Between 1405 and 1433 the Ming admiral Zheng He commanded seven state-sponsored expeditions of hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of crew across the South China Sea and Indian Ocean, reaching Sri Lanka, the Arabian coast and the ports of East Africa such as Malindi. The fleets carried silk, porcelain and silver to secure tribute relations, install friendly rulers and bring back envoys, gems and exotic animals including a giraffe. After the Yongle emperor's death and a shift in court priorities towards continental defence, the voyages were halted and the records partly destroyed. Chinese maritime ambition turned inward thereafter.
The voyages showed that a centralised state could project naval power across the whole Indian Ocean decades before the Portuguese, and they map the dense web of trading port-cities — Calicut, Hormuz, Malacca, Kilwa — that already structured Afro-Asian commerce.
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