The European Age of Exploration was one of the most significant series of events over the last millennium, perhaps the most significant events in recorded history. Beginning in the 1430s, brave Portuguese and Spanish explorers set sail into the Atlantic to discover new lands and establish new routes to the Orient. By 1498, Vasco da Gama managed to sail around Africa and reach India. Meanwhile, Christopher Columbus made his famous voyage to the New World in 1492.
These European expeditions changed the world in ways that cannot be underestimated. They transformed Europe from a beleaguered backwater into the masters of the world. They brought new crops and new technologies to every corner of the globe. They began the process that made the Earth into one world.
Yet the Europeans were not the only people who made voyages into new lands. Just a few decades before the Portuguese began sailing down the coast of Africa, the Chinese, on the other end of the great Eurasian landmass, were sponsoring their own great voyages. In the early years of the fifteenth century, the Chinese Empire sent seven great expeditions under the command of the great Chinese admiral Zheng He, beginning during the reign of the Yongle Emperor
Zheng He made six voyages between 1405 and 1422. His ships traveled South to modern Indonesia and West to Malaysia and as far as India, the Arabian Peninsula, and Somalia in Africa, gathering information and tribute. Zheng He’s fleets were comprised of many large ships of various functions, including warships. supply ships, troop and horse transports, and treasure ships. Zheng He’s ships may have been among the largest wooden ships that ever sailed on the ocean, and some may have had as many as a thousand men as crew.
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The Yongle Emperor died in 1424, and his son, the Hongxi Emperor, decided to end the expeditions over the sea. The Hongxi Emperor died the following year, and his son, the Xuande Emperor, permitted one more voyage in 1430. Zheng He is believed to have died on that voyage in 1433. After that, the Chinese Age of Exploration ended. No more ocean-going vessels were built by the Chinese government. The records of Zheng He’s expeditions were neglected and forgotten.
This decision by the Ming Emperors to end China’s early efforts at exploration is generally viewed as rather myopic. China lost the chance to participate in the Great Age of Exploration with the Europeans. If only succeeding emperors had built on Zheng He’s voyages. China could have met the European explorers and colonizers on equal terms in the Indian Ocean. China might have established a hegemony over the East Indies. Perhaps China could even have discovered the New World and begun colonizing the Pacific shores of the Americas.
I think such a view is unfair. It neglects the real differences between the goals of the European and Chinese voyages of discovery. It ignores the vast differences in the costs and expected benefits between the efforts of the two civilizations. The fact is that the Ming Emperors made the correct decision.
Zheng He’s expeditions were not voyages of discovery. The Chinese already knew about Africa and India. They had been trading with these lands for centuries. Zheng He did not open new trade routes. The primary purpose of his voyages was to show off the power and prestige of the Chinese Empire. The fleets were expensive, and the voyages brought little tangible benefit to China. Moreover, China’s economy was largely self-sufficient. China had little need for foreign trade.
While Korean and Japanese pirates were often an annoyance to China’s coasts, the greatest strategic threat to China was always the semi-nomadic peoples to the north. China was conquered by the Mongols in 1269. China would be conquered again by the Manchus in 1644. An expensive vanity project that diverted resources away from the defense of the North could prove fatal to the security of the empire.
By contrast, the European voyages of exploration were funded on a shoestring budget, yet the returns of the voyages far outweighed the meager costs. The ships used by Columbus and the other explorers were not huge treasure ships with hundreds of crew members. They were small, leaky vessels; the Spanish and Portuguese could afford to lose. They were paid for by a combination of public and private means, with companies of merchant investors sharing the costs with royal courts. With these slender means, the explorers discovered new lands and new trade routes. They won a world for the nations they served.
Unlike China, Europe depended on foreign trade. The nations of Europe came to rely on products from the East, especially spices. The overland trade routes from East to West were long and arduous, making such products expensive. The rise of the Ottoman Empire threatened these trade routes. The Ottomans could charge extortionate tolls in peace and block trade altogether in war. Even if the tolls were reasonable, it must have galled the people of Christendom to contribute to the armies the Turks used to threaten them. It was essential for Europe to find alternative trade routes. For China, exploration was an expensive luxury. For Europe, exploration was a necessity.
While this bit of historical analysis is interesting. I have a reason for bringing it up. I was born in 1969, just two months after Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the Moon. I would have anticipated that half a century later, we would have gone much farther along with manned space exploration. Growing up, I expected to see colonies on the Moon and Mars by now. I expected to see huge space stations in orbit and manned spacecraft exploring the outer Solar System. Instead, we have remained in Lower Earth Orbit.
Don’t get me wrong. The exploration of space has been amazing. Satellites in orbit allow us to pinpoint our location on Earth within a meter. We can communicate all over the world more cheaply than ever. We can predict the weather with greater accuracy than anyone could have imagined before weather satellites. Unmanned probes have been sent to every planet, fundamentally altering our views of the Solar System. Yet the glory is in manned exploration, in establishing ourselves on more than one planet. Here, we have been negligent.
It seems to me that the reason for our slowness in reaching out to space is that we have adopted the Zheng He model of exploration. Putting a man on the Moon was a glorious accomplishment for the United States, one that likely will be remembered for as long as history is being written. Yet, it was expensive and brought little practical benefit. It might have been better if we had adopted the Christopher Columbus model. Perhaps instead of setting the goal of putting a man on the Moon, President Kennedy should have inaugurated a system of public-private initiatives to assist private companies in the exploration and exploitation of space. The result may not have been as glamorous as the Apollo project, but the results might have been more permanent.
Maybe things are changing. Elon Musk seems determined to go to Mars, and his company, SpaceX, is taking to lead in space travel. We may yet see a renaissance of space travel, this time funded by private enterprise with incentives to make space travel affordable and profitable. I may even get to see those Moon and Mars colonies before I die.
David's Commonplace Book 