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176 pp.
| Roaring Brook
| January, 2021
|
Trade
ISBN 978-1-62672-122-7
$19.99
|
Ebook
ISBN 978-1-62672-123-4
$10.99
(
2)
4-6
This fascinating (if slightly repetitive) history recounts Admiral Zheng He's massive treasure fleet's travels through the South China Sea, Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean, and Persian Gulf, almost one hundred years before the voyages of the European explorers that fill history textbooks. Beginning when the ten-year-old Zheng He, born a Muslim, is kidnapped from his village (and castrated) to serve in the emperor's court, Bergreen and Fray provide a detailed examination of his life as well as a brief sketch of early-fifteenth-century China. The well-researched narrative guides readers chronologically through construction of the massive fleet of hundreds of vehicles, including scores of 450-foot-long treasure ships, and crews numbering in the tens of thousands spread out among them. Readers then follow each of Zheng He's seven voyages, which led to China controlling trade and sea travel throughout much of the world, before the dramatic downfall of the Yongle Emperor and with it the end of China's place in international trade. Maps, artwork reproductions, and occasional sidebars appear throughout; a bibliography is appended, as well as source notes pointing to many six-hundred-year-old contemporaneous records.