One day in 2004, the Chinese Embassy in Kenya received a letter from a local girl named Mwamaka Sharif.
The girl said in the letter that her ancestors were sailors who stayed in Kenya hundreds of years ago when Zheng He went to the West in the Ming Dynasty, and her body was flowing with Chinese blood!
This matter is not trivial, is it true or false?
The Chinese Embassy in Kenya immediately sent staff to conduct an investigation.
It turned out that the girl, Mwamarka Sharif, was indeed different from other girls in the area.
Her hair was not as hard and curly as the hair of other local girls; Her lips were also not as thick as those of other local girls; Her complexion was not as dark as the rest of the local people.
And most uniquely, she was able to tell the story of her Chinese ancestors coming to Kenya that has been passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years.
At that time, Zheng He's fleet of ships from the Western Ocean came to Kenya.
Near a small island called Patai, the boat where her ancestors were located unfortunately ran aground and sank.
A dozen of their surviving sailors, with all their might, managed to climb ashore, but met the local natives.
The local natives are very wary of outsiders.
Therefore, their situation is very dangerous, and if they are not careful, they may be destroyed by the local people.
Fortunately, there was a fierce python at that time, which plagued the local residents on the island.
When these great sailors found out, they took the initiative to go to the locals and say that they could help them eradicate the scourge.
At first, the locals also doubted their abilities.
But, soon, they proved their abilities to the locals.
They used trapping, killed the python, and dragged it in front of the locals.
As a result, the attitude of the locals towards them took a big turn, and they felt that it was a blessing for the locals to have a group of people like them living on the island.
In this way, more than a dozen shipwrecked Daming sailors took root in a foreign country.
They began to hope that the fleet of the Daming court would come in the future, and they would be able to follow the subsequent fleet home.
However, day after day, year after year, they did not wait for the follow-up fleet of the Daming court.
They often went to sea to pick up the sunken ship.
They hope that they can use the things on the sunken ship as a consolation for the soul.
In order to thrive, they intermarried with the locals and established a Chinese village.
They gave the village a Chinese name, "Shangjia Village."
The village name is pronounced like "Shanghai", indicating that they came here from "Shanghai".
In order to preserve the bloodline of the Chinese, so that all generations can have a face of their own people, they meet, and the marriage of their descendants is between their descendants.
However, their ideas are good, and the development of reality is difficult to do as they want.
The village they founded, after a period of prosperity, began to decline.
Europeans at that time were expanding at sea, plundering and colonizing everywhere.
Their small village is not immune.
As a result, their descendants were forced to move to other villages.
With the passage of time, their agreement that they could not casually marry with the locals was difficult to keep.
Their descendants, who mixed and intermarried with the locals, became less and less different in appearance.
By now, the bloodline left by the Daming sailors back then was already very blurred.
However, it has not completely disappeared.
Mwamaka Sharif's appearance is different.
She is not the only child in the family, but she is different from the other children in the family in appearance.
For this reason, she was not bullied by other children.
She didn't know why.
So, her mother told her the stories that had been passed down from generation to generation.
Moreover, the claim that their ancestors came from China is not just a legend from generation to generation.
At the same time, they also have some special living habits to confirm.
For example, they build Chinese-style houses; They eat stir-fried dishes that locals don't eat.
Moreover, the most important ritual in each of their lives was that after their death, some fragments of Chinese porcelain fished from the sea were placed in their graves as burials.
This is what makes them always remember where their "roots" are.
In addition, Mwamarka Sharif's home has a blue-and-white porcelain bowl handed down from his ancestors.
Their family, as a family heirloom, is very cherished and easily does not show it to others.
However, a foreign expedition team, hearing the story of their family from the local population, came to ask to see this family heirloom in their home.
They were reluctant to show it to outsiders, but when they saw that there was a person in the expedition team who looked like Chinese, they generously agreed.
Unexpectedly, after getting their blue and white porcelain bowl, the other party missed and broke it.
After the expedition team left, they learned from others that the man who looked like a Chinese was actually a Japanese.
After verifying the authenticity of this matter, the staff of the Chinese embassy, knowing that Mwamarka Sharif wanted to study in China, immediately reported it to his superiors.
A few months later, the Chinese Ministry of Education replied and agreed that she would come to China to study, and the cost was fully covered by the Chinese side!
So, after learning about Mwamarka Sharif's story, what can we think of from her story?
Will we think about the purpose of Zheng He's fleet in going to the West?
There is a most mainstream theory that they went there to find Emperor Jianwen, who disappeared after being defeated by Ming Cheng Zu Zhu Di.
"Ming Shi Zheng He" said: "Chengzu suspected that Emperor Hui had died overseas and wanted to find a trace."
In fact, this statement simply cannot withstand scrutiny.
Since Emperor Jianwen, that is, Emperor Hui, was defeated by his uncle Zhu Di and took the throne, this incident itself shows that even when he was the strongest Jianwen Emperor, he was not his uncle Zhu Di's opponent.
What's more, after he was defeated, those who supported him with all their hearts were killed by his uncle Zhu Di, what ability did he have, and what capital could he make a comeback and re-compete for the throne?
Why is his uncle Zhu Di still afraid of him, and he has to work hard for the people and lose money, and move the crowd to find him?
What's more, even if you really want to look for him, you should be looking for him quietly.
To find it with such excitement and vigor, isn't that scaring the grass? So how is it possible to find it?
In fact, from the story told by Mwamarka Sharif, we can see the real reason why Zheng He went to the West.
In Mwamarka Sharif's home, there is a blue-and-white porcelain bowl handed down from the ancestors.
The most important ritual in each of them, descendants of Ming sailors, was that after their deaths, some fragments of Chinese porcelain salvaged from the sea would be placed in their graves as burials.
This means that there was a lot of porcelain on the shipwreck that hit the reef and sank, and Zheng He carried a lot of porcelain in the fleet that went to the West.
So, Zheng He's fleet carried so much porcelain, what were they going to do?
They just went around selling their Daming Dynasty porcelain.
Therefore, the purpose of Zheng He's trip to the West is actually to do business.
Zheng He's fleet was actually a caravan of the Daming Dynasty.
Why, then, did their business activities not continue and later cease?
Moreover, the purpose of Zheng He's trip to the West was said to be to find the missing Emperor Jianwen?
Here, of course, hides a major struggle between the Daming Dynasty and the collusion forces of officials and businesses at that time.
It is because the Daming Dynasty lost and the collusion forces of officials and businessmen won, so this history was distorted and covered up by the writer.
At the beginning of the founding of the Daming Dynasty, its founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang formulated a policy of banning the sea by "no plates are allowed to go to the sea".
Why did he implement such a strict sea ban?
To answer that question, we have to answer another question.
As we all know, the Song Dynasty was the richest and most prosperous dynasty in Chinese history, and it was also the weakest and most prosperous dynasty in Chinese history.
Why is that?
That is because the Song Dynasty was the only dynasty in history that did not implement the policy of "heavy peasants and suppressing commerce".
That is because there were too many merchants in the Song Dynasty, too rich.
If there are too many businessmen and too rich, they will collude with officials and businessmen, and influence the DPRK government through the collusion between officials and businessmen, so that the DPRK government will be corrupted.
At that time, the main way for merchants to get rich was to trade with foreign countries.
Therefore, the purpose of Zhu Yuanzhang's strict sea-ban policy was to prevent businessmen from making a fortune through foreign trade, and then turning back to colluding with officials and businessmen to bring calamity to the country and the people.
However, his harsh policy has also met with strong backlash from government-business collusion forces.
Why, Zhu Yuanzhang's crown prince Zhu Biao died of a violent illness?
Why, after Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiang succeeded his grandfather Zhu Yuanzhang on the throne, he immediately began to cut the domain, and not in a gentle way, but to fabricate charges and put his uncles to death one by one?
In fact, this is a strong backlash against Zhu Yuanzhang's sea-ban policy by collusive forces between officials and businessmen; It is the collusion between officials and businessmen to cancel the sea-ban policy formulated by Zhu Yuanzhang as soon as possible.
In fact, the historical Emperor Wudi of Han once created a successful model of reducing the domain, that is, the implementation of the "Tui En Order".
Through the "Tui En Order", the internal division of the clan kings is constantly weakened, and the purpose of cutting the clan can be achieved.
Why did Zhu Yunjiang not cut the clan in the form of a "decree of grace", but cut the clan by fabricating charges, and put his uncles to death one by one?
Because, Zhu Yunjiang is still a child, he is just a puppet of his teachers.
And his teachers are all thugs who have been bought by the collusion between officials and businessmen.
The political goal of those teachers was to abolish Zhu Yuanzhang's sea-ban policy as soon as possible.
Without eliminating those sons of Zhu Yuanzhang, without eradicating those clan kings, and directly canceling Zhu Yuanzhang's sea-ban policy, it is certainly impossible.
Therefore, the purpose of those teachers of Zhu Yunjiang in promoting the reduction of the domain was not to cut the domain at all, but to eliminate those sons of Zhu Yuanzhang, that is, to eliminate their obstacles on the road to canceling Zhu Yuanzhang's policy of banning the sea.
Then, the Ming Cheng ancestor Zhu Di launched the Battle of Jingjian, not a struggle for power between their uncles and nephews, but a life-and-death struggle between their Ming dynasty and the collusion forces of officials and merchants of their Zhu family; It was a dispute over the abolition of the sea-ban policy formulated by his father, Zhu Yuanzhang.
So, after Zhu Di ascended the throne, why did he send Zheng He to the West?
This was to make up for the shortcomings of his father Zhu Yuanzhang's sea-ban policy and minimize the hostility of their Daming Dynasty.
Because the policy of banning the sea not only made it impossible for those merchants to make a fortune, but also made the products of those handicraft producers unmarketable, and made those handicraft workers lose their livelihood.
This not only made those merchants itch their teeth, but also made those handicraft producers complain.
The reason why Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to move the capital from Nanjing to Xi'an was because he was unpopular in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, where industry and commerce were developed at that time.
He didn't want to face stinky faces every day in this group of fierce Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, and he wanted to hide in Xi'an.
After Zhu Di ascended the throne, although he did not move the capital to Xi'an, he still moved the capital to Beijing, of course, there are also reasons for this.
However, avoiding the problem is not the solution, it is always necessary to solve the problem.
The sea ban is impossible to open; However, the products made by the craftsmen at the bottom cannot leave them without market.
Therefore, in order to solve this problem, the imperial court cannot but shoulder this responsibility.
This is the real reason why Zheng He went to the West.
Zheng He's trip to the West was a political task to help the low-level people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang to sell their handmade products in order to reduce the confrontation between the imperial court and these low-level people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
Then, if the imperial court wants to reduce the confrontation with the people at the bottom of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, will those collusive forces of government and business allow the relationship between the imperial court and the bottom people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang to ease?
They definitely did not want the relationship between the imperial court and those people at the bottom to ease, and they must prevent the relationship between the court and those people at the bottom from détente.
And their means of preventing the relaxation of relations between the imperial court and the people at the bottom is, of course, to prevent Zheng He from going to the West, or to destroy Zheng He's descent into the West.
This is why Zheng He's Western activities did not continue and later stopped.
In July of the twenty-second year of Yongle (1424), Zhu Di, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, died.
He was succeeded by his son Zhu Gaoji as Emperor Mingrenzong.
After Emperor Mingrenzong Zhu Gaozhi came to the throne, he immediately changed the policies of his father Zhu Di, announcing not only that he would move the capital back to Nanjing, but also that he would stop the imperial fleet from going to the West.
All this is a practice of catering to the collusion forces of government and business.
Because Zhu Di has been leading soldiers to fight in the field for many years, and he Zhu Gaojie is fat, can't fight, and has been mixing with those bureaucrats in the rear, so he believes the words of those bureaucrats very much and thinks that his father is too strong.
Fortunately, less than a year after he ascended the throne, he fell ill and died, and before the policies were officially implemented, power was transferred to his son Zhu Zhanji.
Zhu Zhanji has followed his grandfather Zhu Di to fight everywhere since he was a child, and he has won the true legend of his grandfather, so after assuming the throne, he immediately changed his father's policy and returned to his grandfather's line.
In the fifth year of Xuande (1430), Emperor Xuanzong of Ming ordered Zheng He to go to the West for the seventh time.
This was another large-scale voyage, totaling 27,550 people of all kinds.
Unfortunately, Zhu Zhanji reigned for ten years, died young, and his son was young, and the power fell into the hands of his mother, Zhu Gaoji's wife.
Zhu Gaozhi's wife, and her husband Zhu Gaozhi, can be described as a model couple, heart-to-heart.
It was precisely because Zhu Gaojie's wife, like her husband Zhu Gaojie, changed her course and changed course, which caused the collusion between officials and businessmen to expand rapidly, thus laying the groundwork for the future "change of Tumu Fort" and turning the Daming Dynasty from prosperity to decline.
After the death of Zhu Zhanji's son, Zhu Qizhen, who had ascended the throne twice, Zhu Qizhen's son Zhu Jianshen ascended the throne and wanted to restart the imperial fleet's activities in the Western Ocean, all navigational materials disappeared and could not be found.
If the imperial court could not restart Western activities, the products produced by handicraft producers in Jiangsu and Zhejiang could not be sold, so the policy of sea ban could not be adhered to.
In the thirty-first year of Jiajing, the Kaihai faction and the forbidden sea faction in the imperial court engaged in fierce debates.
In the first year of Longqing (1567), Emperor Zhu Zaigao of Ming Muzong finally abolished the sea ban and allowed private individuals to sell far and west, known as Longqing Switch.
The Longqing switch marked the complete defeat of the Daming Dynasty's struggle against the collusion of officials and businessmen, and also marked that the Daming Dynasty entered the fast lane to its eventual destruction.
After that, after the struggle of the four emperors Shenzong, Guangzong, Xizong, and Sizong, the Daming Dynasty finally came to an end.