Today in History—August 12: Zheng He’s Treasure Fleet Returns
On this day in 1415, the largest wooden ships ever built brought home a remarkable prize for the emperor of imperial China’s Ming dynasty.
Adm. Zheng He’s so-called Treasure Fleet returned from its fourth expedition, a voyage lasting a year and a half that reached as far as the Persian Gulf and the Maldives.
Zheng, the seafaring “grand eunuch” (his actual title), was a diplomat whose travels expanded China’s political influence across the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. He led seven expeditions—each with dozens of ships and thousands of sailors and soldiers—projecting China’s naval power.
Wherever Zheng traveled, he cultivated alliances, bringing gifts that included silk, porcelain, tea, clothing, and other luxury goods. He brought back spices, ivory, gems, myrrh—and often the merchant-envoy ambassadors of faraway lands to pay tribute to the emperor in person.
On his fourth voyage, Zheng met representatives from Malindi (modern-day Kenya). The goodwill gift they packed for their journey to meet the emperor? A giraffe.
It was normal, even—dare I say—common, to present exotic animals to the emperor: His menagerie already included parrots and peacocks, ostriches, bears, elephants, and rhinoceroses. In fact, he already had a giraffe! (But you can never have too many of those, right?)
At least one of Zheng He’s treasure ships sank off the coast of Sri Lanka. Archaeologists and explorers are still searching for it.
Giraffes were revered in China at the time, for one weird reason. The giraffe that had arrived a year earlier was presented to the emperor as a qilin, a mythological creature described as a cross between a deer and a unicorn, with a single horn and tortoiseshell coloring. That was where the similarities between giraffes and qilins stopped, but since the qilin was considered the ultimate symbol of luck, fortune, and good leadership, it’s not like the emperor was about to correct anyone invoking the comparison.
Consider this line from a translation of a poem of Confucian cosmology written for the emperor: “When a qilin comes forth it is certain that there is a Sage on the throne and that it is a time of true culture in the world.”
So, then, when Zheng managed to bring home ambassadors who brought a second giraffe? Let’s just say he was about to be the emperor’s favorite.
- 62: Ships Zheng He commanded on his first voyage
- ~43: Zheng He’s age at the time of his fourth voyage
- ~28,000: Men Zheng He commanded on his first voyage
- 1930: Clarence Birdseye is granted a patent that revolutionizes food freezing
- 1961: East Germany begins construction on the Berlin Wall
- 1990: The Tyrannosaurus rex later named Sue is found in South Dakota
