Zheng He

By Pueros

(AD 1422)

Zheng He (pronounced ‘jung huh’) woke in a sweat, which was not unusual because he had suffered the same nightmare many times previously. The unusually tall 51 year-old man now found it difficult to sleep again and so arose from his bed in his large and very well appointed cabin, put on a silk gown for protection from the nighttime chill and went upstairs to the deck above, illuminated by several lanterns.

All was quiet outside until one of the night guards, spotting Zheng He, saluted his leader, who politely acknowledged the salutation. The great admiral then went to stand alone against the side of his huge ship to look at the dark tree-lined shoreline nearby, sillouhetted against the cloudless moonlit night sky, full of the twinkling stars that, with the sun and moon, had aided his navigation to this place, far away from his adopted homeland. The stellar technique of guidance was unknown in the Europe of the time.

Zheng He’s exploratory shore parties had suggested that this location, actually an island just off the main continental landmass, would be ideal for the last colony to be established before the great admiral’s fleet returned home. It had set out a year earlier on this challenging expedition, designed mainly to accrue treasure and bring Chinese civilisation to distant barbarian lands. It had first ventured southwest, eventually reaching very cold climes and very rough seas, made even more dangerous by occasional floating mountains of pure ice.

The fleet had finally turned towards the northwest when its progress was blocked by a land seemingly consisting of nothing but snow and ice and strange flightless birds. The journey had then taken them past the continent of the blacks, which Zheng He already knew about and had visited, into the as yet untraversed vast ocean to the west.

After many weeks, further landfall was attained, another apparently massive continent, full of strange people and vegetation. Several colonies were established along the seemingly endless shoreline, as Zheng He’s fleet slowly travelled northwards across first the Tropic of Capricorn, then the Equator and finally, amidst many large and small islands, the Tropic of Cancer. Many climatic conditions were encountered on the way but no humans who could be called sophisticated. The great admiral therefore continued to recognise the wisdom of his Emperor, Zhu Di, the third of the Ming dynasty, who had commissioned him to “proceed all the way to the end of the Earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas….to attract all under heaven to be civilized in Confucian harmony.”

Zheng He was already renowned throughout China as a great explorer, having traversed both the Indian and Pacific Oceans. However, on this occasion, the great admiral was seeking to surpass even these monumental voyages and his fleet was so huge that nothing like it would be seen again until the 1st World War. It consisted of 107 ships that were three times the size of contemporary European vessels. The biggest were 122 metres (400 feet) long, or about 15% longer than a modern destroyer, and 27 metres (90 feet) wide. Each was manned by hundreds of sailors, most former criminals.

When the fleet had set sail from Nanjing, where all the ships had been built in the great naval dockyards located in the then Chinese capital, it carried over 28,000 people. All the vessels, which communicated with each other through the use of flags, banners, bells, gongs, lanterns and carrier pigeons, had flat bottoms. These enabled them to travel along the Yangtze River and the associated great canals that linked the inland city, which was soon to lose its Imperial status to Beijing, to the East China Sea. The rudders of the boats alone were taller than their contemporary European equivalents were long.

The fleet, which divided itself up into five smaller units, was well supplied and could sustain itself for many months without coming across land. For example, there were separate ships to carry fresh water, grain and horses. Pigs were kept in sties and dogs, a Chinese delicacy to this day, were bred for eating.

Crews included many artisans as well as sailors, and there were also interpreters skilled in seventeen different Indian and African languages. Each vessel additionally possessed female prostitutes to entertain the men. The women were equipped with sexual aids, including instructional books and aphrodisiacs. However, their role was not only to keep the male workforce happy but also to form part of the breeding stock for the planned colonies.

The bigger ships possessed nine masts with massive sails and were double-hulled so that they could survive collisions with rocks, ice or other obstacles. It is a pity that many modern vessels, especially certain oil tankers that have caused much environmental catastrophe, have not been designed with similar foresight. Zheng He’s larger boats also possessed up to eighty private cabins, with sun decks and verandas for the more important passengers.

The fleet utilized the compass, invented in China four centuries earlier, to aid navigation. Graduated sticks of incense were burned to measure time, with each day being divided equally into ten watches. Latitude was determined through monitoring the North Star in the northern hemisphere or the Southern Cross in the southern. Longitude was estimated through observations of the moon, particularly lunar eclipses.

After a while contemplating the dark shoreline, Zheng He returned to his cabin to try to sleep again. He succeeded but his recurrent nightmare returned once more.

Zheng He, or Ma He as was known as a boy, was now a young pre-pubescent Moslem 10 year-old once more,living amongst his ethnic minority Hui people in the town of Kunyang in Yunan, along the border between China and Burma. His father was a ‘Hajji’, someone who had successfully made a pilgrimage to Mecca. However, the world as the youngster had known it was shattered by the arrival of Imperial Chinese troops, set on subjugating and annexing the region.

Ma He was captured and transported back to Nanjing. He remembered the shame of being displayed naked in the slave market to be intimately inspected by potential buyers before being sold to a state official, who had seen something in the young boy to indicate that his future should be in the service of the man's masters, the Mings.

Service for the Imperial family was obviously likely to be better than being the slave of less affluent people. However, such a destiny came with a price, as Ma He began to realise when he was taken to a workshop in the palace of the Mings and fastened by leather restraints, face-up, spreadeagled and nude, to an old table, sanguinely hued as a result of many old and new bloodstains.

The workshop’s craftsman tied a thin leather cord tightly around Ma He’s genitals, as well as a protective gag to his young victim's mouth. He allowed the ligature to perform its task for a short time before introducing a little razor-sharp curved knife to the lower base of the boy’s small scrotum, whilst holding the now 11 year-old’s suddenly erect diminutive penis out of the way with his spare hand. This recollection usually encouraged Zheng He to wake in a sweat but, on this occasion, his nightmare continued remorselessly, as his smooth sexual organs were now agonizingly amputated.

Zheng He tossed and turned in his cabin bunk, as his subconscious remembered the knife penetrating Ma He’s scrotal flesh before his appalled young lachrymose eyes were presented with his own freshly severed bloody genitalia to inspect by the smiling craftsman, who then cauterised the resultant appalling wound by application of a red-hot poker. The slowly recovering boy was subsequently deprived of water for several days to prevent urination, which could have caused infection. However, after this terrible excruciating and tormenting period of recuperation, the 11 year-old was forced to drink enormous amounts of fluid until the pressure in his bladder punctured a hole in the layers of genital scar tissue, finally reopening his healed urethra. The fatality rate for this nullification operation was as high as 90% but the young Moslem somehow survived, with the aid of hot chili sauce which was used as a local anaesthetic, to become the servant of Prince Zhu Di, fourth of the twenty-six sons of the Ming Emperor.

Ma He was to give Zhu Di exemplary service, especially when the prince successfully sought to usurp the throne. The servant was renamed Zheng He when his horse was killed under him in battle outside a town called Zhenglunba. He was also sometimes later known as ‘San Bao’, which means ‘three jewels’, and, after his master became Emperor in 1402, he became Grand Imperial Eunuch before embarking upon his remarkable naval career.

Zheng He eventually woke at dawn, dripping in sweat as a result of enduring his worst nightmare once again. However, the great admiral quickly regained his composure to wash and redress himself in his daytime attire, before calling a conference of all the fleet’s captains on board the flagship. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss precise arrangements for establishing the new colony on the nearby island.

Tiny sail or row boats brought the captains to Zheng He’s enormous ship. There were fewer at this conference than in earlier meetings during the epic vogage of discovery because a number of vessels and their crews had been lost in storms or other mishaps or through previous colonisation. However, one thing had not changed, as the men gathered around a large table in the great admiral’s cabin, for all present were like their renowned leader, a nullified eunuch. Such a physical condition was a prerequisite qualification in Zhu Di’s China for the occupation of important Imperial posts.

A month later, Zheng He’s remaining ships set sail on their long journey home. As he looked one last time at the receding shoreline and the colonists left behind, seventy years before Christopher Columbus was to set out on his own voyage of discovery, the great admiral wondered what would become of the land in the centuries ahead.

In fact, the island was to become the smallest of the United States of America.

THE END

of

'ZHENG HE'

by Pueros