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Chapter 3 Chinese courts and merchants rarely undertook diplomatic
or commercial activities in the Indian Ocean region prior to
Diplomacy, Trade and the the 11th century. In the first millennium ad, coastal China
was connected to the maritime world of the Indian Ocean
Quest for the Buddha’s through the shipping and trading networks of people from
Southeast Asia, the Persian Gulf and Sri Lanka (formerly
Tooth: Ceylon). China’s engagement with the Indian Ocean world
and the coastal regions of South Asia intensified gradually
The Yongle Emperor over the first half of the second millennium. During this
period, the Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1271–1368) courts
and Ming China’s were in frequent contact with maritime polities in the South
China Sea and across the Bay of Bengal. Seafaring
South Asian Frontier merchants from China also successfully established
commercial networks that, in the 12th and 13th centuries,
extended to the Coromandel and Malabar coasts of South
Tansen Sen Asia. By the time Zheng He 鄭和 (1371–1433) sailed on his
maiden voyage in 1405, Chinese traders and courts were no
longer passive participants in Indian Ocean trade and
diplomacy. Not only were Chinese seafaring merchants able
to bypass intermediaries and procure goods directly from
foreign markets, court officials from China also had the naval
prowess to demand submission from polities located as far
away as South Asia. Indeed, the maritime frontiers of Ming
China during the reign of the Yongle 永樂 emperor (1403–24)
extended to the coastal regions of South Asia, the main
destination of the first three voyages of ‘Admiral’ Zheng He.
Zheng He’s engagement with South Asia, a region he
visited during each of his seven expeditions between 1405 and
1433, was multifaceted and included places (such as Bengal)
that he did not travel to personally. It involved the use and
demonstration of military power in order to construct a
Chinese world order on behalf of the Yongle emperor, who
desperately sought to legitimise his usurpation of the Ming
throne. The solicitation and ferrying of tributary missions,
court-sponsored commercial activities and the search for
Buddhist relics were also part of these expeditions. The
objectives of the Zheng He-led expeditions to South Asia fit
with the arguments made by Geoffrey Wade in this volume
(see Chapter 2) and in his earlier works about the Ming
court’s pursuit of domination in the maritime regions.
Indeed, the activities of Zheng He and other Ming eunuchs
in South Asia were also associated, as in the case of Southeast
Asia, with seeking the submission of foreign rulers, procuring
exotic treasures and artefacts and legitimising the reign of the
Yongle emperor. Focusing on these objectives of the Zheng
He expeditions, this chapter outlines the complex and
multilayered relationships between the Ming court and
South Asia during the reign of the Yongle emperor. These
encounters differed significantly from those of previous
periods and were never replicated again by any future court
in China. In fact, the Zheng He expeditions marked the
culmination of the maritime interactions between South Asia
and China that grew rapidly after the 10th century. The main
difference was the unprecedented role of the state in directing
the interactions. While the abrupt end to the expeditions in
1433 led to the re-emergence of private merchant networks as
key facilitators of these linkages, the arrival of European
colonial polities in the 16th century yet again changed the
dynamics of maritime contacts between South Asia and
Ming China.

26 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450