Why did Zheng He go to the West?

When it comes to why Zheng He went to the West, we have to talk about it from Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang everyone knows that he was from a peasant background, when he was a child, his family was particularly poor, and when his father died, he was still very young, and he was sold to the landlord's family to herd cattle. When he was a child, Zhu Yuanzhang was a well-known goon, and his friends nearby listened to him. He also killed the landlord's cattle for the children to eat, and told them that they could eat meat every day after mixing with him. Later, Zhu Yuanzhang was driven out by the landlord and wandered around until he did a career in the back. Zhu Yuanzhang, who became emperor, had a total of 26 sons, but most of them were not in good health, and the crown princes died one by one in his old age. Three years to die a son three years and another to die. Feng's third crown prince, Zhu Biao, also died, but Zhu Biao's son Zhu Yunwen was brilliant, and Zhu Yuanzhang gave Zhu Yunwen the title of prince.

Speaking of his fourth son, Zhu Di, Zhu Di and Zhu Biao were two brothers, and Zhu Di was the uncle of Emperor Jianwen. Zhu Di's prestige in the Area of Yanshan, which Zhu Yuanzhang had given him, was particularly high, and he was very angry when he learned that Zhu Yuanzhang had not been given the title of Prince of Zhu Yuanzhang but to his nephew Zhu Yunwen. Zhu Di had the intention of usurping the throne, and at that time, he received the guidance of a high monk and had been in Yanshan at that time in the Beijing area, where he was the King of Yan to consolidate his power. When Emperor Jianwen, his nephew, took office, he saw his ambitions and tried to exploit his power. As a result, Zhu Di broke out the Battle of Jingnan and seized the power of his nephew Emperor Jianwen, and a fire burned the palace, but Emperor Jianwen escaped and his whereabouts were unknown. Some say that Emperor Jianwen died of self-immolation, some say that Emperor Jianwen had a bag given to him by his grandfather Zhu Yuanzhang, and when he opened it, he had a razor and a robe, so he came to Shishan in Yunnan as a monk, and later went to Southeast Asian countries to spread Buddhism. Now in the Yunnan Lion Mountain Temple there is also such a couplet, the upper link is the monk for the emperor and the monk for decades the mantle of the passing on the sense of the emperor is still the emperor of the old, the lower link is the uncle of the nephew and nephew does not live up to the uncle eight thousand miles of shoes hiking lion mountain is higher than the Yan mountain. It just fit the situation of Zhu Yunwen, the Jianwen Emperor at that time. This Ming Chengzu Zhu Di was worried that his nephew Emperor Jianwen was not dead, and after becoming emperor, he could not sleep every day, and heard that Emperor Jianwen had run to those places in Southeast Asia, so he sent his confidant Zheng He to the West to look for Zhu Yunwen, so the main purpose of Zheng He's going to the West was to see if he could find Emperor Jianwen, and the two could also show the national prestige of the Ming Dynasty at that time.