If Zheng He's Voyages Had Continued, Would China Have Colonized the World First?

If Zheng He's Voyages Had Continued, Would China Have Colonized the World First?

On July 11, 1405, at the wharves of Liujiagang in Suzhou, an unprecedented massive fleet set sail. The lead ship was a nine-masted "treasure ship" 151 meters long and 61 meters wide — a floating palace. The fleet had 62 treasure ships, over 240 vessels in total, and 27,800 officers and crew — the largest oceangoing fleet in human history before the Age of Discovery. Commanding it was a 41-year-old eunuch from Yunnan, Sambo, originally surnamed Ma — Zheng He. From 1405 to 1433 he sailed west seven times, reaching as far as the East African coast of Kenya. Then it all stopped. After Zheng He's death in 1433, the Ming quickly imposed sea bans, burned navigation maps, destroyed most treasure ships. Maritime activity ceased. A question has lingered for six centuries: had Zheng He's voyages not stopped, would China have colonized the world first?

A Fleet That Could Fight: How Strong Was the Treasure Ship?

To discuss "if it had continued," understand what Zheng He's fleet really was. According to the Ming History's "Biography of Zheng He" and recent archaeology at the Longjiang treasure-ship yard in Nanjing, the largest treasure ships measured roughly 120–150 meters in length (scholars debate exact size, but at least frigate-class by modern standards). The hulls used multi-deck construction, watertight compartments, iron nails, and tung-oil caulking — advanced craftsmanship. Nine masts and twelve sails — with favorable winds, 200 nautical miles a day.

What does that size mean? Europe's largest oceangoing ship at the time was the Portuguese caravel, about 30 meters; Columbus's flagship Santa Maria in 1492 was 28 meters. Ming treasure ships displaced tens of times more than Columbus's. The fleet carried firearms — huochong, cannons, rockets, naval mines. Crews included sailors, soldiers, interpreters, doctors, craftsmen, painters, astronomers, religious personnel — a complete "state machine at sea."

What about real combat? In 1407, on the way back from the first voyage, Zheng He's fleet met the Chinese-descent pirate Chen Zuyi at Old Port (Palembang, Sumatra). Chen mustered thousands to seize the fleet; Zheng He lured them in and destroyed over 5,000, capturing Chen and returning him to Nanjing for execution. In 1411 on the third voyage, the Sinhala king Alagakkonara tried to ambush the fleet; Zheng He led 2,000 elite troops to counterattack the palace, captured the king, and sent him to the imperial court. In 1415 on the fourth voyage, the Sumatran pretender Sekandar attacked the envoy; Zheng He chased him hundreds of miles and captured him alive. Over seven voyages, the fleet faced no enemy that could challenge it.

If It Continued: Would China Have Colonized?

The most curious question. In raw power, the 1433 Ming had every ability to colonize Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean rim, even East Africa. The Ming GDP was about 30% of the world's; population over 100 million; shipbuilding world-leading; oceanic military force unrivaled. The later colonial empires of Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and England were still marginal European states: Portugal's King João I had just taken the throne; England's Hundred Years' War had not ended; Spain had not yet completed the Reconquista.

But colonization isn't only a hardware question; it's also about institutions and motives. Zheng He's voyages were essentially the maritime extension of the "tribute system" — to project the majesty of the Great Ming and obtain "tribute" from other nations. On paper it was trade; in practice, the Ming usually subsidized the show. Each voyage carried huge quantities of gold, silver, silk, and porcelain to bestow on foreign rulers, and brought back ivory, spices, giraffes, and other curiosities. This was performative diplomacy, not commercial colonization.

The drivers of European colonization were three: gold and silver (Spain went mad for American silver), spices (Portugal would die for Indian pepper), and Christian mission (missionaries everywhere in the New World). China lacked the first two as core needs — the Ming was not short of silver (at first); demand for spices was limited; and there was no religious expansion impulse, since Confucianism does not proselytize. So even if China had the hardware, it lacked the motive.

That said, had the fleet endured, by the 1500s — when Europeans first reached the Indian Ocean — they would have run into a Ming fleet that had been running East Africa, India, and Southeast Asia for a century. The encounter would have been completely different. The few Portuguese skirmishes in the Indian Ocean (their biggest fleet had only about 20 ships) faced traditional Indian and Arab merchant ships, not 100-meter treasure ships. Portuguese colonization of the Indian Ocean would likely have been rewritten.

Why No More Voyages After Zheng He

This is the real tragedy. In 1433, Zheng He died on the return leg of the seventh voyage at Calicut (Kozhikode) in India, and was buried at sea near Java. The voyage system was uprooted entirely.

First wave of backlash: in 1435, Emperor Yingzong took the throne; the civil-official faction returned to power and immediately halted shipbuilding. Minister Xia Yuanji had opposed the voyages back in the Xuande era, arguing "this exhausts the people and wastes wealth, with no national benefit." One voyage cost millions of taels of silver — equivalent to two years of Ming revenue. To the civil officials, this kind of "showy spending" was pointless.

Second wave, full liquidation: in 1477 (Chenghua era), the eunuch Wang Zhi proposed restarting the voyages. War Minister Xiang Zhong ordered all Zheng He's archives in the Nanjing War Ministry storehouse — navigation charts, star charts, country observations — destroyed. The official tasked with it was Liu Daxia of the Wagons Department. Liu Daxia said: "Sambo's voyages used hundreds of thousands of silver and grain; soldiers and civilians dead numbered ten thousand. Even if rare treasures were brought back, what was the benefit to the state? This was a pernicious policy; great ministers should remonstrate strongly. The records exist but should be destroyed to uproot it; why pursue whether they remain?" In one sentence, decades of navigation archives turned to nothing.

Third wave, institutional sealing: the Ming imposed ever-stricter sea bans — "not a plank to the sea." Coastal shipbuilding skills were lost; ocean-going capacity entirely atrophied. By the time Europeans reached the Chinese coast a century later, the Ming could not even build a decent ocean vessel. The legacy Zheng He left was destroyed by his own dynasty.

Why the Civil-Official Faction Destroyed the Voyages

There is deep political logic. The voyages were a project of the emperor (especially Yongle Zhu Di) and the eunuch system. Zhu Di, having taken power through the Jingnan campaign, urgently needed to use "all nations come to court" to prove his legitimacy. Zheng He, as a trusted eunuch from Zhu Di's days as Prince of Yan, was his most trusted man. The whole voyage system — from decisions to execution — bypassed the civil officials.

The civil-official faction was deeply unhappy. To them, the voyages meant the state treasury was held by eunuchs, imperial power bypassed officials, and oceanic trade profits flowed to the palace rather than to the Jiangnan gentry behind the officials. After the Xuande Emperor Zhu Zhanji died in 1435, civil officials used the accession of the boy emperor Zhu Qizhen to launch a systematic counter-offensive, suppressing eunuch power, closing the voyages, and returning to the "agrarian empire" narrative they knew.

This was not a simple "conservative vs. reformer" fight. It was a fight over the empire's direction. The civil officials won. From then on, China closed the door to the sea.

What Was Lost Was Not Just Colonization but an Era

If we must hypothesize, the biggest change had the voyages continued might not be "how many places China colonized" but the direction of East Asian civilization as a whole.

Trade systems: The Indian Ocean and South China Sea would have been led by a Ming tribute-trade hybrid, not the Portuguese-Dutch-English commercial-colonial system. Southeast Asian Chinese communities would have become formal overseas provinces, not isolated diaspora.

Technological path: Continued ocean voyaging would have driven advances in shipbuilding, navigation, astronomy, geography, medicine. China's tech tree might not have stalled at the Ming-Qing transition.

Knowledge of the outside world: The greatest problem of late Ming and Qing China was loss of awareness of the outside world. On the eve of the Opium War, the Daoguang Emperor was still asking whether there was a land route from England to Xinjiang. Had the voyages not stopped, China would not have fallen into total ignorance.

Military systems: A living ocean navy would have continually updated its weapons. There would have been no scene in 1840 of Qing armies using Ming-era cannons against British steamships.

History Has No "If" — But the Lessons Are Real

The last exotic sights Zheng He saw — giraffes, zebras, frankincense, ivory — once emptied Nanjing's streets in wonder, but were eventually forgotten by history. All that remains is an unmarked grave by the sea at Calicut in 1433, and a few rust-stained iron anchors in the Nanjing treasure-ship yard ruins.

What truly merits reflection is not "would China have colonized," but that an empire holding the world's most advanced ocean capability chose to give up the sea. It was a nearly 500-year strategic mistake; the price was collective East Asian backwardness in the modernization wave. When the Portuguese first reached India in 1498 and the Spanish circled the globe in 1521, every wave they crossed had once been China's backyard.

The cruelty of history is that once a window of opportunity closes, it never reopens.