Regarding the measurement of naval strength, Yu Dayu, who pointed out more than 400 years ago, pointed out that he recorded in the "Collection of Zhengqitang" that "there is no other skill in the battle of the sea, the big ship wins the small boat, the big ship wins the small boat, the multi-ship wins the widow, and the multi-vessel is better than the widow."
If measured by the size of the ships, how did the ming dynasty compare with the naval power of the West? A stone stele was unearthed in Jiangsu, revealing the true face of the Ming Dynasty's most classic naval fleet, the Zheng He Fleet, and it turned out that the Ming Dynasty naval ships were even larger than recorded in the history books, 200 years ahead of the West!
As one of China's most legendary fleets, the size of Zheng He's fleet has been foggy and questionable because the original archives of Zheng He's fleet have disappeared. Some people say that It was Liu Daxia in the Ming Dynasty that burned it, and some people say that Qianlong destroyed it, and there is evidence for both theories, but considering that there is a "Zheng He Navigation Chart" in the "Wu Bi Zhi" during the Jiajing period after Liu Daxia, the author once consulted Zheng He's main archive in the Western Ocean, "Zheng He's Mission to the Water", so qianlong is more likely to destroy the historical materials of Zheng He's fleet.
In the Ming Dynasty Ma Huan's "Yingya Victory", it is recorded that "the treasure ship is sixty-three, the large one is forty-four feet long and 18 zhang wide; the middle one is thirty-seven zhang long and fifteen zhang wide." ”
The Biography of Ming Shi Zheng He records that there are similarities and differences: "He and others built large ships, repaired forty-four zhang, guang eighteen zhang, and accommodated hundreds of people."
For the historical records, many Western scholars are extremely dismissive, believing that with the backward technical level of the Ming Dynasty 600 years ago, it is impossible to build such a huge ship. What's more, the historical records of Chinese may not be true, and it is likely to be self-bragging.
So, how big are the ships of Zheng He's fleet?
In the last century, on the site of the Nanjing Longjiang Shipyard in the Ming Dynasty, a huge rudder rod with a total length of more than 11 meters was excavated twice, which seems to be consistent with the historical records. However, the excavation of the giant rudder rod does not necessarily prove the size of the ship, because this may be the rudder shaft of the ship that has not yet been built, so it still lacks a real hammer.
In 2010, in the ZutangShan area of Jiangning, Nanjing, archaeologists excavated a tomb of a Ming eunuch, confirming that the ships of Zheng He's fleet were really large, larger than the history books recorded.
According to the excavated epitaph, this eunuch's name is Hong Bao, a native of Dali, Yunnan, who entered the palace at the age of 13 and became a eunuch, and Zheng He was a fellow villager. He began following Zhu Di at the age of 29 and was one of the heroes who overthrew Emperor Jianwen. Hong Bao also had an important identity, that is, Zheng He's attaché when he went to the West, belonging to the witnesses, so his epitaph is of great historical value.
Hong Bao's epitaph records, "Yongle Era, the deputy envoy of the Inner Carrier Warehouse, was given the previous name." As a deputy envoy, commanding a sergeant, riding the Dafu and the number of five thousand material giants. He made the Western countries and the distant people."
Two pieces of information were revealed in this sentence: one was that in the first year of Zhu Di's rise to power, Hong Bao was appointed as the deputy envoy of the Western Ocean, and the other was that he was riding on a 5,000-material giant ship "Daifuku", which not only had a record of the ship number, but also the load capacity of the ship.
How big should a 5,000-material ship be converted into tonnage? Material is an ancient unit of capacity, and 1 material is equivalent to 1 stone. According to the "History of Ming" in the "Repair forty-four zhang, Guang eighteen zhang" record, scholars believe that Zheng Hebao captain 138 meters, 56 meters wide, about 2,000 material, equivalent to the current displacement of 1,000 tons. But according to Hong Bao's epitaph, Zheng He's treasure ship displacement of more than 2500 tons of jumbo subverted our traditional cognition, and it was definitely a world-class shipbuilding myth 600 years ago.
In fact, according to the historical data of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, 5,000 materials were not the limit of the giant ships at that time, such as "YuanRen Haidao ten thousand households, home built three giant ships, the big one wins ten thousand stones, the middle one eight thousand, the small one six thousand", the so-called "home made three giant ships", that is, home-made, belongs to the folk shipbuilding, and 1 material is equivalent to 1 stone, ten thousand stones is ten thousand materials, small also has 6000 materials, which shows that the 5000 materials of Zheng He's treasure ship are not worth making a fuss about. Of course, The civil giant ship of Wanshi may only be used along the coast, while the Zheng He treasure ship needs to be able to go deep into the ocean and fight the winds and waves on the ocean, and it needs to be more solid, so it is condensed into 5,000 materials.
Regarding the scale of zhenghe treasure ships, there is also a view that Zheng He treasure ships may have tens of thousands of materials, with displacements of up to 5,000 tons.
The above-mentioned Hong Bao "served as a deputy envoy and commanded a sergeant", so who was the right envoy among them? It is not mentioned in the epitaph, but through historical records such as the "Chronicle of the Emperor of Heaven" during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, "in the first year of Yongle, the eunuch Zheng He and others went to Siam (today's Thailand)", indicating that Zheng He was zheng he at that time.
According to this view, Zheng He and Hong Bao were not on the same ship, mainly to prevent accidents, such as encountering storms at sea, which were causing accidents, and the deputy envoy took over the command. Therefore, since the ship on which Hong Bao was riding was 5,000 materials, it was not surprising that the treasure ship that Zheng He was riding on might be larger, even as high as ten thousand materials.
It is worth mentioning that Hong Bao's record also revealed a mystery, that is, Zheng He went to the West at least eight times, because Yongle's first year of going to the West was not included in the "seven times to the West". In addition, scholars have found that in 1424, Zheng He also went to the old port (in the area of Present-day Palembang on sumatra, Indonesia), so in summary, it should be "Zheng He's nine voyages to the West", not seven times.
Hong Bao mentioned the "Dafu", which was only a ship in the first year of Yongle, so when the history books recorded that "Zheng He went to the Western Ocean", with Zhu Di's good and great daxigong character, would he build a bigger ship? Regardless of whether there are larger ships or not, the 5,000 material "Daifuku" recorded in Hong Bao's epitaph has completely broken the doubts of the West, so that many Western scholars have even sighed incredible!
By contrast, even for most of the 17th century, the largest Western battleships had a displacement of only about 1,200 tons, and the largest merchant ships were around 2,000 tons, a full 200 years behind Zheng He's fleet. In fact, during the First Opium War, Britain's largest battleship had a displacement of only 1746 tons.
The logic of many Western scholars is that even the maritime power West cannot do it, and the weak maritime country Of China naturally cannot do it, so it is questioned and questioned, and as everyone knows, Zheng He's treasure ship is not only 2,000 materials at all, but a huge 5,000 materials, or even more huge.