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Great Wall of China

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Should we celebrate the voyages of zhen he?

Have you every heard of Zheng He? His name was originally Ma He, he was the trusted advisor of the Emperor Yongle. The emperor sent him on a mission to guide a fleet of ships, up until recent years he was hardly known by the world. The real question is if we should celebrate Zheng He’s voyages, I personally think that we shouldn’t. You might be wondering why, well in order to make the voyage possible there was a lot of expenses and all the tribute he received was not enough to pay off the expenses, also he traveled far and didn’t find any new land or establish any new trade relationships, lastly some officials from the government said that they did not need trade or political communication so they concluded the expedition to be a big mistake. Now lets get more in to it.

To start off, the voyage took a lot of expenses that couldn’t be regained by the tributes offered to Emperor Yongle. In Document D it states “ Emperor Yongle acquired goods and treasures…yet they did not makeup for the wasteful expenditures of the Middle Kingdom”. Officials or representatives from overseas would frequently return to China with Zheng He’s fleet to offer tributes. Some local leaders did it to avoid military fight; they made sure to pay their respect to the emperor. Tributes are often offerings of money or goods given by a weaker country to a stronger country.

Next, Zheng He traveled far and wide and was unable to find new land or establish trade. Zheng He’s voyages only allowed him to explore the sees because he failed to accomplish the main reasons to his mission. He unsuccessfully demonstrated to the world how great the emperor and China was. Zheng He’s fleet consisted of 255 ships with 27,500 men during seven voyages .As a result of Zheng He’s death sea exploration was banned and all records of the voyages were destroyed by Chinese officials.

Lastly the Chinese government felt that China did not need to establish trade relations or political interaction with the world. They strongly concluded that the voyages were a big mistake. On three occasions during the seven trips the fleet came across serious armed confrontation. The government also felt that building and maintaining the fleet while fighting costly wars against the Vietnamese and the Mongols had bankrupted the Ming treasury.

In conclusion all the expenses that couldn’t be regained from the tributes, his voyages that led to no newfound land and the governments opinion that China needed no trade or political communication contributed to the reasoning that we shouldn’t celebrate Zheng He’s voyages. We should learn about his history but we should not celebrate it. He lost the opportunity to find new land and discover something great in the world.

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