Product Description

A hundred years before Columbus and his fellow Europeans began making their way to the New World, fleets of giant Chinese junks commanded by the eunuch admiral Zheng He and filled with the empire's finest porcelains, lacquerware, and silk ventured to the edge of the world's `four corners.' It was a time of exploration and conquest, but it ended in a retrenchment so complete that less than a century later, it was a crime to go to sea in a multimasted ship. In When China Ruled the Seas, Louise Levathes takes a fascinating and unprecedented look at this dynamic period in China's enigmatic history, focusing on China's rise as a naval power that literally could have ruled the world and at its precipitious plunge into isolation when a new emperor ascended the Dragon Throne. During the brief period from 1405 to 1433, seven epic expeditions brought China's `treasure ships' across the China Seas and the Indian Ocean, from Taiwan to the spice islands of Indonesia and the Malabar coast of India, on to the rich ports of the Persian Gulf and down the African coast, China's `El Dorado', and perhaps even to Australia, three hundred years before Captain Cook was credited with its discovery. With over 300 ships - some measuring as much as 400 feet long and 160 feet wide, with upwards of nine masts and twelve sails, and combined crews sometimes numbering over 28,000 men - the emperor Zhu Di's fantastic fleet was a virtual floating city, a naval expression of his Forbidden City in Beijing. The largest wooden boats ever built, these extraordinary ships were the most technically superior vessels in the world with innovations such as balanced rudders and bulwarked compartments that predated European ships by centuries. For thirty years foreign goods, medicines, geographic knowledge, and cultural insights flowed into China at an extraordinary rate, and China extended its sphere of political power and influence throughout the Indian Ocean. Half the world was in China's grasp, and the rest could easily have been, had the emperor so wished. But instead, China turned inward, as suceeding emperors forbade overseas travel and stopped all building and repair of oceangoing junks. Disobedient merchants and seamen were killed, and within a hundred years the greatest navy the world had ever known willed itself into extinction. The period of China's greatest outward expansion was followed by the period of its greatest isolation. Drawing on eye-witness accounts, official Ming histories, and African, Arab, and Indian sources, many translated for the first time, Levathes brings readers inside China's most illustrious scientific and technological era. She sheds new light on the historical and cultural context in ghich this great civilization thrived, as well as the perception of other cultures toward this little understood empire at the time. Beautifully illustrated and engagingly written, When China Ruled the Seas is the fullest picture yet of the early Ming Dynasty - the last flowering of Chinese culture before the Manchu invasions.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #106380 in Books
• Published on: 1997-03-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

The Washington Post
"Taking the maritime story as her main theme, Levathes presents a fascinating picture of political and court life during the first several reigns of the Ming ... The story Levathes tells so skillfully could scarcely be more timely."

Review
Taking the maritime story as her main theme, Levathes presents a fascinating picture of political and court life during the first several reigns of the Ming ... The story Levathes tells so skillfully could scarcely be more timely. (The Washington Post )

Both an eloquent and smooth sail through history, and a reminder the China should have been the world's great imperial power; a glimpse into a shrouded past, and a journey that is astonishing and fun. (Ken Auletta )

About the Author
Louise Levathes was a staff writer for National Geographic for ten years and writes for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. In 1990, she was a visiting scholar at The Johns Hopkins Centre for Chinese and American Studies at Nanjing University, Jiangsu, China.

Customer Reviews

History & cultural lessons
While the West was still dragging itself out of the Dark Ages, China had a thriving sea trade with India and Africa, and arguably with places as far off as South America and Australia, not to be beaten for hundreds of years.

There is an incredible amount of history here, most of it unknown in the West, which sets the scene for the building of a massive trading fleet by the eunuch Admiral Zheng He, and his subsequent voyages of exploration. At least one type of ship was 400 feet long, at the time when Columbus's ships were under 100 - about 50 times the capacity.

So what went wrong? What could stop such a powerful naval nation in its tracks? An Imperial Decree - forbidding sea voyages, considering them unproductive, uneconomic and, more importantly, un-Confucian - effectively shut the door on Chinese expansion and fostered the introversion that has only ceased in the last few years.

Ms.Levathes has uncovered information hidden for years to present this highly informative and unusual subject in a very accessible form, although I did find the similarity of the Chinese names slightly confusing, which made for heavy reading at times. However, it still gets *****.

Fascinating & Thought-Provoking
China --- both the modern state and especially its imperial predecessor --- is usually portrayed as being isolationist, looking inward, shunning contact with other lands. There is undoubtedly a great deal of accuracy in that view. But China also has a tradition of seafaring and exploration of the outside world that goes back at least 4000 years. These two opposing philosophies --- on the one hand, the Confucian attitude of keeping China self-sufficient and isolated; on the other a desire to reach out for trade, profit, or mere curiosity --- have sometimes clashed throughout Chinese history.

Louise Levathes' book When China Ruled the Seas documents one such clash. Shortly after Emperor Zhu Di seized the throne from his young nephew, he ordered the construction of a vast ocean-going fleet. Possibly rumors that the previous emperor had fled abroad --- his body was never identified with certainty --- motivated a search of neighboring lands. Perhaps too Zhu Di felt the need to announce to his neighbors that he had ascended the Dragon Throne. But probably the major reason for construction of the enormous fleet was trade. After years of civil war, China's treasury was depleted and her economy was in shambles. Nothing would revive things like an influx of tribute from China's nominal vassal states.

So orders went out all over China for the construction of over 1,600 vessels of all types. Most impressive of all were four Treasure Ships, each over 400 feet long and 160 feet wide, designed to carry Chinese products overseas for trade, and to bring back foreign goods in return. Between 1405 and 1433 the "Treasure Fleet" --- usually under command of the eunuch Zhang He --- made seven trips to various ports of call in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Not only was contact re-established with China's traditional vassals in Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Siam, and Indonesia, but the Treasure Fleet also reached India, and ultimately went as far as the Persian Gulf, the Arabian peninsula, and East Africa. Levathes even speculates that Chinese ships touched on Australia.

Within a decade China was at the height of its influence, and had become the most advanced sea power at the time. But wealth from the foreign trade went mainly to the imperial court. For the common people the Treasure Fleet brought higher taxes and demanding officials seeking supplies for the fleet. By the last years of Zhu Di's reign China was beset with poor harvests, famine and epidemics at home and rebellion abroad. The emperor began to rethink his extravagant policies and ordered cutbacks in trade and government expenditures. The days of Chinese ascendancy on the seas had passed. The Treasure Fleet was allowed to decay, Zhang He's logs were destroyed, and by 1500 it was a capital crime to build ocean-going vessels. This led to a decline in Chinese technology in general, so that eventually the West surpassed China, and the Middle Kingdom was relegated to the status of a third-class nation.

How different the world today would be if history had taken another course; if the Chinese had discovered America from the East. This might have been possible had the Treasure Fleet been maintained rather than mothballed.

A well-researched, lively look at a great seafaring nation
An excellent and gripping story that most people have never heard of, I loved the book and have shared it with many friends. This book covers everything from the emporers to the laborers with amazing tales, often reconstructed from archives, that will have you turning the pages too quickly. More than just a look at the ships, the book sheds light on why they were built and later disbanded as well as the impact of those decisions. To imagine what could have been...