The story of Zheng He's voyage to the West is well known to many people. Unlike the colonialism that developed in Europe and the United States in the later period, Zheng He did not interfere with the internal affairs of any country or encroach on any piece of land in the process of seven voyages to the West.
So what did he do when he went to the West? In fact, it is more about giving, bringing a lot of help to other countries, such as giving others some specialties of the Central Plains, similar to silk or porcelain, and even directly giving away property from other countries to help them.
Other countries will also give back some gifts, Zheng He once brought back animal giraffes that are not in China, and at that time, it was also considered to be a unicorn, which made a lot of jokes.
However, the kings of some countries were not satisfied with Zheng He's help, and even wanted to seize the property on Zheng He's ship by force, and the king of Ceylon, Ariel Kunel, was such a vicious person.
Zheng He first encountered the rogue king in the West
That was what happened in the seven years of Yongle, Zheng He was already the third time to go to the West, he had the experience of the previous two times, the procedure of going to sea this time was more familiar to him, and the whole process of going to sea was very smooth.
And this time they passed through a country called Ceylon, which is now the tourist destination of Sri Lanka, which belongs to Southeast Asian countries, and Zheng He initially thought that the king of this country would be as welcoming to them as other countries, but this was not the case.
Zheng He generously communicated with them and gave them many specialties and treasures, but their king, Ariel, was thinking of his own and wanted to be unfavorable to Zheng He.
After all, Zheng He traveled with 48 ships, with a lot of belongings, it is easy to attract the eyes of others, not to mention the belongings on the ship, just those 48 ships, it is already a priceless treasure. You know, at that time, the highest navigation technology in the world was Zheng He's treasure ship, which was the peak of technology at that time.
Zheng He himself knew something about this, and determined that their king might be a certain danger to them, so he chose to leave here and go to another country.
Leaving at this moment does not mean that Zheng He is afraid, but he believes that more is better than less. Although Zheng He brought 27,000 officers and soldiers, Ceylon is a country after all, they have at least tens of thousands of soldiers, and they are both defeated and injured.
Meet again, meet each other
On Zheng He's third voyage back to sea, he received an invitation from the ceylon state, and their king also gave Zheng He a lot of money in order to show his goodwill, perhaps Zheng He was a little too unwilling to go, and agreed to Ariel's invitation to his palace as a guest.
In fact, the king of Ceylon was so kind as to move Zheng He out of his fleet, leaving the fleet leaderless, so that he could send troops to attack the ships.
When Zheng He discovered that Ariel had sent 50,000 soldiers to attack the fleet, Zheng He was in a hurry and sent 2,000 of his own cronies to attack the palace.
Because at that time the king of Ceylon had sent most of the troops to attack the fleet, the strength of the palace was the weakest at the moment, and if the palace was taken and the king Ariel was taken, the crisis could be solved.
It turned out that Zheng He's move of "encircling Wei and saving Zhao" was very effective, and it was not long before the palace was breached by him, and King Ariel Anderson and some of the domestic ministers were caught by him, and the army attacking the fleet rushed back to the rescue at this moment, but it was already too late.
In the end, Zheng He not only resolved the crisis, but also brought the king of Ceylon and some of his ministers to the fleet and gave Ming Chengzu Zhu Di to decide their guilt.
Ming Chengzu Zhu Di still did not kill and sent Ariel to China, but explicitly ordered the Ceylon country to choose another king.
epilogue
The Ming Dynasty all "burned money" to support Zheng He to go to sea, although it did not directly bring back any property for the Ming Dynasty, but the purpose of going to the West was not to carry out colonial rule like the European and American countries, but to publicize the national prestige of the Ming Dynasty.
Zheng He's capture of the king of ceylon this time is a matter of flaunting his might, and it is more indicative of the Ming Dynasty than sending money and specialties to the weak countries to help them, and punishing the scheming king.