Zheng He

Also known as Xiao Zi Ma San Bao

Zheng He, born Ma, came from a Muslim family of Kunyang in Yunnan; the epitaph that Li Zhigang wrote for his father says both his grandfather and father had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Taken into the household of the Prince of Yan as a boy eunuch, he distinguished himself in the prince's war for the throne, rose to director of palace eunuchs and in 1404 received the surname Zheng. In the sixth month of 1405 he and Wang Jinghong sailed for the Western Ocean; the History of Ming (Mingshi) counts more than 27,800 men and sixty-two large ships on that first voyage. Over seven voyages that ran into the Xuande reign he called at Champa, Java, Malacca, Ceylon and Calicut and reached Hormuz, Aden and Mogadishu. He is generally thought to have died on the return leg of the seventh voyage in 1433. Ma Huan and Fei Xin, who sailed with him, wrote accounts of the lands they visited, the Yingya shenglan and the Xingcha shenglan.