Did Zheng He lose money when he went to the West, or did he make money?

Zhu Di, the king of Yan, rejuvenated the army of Jingjing, seized the throne, rewarded meritorious soldiers, summoned Confucian scholars from all over the world to edit the Yongle Grand Canon, built a big ship, sent Zheng He to the West six times, sent a large army to attack Vietnam, and built the Beijing Palace, used the five southern provinces to pay taxes, and built the Wudang Mountain Taoist Temple after 14 years, which cost tens of thousands, so that the treasury was empty and the salary was empty.

In order to solve the financial difficulties, Ming Chengzu promoted the Western Ocean and expanded overseas trade. The benefits brought to the Ming Dynasty government by the open policy of Western trade amounted to at least 230,000 taels of gold and 10 million taels of silver, which was more than ten times the income of the Song and Yuan Dynasty cities.

During the Yongle period, Zheng He's trip to the West cost about 6 million taels of silver, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a ship.

After six trips to the West, after Zhu Di's death, many literati demanded to stop Zheng He's move to go to the West on the grounds of losing money, and Emperor Xuande Zhu Zhanji also ordered to stop going to the West again. Although the seventh trip to the West was in Xuande for five years, Zhu Zhanji reopened, but it also ended hastily and never set sail again.

This is undoubtedly the embarrassment of the literati at the loss of power, and an industry that makes money and has the opportunity to open doors to other countries has disappeared in the impeachment infighting. So after Zheng He, there was no more Zheng He, and if China made more than seven trips to the West, what would have been the result?

At that time, when a small overseas country saw Zheng He's team, it was absolutely a big surprise, there were too many people, more than 27,800 people.

Except for a few civilian officials, there was not a single person from the economic circles, and the rest were all soldiers, from the five military regions of the Ming Dynasty, mainly in the coastal areas. Among the friendly delegations, there are also Daming's special forces Jinyiwei. The mixed fleet set sail from the Longjiang Port of Nanjing, went to sea through Taicang, and went straight to the Western Ocean.

The destination is preferred, which is related to Li Ting's intelligence and the comprehensive analysis of the imperial court. There are many people who live on the southeast coast and pioneer immigrants to Nanyang, and the history is even longer, especially during the war. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, it is said that the rest of Zhang Shicheng's troops fled to Nanyang. Emperor Jianwen took refuge in the Kaiyuan Temple in Quanzhou, and finally set sail to the sea, secluded on the east coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, which is also one of the many rumors. If this is indeed the case, Emperor Jianwen gathered Chinese overseas and then called on the countries to raise troops as the suzerain, even if he could not achieve a counteroffensive, the political impact would be extraordinary.

It seems a slight exaggeration to use the word fleet to refer to Zheng He's fleet, how can a diplomatic and man-seeking fleet be called a fleet? But there is really no other word to describe his fleet except fleet.

Relying on the clothes of Chen Youliang, a generation of heroes of the year, Zhu Yuanzhang attaches great importance to shipbuilding technology, and it is no wonder that Zhu Yuanzhang suffered a lot of losses in the water war with Chen Youliang back then, and even his life was almost involved. With his encouragement, the shipbuilding process of the Ming Dynasty developed greatly.

The largest of Zheng He's ships was called the Treasure Ship, but how big was it? The sails of this ship were not the kind of single sailing ship that one saw, and it was hard to imagine that it had twelve sails. Its anchor and rudder are also giant-type, and when it turns, it requires hundreds of people to shout slogans and work together to swing it. In the fifties, Nanjing City had excavated the ruins of the Ming Dynasty treasure ship manufacturing, and unearthed a wooden pole, which was 11 meters long, and the question was, which part of the ship was this wooden pole?

The conclusion of the appraisal came out, and everyone was dumbfounded, this wooden pole was not the mast that people expected, but the rudder. What the mast is should be clear to everyone, the so-called rudder rod is just the control linkage rod of the ship's rudder blade, after calculation, the height of the rudder blade connected to this rudder rod is about six meters, that is to say, the rudder blade of this ship is three stories high.

An aircraft carrier, is a veritable aircraft carrier.

This kind of treasure ship is the capital ship of Zheng He's fleet, which is commonly referred to as the flagship, in addition to horse ships specially used for transportation, warships used for warfare, grain ships used to transport grain, and water ships specially used to transport people between major ships. Zheng He led such a fleet, and the name of the fleet is really well deserved.

This was the situation of Zheng He's fleet, so how many men did he take to the Western Ocean? More than 27,800 soldiers and soldiers. To tell the truth, judging from this figure, it doesn't look like this fleet is going to find people or do diplomacy in any way, but it is very suspicious that it went out to find ballast to fight. But the facts tell us that this is indeed a friendly fleet, and everywhere it goes, there is no war and blood, only peace and friendliness. Strong but not bullying, mighty but not domineering, this is the bearing and heritage of a great country and nation.

Zheng He's fleet sailed south, first to the city, and then they went south from the city, half a month later to Java, which is an important stronghold of the Strait of Malacca, but all from the Strait of Malacca to Africa must pass through here, at that time it was also a densely populated, rich place, of course, this place did not have a unified government.

When Zheng He's fleet arrived, it was intended to continue south, but a tragedy struck suddenly, and the fleet's voyage was halted, and Zheng He would face the first difficult test of his sailing career.

There are two kings who rule the kingdom of Java, and they are at war with each other, the king of the east and the king of the west, and as for who they are, it is also a nonsense, anyway, the king of the west defeated the king of the east. After the defeat of the East King, the country was also destroyed, and the West King was ready to settle accounts after the autumn, just at this time Zheng He's fleet passed through the territory of the East King, and the people under the West King were red-eyed, and they didn't look carefully, and they actually killed more than 170 crew members of the fleet ashore.

After Zheng He learned the news, he was very surprised, and his soldiers were very angry and excited when they heard that this place with a big palm actually dared to kill the people of the Ming Dynasty, and ran to Zheng He, burst into tears, and asked to solve the king of the West on the spot, and let him go to the west to be a veritable king.

Zheng He calmly looked at the excited subordinates around him, and he understood that the reason why these angry people did not attack Java was only because they had not received his orders yet.

Many of the crew members who were killed Zheng He had seen it, everyone worked hard to follow him to the Western Ocean, in order to complete the mission, not to send their lives, their innocent killing Zheng He was also very angry, he had every reason to attack the so-called king of the West, and there is no doubt that this is a war without suspense, his army is equipped with advanced weapons such as artillery and muskets, and the opponent is just some local natives, as long as he gives an order, his fleet will easily win, and avenge the dead crew.

But he did not give such an order, he calmly looked at the eager subordinates and told them that there must be no war, because they had a greater mission, a mission of peace.

"If we go to war now, we can naturally achieve victory, but then it will deviate from our original intention of going to the West, and it will also delay our trip, and more seriously, when the news of the defeat of Java spreads to all parts of the West, countries will doubt our intentions, and our mission will really not be achieved. ”

After Zheng He finished speaking, he tried his best to stop the reckless behavior of his subordinates, and ordered an envoy to be sent to the residence of the king of the west to negotiate the matter.

Zheng He is really a remarkable person, and he is able to keep a clear head when he has a heavy army, restrain his anger, and focus on the overall situation, which requires such endurance. It turned out that Zheng He's actions were by no means cowardly, but wise. Zheng He needed to face patience, but the king of the West faced fear, great fear.

When he knew that his subordinates had killed the crew of the fleet sent by the Ming Dynasty, he was so frightened that he immediately sent a messenger to Zheng He to explain the misunderstanding repeatedly, and he was afraid that this would not work, so he ordered to send someone to China by ship overnight to apologize, which was not necessarily because of how ashamed and regretful he was, but he understood that with the strength of the Ming Dynasty, to destroy himself was as simple as pinching an ant to death.

After Zhu Di learned of this, he praised Zheng He's behavior of taking care of the overall situation, and taught the envoys of the King of the West a hard lesson, asking them to compensate 60,000 taels of gold, which was quite high. Two years later, the king of the west sent someone to send compensation, only 10,000 taels of gold, not because they dared to repent, but in such a small island, even if they dug three feet into the ground, they could not find 60,000 taels of gold.

When the envoy of the King of the West gave the gold anxiously, he received an unexpected answer, and Zhu Di clearly told him: "I knew that you would not be able to raise it, and I want you to compensate for the gold, just to make you understand your sins, is there still a lack of your gold?"

Zhu Di's expression completely conquered Java, and since then they have spontaneously and consciously paid tribute to China every year. In this incident, Zheng He fully embodied his calm thinking and accurate judgment ability, and also showed that Zhu Di had a unique vision for people.

After this turmoil, Zheng He's fleet traveled all the way south, passing through Sumatra, Ceylon and other places, and along the way exchanged contacts and carried out trade activities with Western countries, which also sent envoys to follow Zheng He's fleet to prepare to go to China to pay tribute to the Yongle Emperor.

Armed with the goods obtained from trade and the envoys of various countries, Zheng He arrived at the end of the voyage, Guli.