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In order for the barbarians to follow the way of heaven, they would first need to find their way to the wellspring of Confucian virtue, the Middle Kingdom. Such a journey would require both maps and the ability to establish position at sea. Thus the provision of accurate charts and a viable system of navigation was of paramount importance— not only to facilitate the safe passage of Zheng He and his fleets but also to encourage the barbarians to return tribute to the new emperor.

Zhu Di and his father, Hong Wu, had encouraged the development of every aspect of navigation. A handbook titled Notebook on Sea Bottom Currents, found in Quanzhou, states that, after announcing the ascension of the Yongle emperor (Zhu Di) to the throne, Zheng He and his admirals were instructed to search for navigation charts, collecting all the information about currents, islands, mountains, straits, and the positions of stars. They used this data to revise their navigation charts, including compass points and the cross-references of stars.

The Chinese cultivated Arab navigators and astronomers, especially during the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). According to Gong Zhen, in 1403, two years before the first formal expedition, Zheng He, Jang Min, and Li Qi were sent by Zhu Di to visit countries of the western oceans. Their mission included recruiting foreign navigators capable of deep-sea navigation. For this and much other information in chapters 3 5, and 6, I am indebted to Tai Peng Wang’s research.1

The writer Yan Congjian stated in Shuyu Zhouzi Lu (Compiled information about the remotest foreign countries):

In the first year of the reign of the Emperor Hong Wu of the Ming dynasty (1368) the Emperor converted the Bureau of History into the Bureau of Astronomy. He also established the Bureau of the Chinese Islamic Astronomy. In the second year (1369) the Hong Wu Emperor summoned eleven Chinese Muslims including Zheng Ah Li, the Chinese Muslim Astronomical Officer, to the capital, Nanjing, “on a mission to improve on the Islamic calendars and to observe the astronomical-phenomena. They were each conferred upon with gifts and official titles accordingly.

In 1382 the emperor summoned a group of scholars, including the Islamic observatory official Hai Da Er and a master of Islam named Ma Sa Yi Hei, to choose the best astronomy books among several hundred volumes of Xiyu Shu (Books from the western regions) at the Yuan court in Beijing. The next year, a Chinese translation of the selected books, Tian Wen Shu (Works of astronomy), was published.

According to the Ming translator Ma Ha, the Tian Wen Shu was originally written by Abu Hassan Koshiya (A.D. 971–1029), a Yuan mathematician who played a dominant role in the development of spherical trigonometry. Ma Ha praises Koshiya as “one of the greatest scholars of all times who explained the ultimate theories of astronomy in all its great profundity and simplicity.”

The Tian Wen Shu explained the Islamic concepts of longitude and latitude. So it is clear that early Chinese concepts of latitude, longitude, and a round earth go back at least to this Ming translation of Islamic geography books. In about 1270 the Arab astrologist Jamal ad-Din had made a terrestrial globe of the earth that correctly depicted the proportions of land (30 percent) and sea (70 percent). He gave the globe to Guo Shoujing, as will be described in later chapters.

A reliance on Islamic navigators continued in Zheng He’s era. Zheng He himself was a Muslim, and given the advanced state of navigation and astronomy in the Islamic world, it’s no wonder he recruited other Muslims to his fleets. According to Chen Shuiyuan, a Taiwanese historian, many were located in Quanzhou, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world and home to special graveyards reserved for Muslim sailors. Zheng He and his team also searched the provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, and Zhejiang for superior navigators.

Foreign navigators and astronomers who voyaged on Chinese ships were given Chinese names, such as Wang Gui, Wu Zheng, and Ma Zheng. When they returned after a successful mission, they were rewarded. In 1407, for example, foreigners returning to Quanzhou received notes equivalent to fifty taeles of silver as well as rolls of embroidered silk. In 1430, when a foreign Muslim named Sheban returned from the final expedition, the Xuan De Emperor promoted him to deputy battalion commander.

In a paper titled “Instruments and Observation at the Imperial Astronomical Bureau During the Ming Dynasty,” Professor Thatcher E. Deane states:

As with the development of the calendric systems…were most evident at the beginning of a dynasty, less so at the beginning of an individual emperor’s reign, and almost never at any other time when such expenditures were not direct investments in legitimising state and ruler. Hong Wu had an urgent need to improve the calendrical system because he was the first of the dynasty; Zhu Di was accused of usurping the throne so he also had a very strong need.