sea is looking increasingly menacing. The South China Sea is frequently hit by tropical storms. When the wind speed exceeds 120 km per hour, they're classed as typhoons, a word derived from the Chinese for big winds. Even today's ships struggle in these storms. To the crews of the treasure fleet, they must have been terrifying. The crew of the precious dragon have got their work cut out. It's two and a half days since we left Hong Kong and it's been a bit rough. Sometimes the boat rolls portals under and squirts of water come through. But otherwise she's coping well. We're sailing almost due south now and we're about a third of the way to Vietnam. To help retrace the Admiral's steps, Rex is employing two of the few records which have survived from the time of the treasure fleet. The first is a copy of the fleet's original seven-metre long navigation chart. While not drawn to scale, it depicts coastlines and key landmarks with written instructions detailing how to sail from port to port. Rex also has a written record of the fleet's exploits that was kept by one of Zheng He's translators, Ma Huan, as he documented the new people and cultures they encountered. The treasure fleet utilised many existing trade routes and would have headed first to the region then known as Champa, which is now part of Vietnam. This is therefore a logical first stop for Rex and after a rollercoaster ride, the team reach the port of Khi Non. Nikki knocks up a makeshift courtesy flag. This is a country's national flag flown by any boat that is visiting its waters. However, the immigration officials are not easily impressed and the crew are left to make running repairs in the harbour while the paperwork is scrutinised. It's four days now since we arrived. We haven't yet been allowed ashore. Bureaucracy, our number one enemy, is still flourishing. But we've been told that we will be allowed ashore and that we'll get our shore passes today. Police here, the frontier police, they've assigned one person to us who's on board throughout the day and night to look after us and to guard us. Also a bit frustrating not being able to go ashore and explore what Ma Huan found here 600 years ago. But hopefully if we can get our shore passes today, then tomorrow we'll be able to go ashore and start to explore and investigate that. Zheng He, arriving in a country with 28,000 men and some pretty impressive hardware, would have had no such problems. The psychological impact of seeing such a fleet appear on the horizon would have been huge. Anybody who saw for the first time a huge fleet with foreigners must be quite impressed. It's hot weather, they're wearing white silk. When they arrived, it was almost like something from a different world. They're called ghosts but could also be angels because they brought wonderful stuff for them. The wonderful stuff that the Chinese brought to trade included porcelain and silk. But in exchange, they demanded a high symbolic price. It's a mafia-like operation. I'll look after you if you treat me nicely. The emperor is the godfather of Asia. He's in control of everything and he likes to remind people of this quite forcefully now and again. And he gets paid off in whatever it is he likes to be paid in. So it's that kind of relationship. It's an enforcing... It's subtle but it's quite clear. If you mess with the Chinese emperor, he can take you down. The currency of this vast protection racket, known as tribute, has many extraordinary forms. If you read Chinese historical books, you always find that Chinese emperors loved foreign tributes. Strange animals, strange plants. They come from different lands. And because it's symbolic, the Chinese emperors, as the sons of heaven, by controlling these plants and animals, they feel they are the centre of the universe. Foreign envoys would often travel back with the fleet or simply arrive at the emperor's court bearing gifts of elephants, parrots, peacocks or giraffes. Unusual solutions to the problem of what to get for a man who has everything. After eight days cooped up on the boat, immigration visas are finally issued. But it leaves Rex just one day to explore the old-walled capital, Chan City, mentioned by Ma Huan in his diaries. Going southwest, you come to the city where the king resides. Chan City has a wall of stone with openings at four gates. There are some interesting remains of temples and stone towers, but nothing that looks likely to have been left behind by Zheng He himself. If there's any evidence of the treasure fleet left in Vietnam, it won't be found by a philosophical Rex on this visit. I wonder what Zheng He found when he arrived in Vietnam and whether he had similar problems to us, whether he had to get 28,000 visas for the 28,000 people in this voyage. If he did, then his fine would have been rather large because we were paying about £30 each. It's a disappointing start, but at least the precious dragon can be stocked with provisions and the odd souvenir. The treasure fleet would have spent more than two years at sea at a time. Rex's team are going to have to cut a few corners. For their second leg, they head not due south for Java and Sumatra, as the treasure fleet would have done, but for a later port of call for Zheng He, the Malaysian city-state of Malacca. It's a stretch of 2,000 kilometres of open water but the rough weather is the least of their concerns. This part of the South China Sea has another problem – pirates. These waters, surrounded by valuable commodities such as spices, have long offered rich pickings to traders and those that prey on traders. Pirates still roam today and stories abound of boarding and robbery. They've not been underway for long before unease quickly turns to panic as a boat full of men approaches. This time, the crew can relax though. The only cash they'll be relieved of is in exchange for some freshly caught fish. Pirates would have been on Zheng He's radar as well and his warships were well armed with cannons and incendiary weapons to guard against them. In 1407, the fleet even captured a Chinese pirate named Chen Zui at Palemberg who was later executed in Nanjing. This marked the end of the first voyage. The fleet had stamped Chinese authority on Southeast Asia and more voyages would be ordered by Zhu Di. The high seas were at his mercy. After another seven anxious days at sea, the tired crew of the Precious Dragon are relieved to finally arrive in Malacca. At the turn of the 15th century, this natural harbour was an important trading port at the entrance to the Indian Ocean. With his prosperous city eyed hungrily by neighbouring states, in 1405 the Malaccan ruler struck a deal with Zhu Di. In return for Malacca's sworn allegiance, the Chinese emperor recognised the city as an independent kingdom, a serious deterrent to potential aggressors. This alliance was formalised by a stone tablet erected in Malacca by Zheng He during the Treasure Fleet's third major voyage. Once ashore, Rex goes on the hunt for the tablet. His best lead seems to be the Sam Po Kong temple built in 1795 and dedicated to the memory of Zheng He. At the back of the temple, Rex finds two stone tablets. But his excitement is short-lived. There are two tablets commemorating Zheng He and his voyages which were erected here in the temple when it was built 200 years ago. So perhaps that's the closest evidence I can find of his visit. He's drawn a blank again. Along with the statue in the courtyard though, it's an indication that the legacy of Zheng He still means something to local people. And well it might. The Malaccan Chinese community are fond of the story that they're descended from Chinese nobility. Legend has it that a princess was brought here by the Treasure Fleet to wed the Malaccan sultan. She had 500 handmaidens marrying local men and settling in an area known as Bukit China or China Hill. In truth however, the population is more likely to have descended from Treasure Fleet sailors who simply jumped ship, tempted by life in another land. The spread of Chinese population throughout Southeast Asia was one of the most fundamental, if unintended, consequences of the voyages. Today Bukit is the site of the largest and oldest Chinese cemetery outside China. Zheng He's next point of call would have been the city-state of Semudera towards the northern end of Sumatra. Today a modern boom town known as Loxomui. To get there, the precious dragon will have to tackle the tricky 1100km Malacca Strait. They're sailing directly into the wind and are still in pirate territory, so diesel power is employed for this leg. At times though, modern technology can be even less reliable than the weather. While the rest of the crew keep an anxious watch, engineer Kevin Grist works fast to diagnose the problem. A blocked fuel pipe. There's tangible relief on board as the engine splutters back into life and the precious dragon can continue away from danger. As they approach Loxomui though, the crew receives a radio message from the port authorities warning them not to land. Where are you from? We are a crew from England and Sweden. Acre is Indonesia's most volatile territory and fighting has erupted between government forces and Achenese separatists. In 1414, the treasure fleet encountered similar troubles in the region, but Zheng He intervened and ended the power struggle by force. No one in the region was now outside the emperor's reach and troublemakers would not be tolerated. Unable to land, the team swing the precious dragon west. They'll have to stretch their provisions for a few extra days, but at least they have the advantage of modern tinned food. Feeding and maintaining a fleet the size of Zheng He's would have been a major logistical challenge. Preserving meat at sea in the tropics was difficult, so live animals were housed on some of the supply ships that just carried food for the voyage. Life at sea was harsh for the average sailor, although their expectations would have been very different to our own. The problem is that we take too much of the 21st century with us. The things that we find surprising would have been a matter of no concern for contemporary 15th century Chinese mariners. It's rough out there, there are pirates, the waves are pretty vicious, the wind fails, the food's not very good, the water doesn't smell very nice, so it's part of the job. For us, seeing foreign countries is a little bit banal because we do it all the time. For mariners who'd never left China, arriving on the coast of India would have been a wondrous experience. These people are completely different, the food is different, everything is different. So that would have been, it would have been a cultural impact, not the rather miserable experience of sailing at sea for long periods of time. But did the enormous crew need to be press ganged into service? I don't think they were forced into the army because the main army system actually is that you inherited the profession if your father was a soldier and you become a soldier. I think if you look at Chinese history, you find it's very common to gather a huge labour force to build the Emperor's tombs, build the Great Wall of China. So this fleet is just one of the examples of that. At the team's next destination lies an ancient landmark also recorded by Ma Huan. In the sea to the north-west of the country, there's a large, flat-topped, steep mountain. Ships look to this mountain as a guiding mark. This is Wei Island, with its now sleepy port of Sabang. Less than a hundred years ago, it was a port bigger than Singapore. Ships crossing the Indian Ocean refuelled here. And it was also used as a fuelling point by the Japanese when they occupied the city in World War II. Ma Huan made some observations about life on the island. At the foot of this mountain is a resident population of 20 or 30 families. Each man cites himself a king. If you ask his name, he says in reply, Aku Raja. Aku is Malay for I, Raja for Prince. The present-day inhabitants of Wei appear to live in their own very peaceful world, although they no longer call themselves Raja. After a quick stop to replenish the dwindling rations, the crew prepare themselves for a nine-day crossing of the Indian Ocean According to the original chart, they must steer exactly 285 degrees for 40 watches, then 277.5 degrees for 50 watches. The Chinese were sophisticated navigators and were among the first to use the magnetic compass at sea, probably as early as the 11th or 12th centuries. They kept time by burning incense sticks, which combined the length of a watch, 2.4 hours, exactly 10 per day. They also made use of the stars. The altitude of key stars above the horizon was recorded in star diagrams that could be referenced when sailing along certain latitudes. In a similar way, Nikki uses a sextant to measure the altitude of the sun and check the precious dragon's course. She has the advantage of radio communications to confirm the time at a place of known coordinates, allowing a calculation of longitude to be made. This was made possible by the invention of the chronometer in the 17th century. The ability of the Chinese to navigate as accurately as they did without either sextant or chronometer was remarkable. More stormy weather means the precious dragon takes another battery. But despite this, the crew still make good time, and after eight days' hard sailing, they reach land. The treasure fleet valued Sri Lanka for its ivory, pearls and gemstones. Once said to be the crystallised tears of Buddha, gemstones are still an important commodity for the island today. Dredging them by hand remains a favoured technique. Among the specimens that have been found here are some of the world's largest sapphires. Ma Huan's diary records the unique geography and religious significance of the island. There is a large mountain which penetrates high into the clouds. On the summit of the mountain, there is a single imprint of a man's foot. The mountain is the 2,500-metre Adams Peak, or Sripada, a place of pilgrimage for many religions for over 800 years. The long, arduous climb is traditionally made overnight. Buddhist pilgrims drape a needle and thread around a bush to mark the spot where Buddha is said to have stopped to mend a tear in his robe. It's two o'clock in the morning. I'm heading up Adams Peak. It's quite special to be going up Adams Peak because it's one of the major places described by Ma Huan in his diary. Rex finally reaches the summit just before dawn. The effort has been worth it. The rising sun casts a striking shadow of the mountain on the mist below. The impression in the rock at the summit referred to by Ma Huan represents to Buddhists the footprint of Buddha, to Muslims that of Adam and to Hindus of Shiva. Some pilgrims burn butter as an offering. Others fill the morning air with the fragrance of incense sticks. And they each toll the bell once for every ascent they've made. Having failed to find an original stone tablet in Malacca, Rex is keen to locate another stone, which Zheng He brought to Sri Lanka in 1411 as a gift for the king. Finally, he finds what he's looking for. I'm in the National Museum in Colombo and I've been able to find the tablet which was erected by Zheng He in Gaul 600 years ago. It's a stone tablet about five foot high and on it is writing in Chinese and in Tamil. It shows the Chinese thought very highly of different religions. There is also a third, Persian inscription on the tablet. Its multi-ethnicity was typical of Zhu Di's foreign policy, cultural sensitivity being key to developing the trade relations he desired. With success in Sri Lanka, the crew finally have something to celebrate. By 1422, Zheng He had led the treasure fleet on six successful voyages, travelling as far as the Swahili coast of East Africa. Zhu Di had succeeded in his plan to dominate his neighbours. Theories do exist, however, that the Chinese reached far more distant shores, including Australia and North America, decades before Columbus was even born. It's proved they would turn history on its head, but most historians are dismissive of such claims. It has been asserted by some popular writers that Zheng He or other Chinese enterprisers might have reached Canada, North America, South America, Australia, wherever. There's no evidence for this. There's no reason to suppose that they did. But had they done so, Zheng He's own hagiographers would have recorded the fact. What's been written down is probably only 20% or 50% of what happened, so we don't really know what actually happened. I think Zheng He could have went to some places and been recorded, but for places like Europe or America, that significant discovery is not in any of the records. So why, with the world at their feet, did these explorers from the East not go further? Could they have mapped the modern world? It seems they had the capability, but not the desire. Zheng He was sent off to visit all of the world that the Chinese knew about and cared about. That's not all of the world, but certainly all the world that mattered, all the world that was close enough to have any impact on China, or indeed close enough to be impressed by China and pay tribute. Columbus' three scrappy little vessels that the King of Spain couldn't care less about. It was like buying a lottery ticket. If it came off, great. If you lost them, doesn't matter. Zheng He isn't Columbus. He's not able to make it up as he goes along. He's following orders. If he'd gone off and found America, they'd have decapitated him. Unlike future Western powers, Zhu Di also showed an equal lack of interest in making China into a colonial empire. At no stage did they want to conquer foreign countries. Land expansion, yes. The Chinese have always viewed empire as an overland activity. They don't fight overseas. And their few attempts to invade other countries by sea, Kublai Khan's famous invasion of Japan, came to a tragic and unpleasant end, which one suspects the emperor in the early 15th century did not wish to revisit. So the Chinese elected not to conquer the globe, leaving the door open for Western mariners to write themselves into history. In fact, the treasure fleet was already sailing on borrowed time. From Sri Lanka, the treasure fleet would have headed north along the western side of India, as far as Calicut, a trading hub for southern Asia in the 15th century. But Rex and his team are aiming for a more distant final destination, Oman, on the far side of the Indian Ocean. The first step is the short four-day hop to the Maldives, 1,200 islands with a landmass of 300 square kilometres scattered over 90,000 square kilometres of ocean. The main danger in these waters is of running aground. Without electronic depth sounders, Zheng He's commanders must have been on their toes to pick their way through the shallow reefs. The Maldives give the impression that life hasn't changed a great deal since the treasure fleet called. Most of the population of around 300,000 subsist on fishing, collecting coconuts and growing cassava, sweet potatoes and yams. After three days of relaxation, the crew were ready for the final leg of their journey. After all, there'll be no land in sight for the next 14 days. Zhu Di's ambitious reign had stretched the empire's resources and in 1422 he was forced to suspend the treasure fleet voyages. Two years later, aged 64, China's most outward-looking emperor dies. His conservative-minded son succeeds him but has no interest in grand projects such as the treasure fleet. His sudden death, however, hands power to Emperor Zhu Zhanzhi who'd been heavily influenced by his grandfather Zhu Di. There will be another voyage. Launched in 1432, Zheng He is sent on a seventh glorious expedition. But he does not return. Aged 62, having sailed over 50,000 kilometres to more than 30 countries, China's heroic admiral dies at sea. Only his shoes and a braid of hair are returned to Nanjing for burial. A tomb remains in Nanjing today and is still visited by descendants of Zheng He's adopted nephew. In 1435, Zhu Zhanzhi also dies and with him, the last support for the treasure fleet. The conservative elements of the Chinese administration are able to complete a dramatic U-turn in foreign policy. China, they said, had everything she needed at home with no need for foreign influence or expensive luxuries such as the treasure fleet. Zheng He's voyages were extremely expensive. Apart from giving out all the valuable treasures and each voyage costs a huge amount of money from the treasure. So support from the emperor was no longer there. So Zheng He, as an old man, I think his death naturally brought the end to this very important maritime history of China. In 1477, the official written records of the fleet's exploits were deliberately destroyed. About 60 years after Zheng He's death, another new emperor came in and he was actually thinking of restart this ocean trade or have another kind of a very new policy in place. But some court officials were really against it. So it is because that kind of rejection to the idea, I think, they managed to hide or to destroy the records. By 1500, to curb any growth in private trade, it had become illegal to construct a boat with more than two masts. Tribute gifts dried up, trade suffered and pirates prospered. China's reign of naval supremacy was over. Her doors would remain closed to the world for the next five centuries. With a fair win behind them, Rex and his crew finally reached the port of Dufar in Oman. Probably visited just once by the treasure fleet, it was known for producing aromatic gums, including one of the world's most treasured fragrant resins, frankincense, still harvested here today. The precious dragon's 14,000-kilometre journey is complete. Rex has fulfilled his ambition and has brought the story of the treasure fleet to life once again. It's a reminder of China's nautical past that comes at an interesting stage in her more recent maritime history. In the 21st century, China finds herself in an era of unprecedented change. While the motivations and methods are very different to those of the 15th century, China's international trade is once again dependent on a relationship with the sea. Much of the world's container shipping now comes from China and her enormous manpower is producing goods as fast as the world can consume them. In the last 20 years, China has become the world's major exporter of manufactured goods. It necessarily has a huge interest in ocean-going trade and trading vessels and has become a major supplier of vessels. So China's relationship with the ocean has changed. Of necessity, not choice. China didn't go to sea for fun, China went to sea to make money, like all great maritime powers. Not only is her economic growth unrivaled, but her people and influence have also spread around the globe. China no longer waits for the world to come to her. At the moment, it's a new age of China and if you go to Africa, if you go south to Asia, you find the Chinese are there. So you can see a new treasure fleet from China is around the world. Maybe not in a real sense a fleet, but the influence, China influence is there. Of course we can see it's also motivated by mainly trade. So it is in a way an old policy revived. China has always been a superpower. Now the world is watching to see how this will be expressed next. One thing is certain. In Zheng He, China produced one of the most accomplished naval commanders the world has ever seen. A hero whose legend will endure to inspire future generations of a nation once again set to take the world by storm. Zheng He was an outstandingly effective expedition leader. He was given a mission, he stuck to his orders, and he brought his ships back. Zheng He is a great explorer, not just an ocean explorer, he's also an explorer of humanity.