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Engaging with the maritime world
Confucian officials at Chinese courts since the Han dynasty
(206 bce–220 ce) had tried unsuccessfully to curtail the
commercial motives of foreign tribute carriers. While the
court scribes portrayed the arrival of these missions as
acceptance of vassal status by foreign polities, in reality most
of the carriers were traders who sought to exploit the tribute
system by selling their merchandise in local markets for
considerable profit. During the Song dynasty, the court
eventually recognised the commercial intention of the
tribute carriers and tried to incorporate the practice into its
fiscal system. It gave various incentives to foreign traders,
including commercial privileges and tax breaks, and
encouraged them to bring other merchants to Song China.
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During the Song, because the overland routes to and beyond
Central Asia were blocked by the semi-nomadic polities
such as the Liao (907–1125) and Jin (1115–1234), the court
paid greater attention to maritime commerce than during
previous dynasties. As a result of these policies and
encouragements, exchanges with the Indian Ocean region
developed rapidly in the 11th and 12th centuries. The period
also witnessed the development of shipbuilding technology
and navigational skills in China and the emergence of
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Chinese communities abroad.
Many of the policies with regard to promoting maritime
commerce continued during the subsequent Yuan period.
Unlike the Song, however, the Yuan court under Qubilai
Khan (r. 1260–94) was actively involved in demanding
submission from maritime polities through official missions Plate 3.1 Patterned silk fragment, 1300–1600. Nanjing, Suzhou or
Hangzhou. Silk damask, height 19cm, width 14cm. Victoria and
and naval attacks. Between 1280 and 1296, for example, 13 Albert Museum, London, given by the Reverend Dr Franz Bock
missions were dispatched to strategic locations in the (1823–99), V&A 7052-1860
coastal regions of South Asia. Seven of these went to
Kollam on the Malabar coast and six went to the Ma’bar maritime realm. The threat to the Ming empire, according
polity on the Coromandel coast. These Yuan missions, to the Hongwu emperor, lay in the northern borderlands
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which took place against the backdrop of punitive naval and not in the coastal regions.
raids on Japan, Champa and Java, were intended to extract By the time the Yongle emperor usurped the Ming throne
tributary missions. Through these tributary missions in 1402, private commercial networks of Chinese merchants
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Qubilai wanted to project himself as the legitimate ‘Khan’ based in Southeast Asia had become active in Indian Ocean
in a politically fragmented Mongol world. It is likely that trade. Using Southeast Asian ports as their bases, these
during Qubilai’s reign a distinction was made between private merchants conducted trade with Ming China as well
tributary missions with commercial motives and those that as with the coastal regions of South Asia. One of the aims of
arrived to legitimise the Mongol ruler in China. This the Zheng He expeditions may well have been to bring the
distinction may have been made and enforced by commercial exchanges along the Ming coast, and the
scrutinising the background of the tribute carriers and networks of private Chinese traders based abroad, under
through verifications by court officials who personally state control. The intention was also to install friendly
travelled to foreign polities. regimes at key nodal points of the Indian Ocean world. All
The Ming court, under the founding ruler the Hongwu this was done through the demonstration of naval power,
洪武 emperor (r. 1368–98) and subsequently the Yongle evident from the size and number of ships, the large
emperor, followed the Yuan court’s policy in aggressively contingent of soldiers and the advanced weaponry carried
seeking tributary missions from maritime polities, including by Zheng He’s armada. Within this context, it is worth
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those in South Asia. The policies instituted by the Hongwu noting that the South Asian polities with which the Ming
emperor, including his ban on private Chinese traders court pursued diplomatic relations were either located in
engaging in foreign trade, had a significant impact on strategic sectors of the Indian Ocean and/or had emerged as
maritime commerce, diplomatic interactions and the important trading destinations for Chinese merchants.
formation of Chinese diasporic networks. The Hongwu
emperor also established a strict policy on tribute missions, Maritime power and diplomacy
restricting and punishing those who attempted to carry out The terminus of Zheng He’s first three expeditions was
commercial activities. Aware of Qubilai’s failed maritime Calicut (Guli 古里, now Kozhikode), the leading centre for
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strategy, the Hongwu emperor warned his heirs not to use intra-Indian Ocean commerce and the main exporter of
Ming China’s naval abilities to invade polities in the pepper from the Malabar coast. Prior to Zheng He’s arrival

Diplomacy, Trade and the Quest for the Buddha’s Tooth: The Yongle Emperor and Ming China’s South Asian Frontier | 27