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The three major geographical exploration activities during the Yongle period were China's "great geographical discoveries", which had far-reaching influence and great significance.
The short-sighted successors terminated the exploration of these predecessors and opened the prelude to China's "customs closure".
As a result, these great geographical exploration activities were buried in the dust and sand of history.
After Ming Chengzu (Taizong) Zhu Di took the throne, he launched three world exploration activities, which greatly broadened the world vision of Chinese.
In the first year of Yongle (1403), the eunuch Zheng He led a fleet of ships to envoy to the Siamese kingdoms and shocked Japan. Zheng He drew a pattern of islands, water potentials, mountains and rivers along the way, and submitted it to the imperial court.
The Ming Dynasty took this as a starting point and started the process of Zheng He's seven voyages to the West.
On July 11, 1405, Zheng He was ordered by Ming Chengzu to lead an ocean-going fleet to the Western Ocean. The fleet consisted of more than 240 seagoing vessels with a crew of 27,400.
Zheng He's great exploration of the West lasted until the eighth year of Xuande (1433). He traveled seven times to the Western Ocean, reaching more than 30 countries along the western Pacific and Indian Ocean coasts, as far as the east coast of Africa, the Red Sea, Mecca, and possibly Australia. According to records, Zheng He's fleet reached the east coast of Africa, the Ma Woods south of the equator, the slow Basa, and Lamu.
Zheng He's seven voyages to the West were a great geographical discovery by the Chinese, half a century earlier than Europe.
In fact, Zheng He's seven trips to the West not only preached the prestige of the Ming Dynasty, "The emperor and the Ming Dynasty mixed with the sea, more than three generations and the Han and Tang Dynasties, the sky and the polar earth, and did not care about concubines." ”。
In terms of geography, it also has important historical significance. "The west of the Western Regions, the country in the north, is far away, and the journey is calculable. ”
Zheng He's voyage to the West greatly expanded the geographical vision of the Chinese. In 1414, when the Banggara Kingdom entered the Qilin, the Chinese truly felt the world thousands of miles away. When the reticulated giraffe from Somalia entered Jingshi (Nanjing), the Chinese believed that this was the "unicorn" that had been regarded as auspicious in the previous dynasties. The strong shock of this geographical exploration activity gave Zheng He more spiritual support to go to the West.
However, after Zhu Di's death, Zhu Gaochi changed his course, believing that this kind of geographical exploration was a waste of national strength and ordered it to stop.
The most regrettable thing is that he asked Zheng He's logs and documents in the palace to be burned. The precious documents produced by Zheng He's voyage to the West were burned down in this way.
In recent years, Mr. Lee Siu-leung, a scholar from Hong Kong, China, has repeatedly expounded the conclusions of Chinese in drawing world maps in his academic works and lectures. He thinks:
Zheng He, Wang Jinghong and others led more than seven voyages to survey the Americas, which was a real "great geographical discovery".
The Kunyu Wanguo Map, which appeared in China in 1602, was not actually drawn by Matteo Ricci, and this map is more detailed and accurate than the map of the Americas drawn by Europeans 200 years later. "Kunyu Wanguo Tu" is based on Zheng He's great achievements in seven voyages to the West.
And this kind of achievement, after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, through smuggling, into Europe, so, Western cartography beyond the millennium blank, fell from the sky, the "geographical discovery" in one fell swoop, the map preceded exploration.
Mr. Lee Siu-leung's academic conclusions are self-evident. However, it can be seen that the great achievements of Zheng He's voyage to the West are still seriously underestimated.
In September of the 11th year of Yongle (1413), Zhu Di sent a delegation to escort the envoys of the Timurid Empire in Central Asia back to China.
This time, the head of the Chinese mission was Li Xian, a lieutenant official, and his entourage included Li Xianam, deputy envoy, and Chen Cheng, secretary of the mission, Yang Zhong, and eight other people.
As early as 17 years ago, Chen Cheng, the secretary of the canon, had sent an envoy to Sari and sent an envoy to Annan.
Two years later, the mission returned to China, and Chen Cheng wrote "Itinerary of the Western Regions" and "Chronicles of the Western Regions", which were submitted to the Imperial Review. "Ming Taizong Records" records:
Li Da, a lieutenant official, and Chen Cheng, a member of the ministry, returned the Western Regions. The Western Regions countries of Harai, Samarkand, Huozhou, Tulupan, Lost Si, and I Duhuai sent envoys to Gongwen Leopard, Xima, and Fangwu. Cheng Shang "The Records of the Western Regions", all the 17 countries, mountains, rivers, customs, and products are all prepared.The "Records of Ming Taizong", which cherishes words like gold, actually recorded the full text of "The Records of the Western Regions", which has to show that Chengzu attaches great importance to these documents.
In his opinion, the significance of these great explorations is no less than Xuanzang's "Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty".
Judging from various indications, Zhu Di continued the Yuan Dynasty's foreign military strategy all his life, but this kind of planning is not consistent with traditional Confucian thought. Documents such as "The Records of the Western Regions" directly provided support for his military strategy.
Since then, Chen Cheng has visited Central Asia twice, climbing snow-capped mountains, crossing jungles, walking the Gobi, and trekking tens of thousands of miles
In the fourteenth year of Yongle (1416), he escorted the tributary envoys of the Timurid Empire, Samarkand, and Alduhuai to return to China.
In October of the 16th year of Yongle (1418), he escorted the tributary envoys of the Timurid Empire and Samarkand back to China.
In the twenty-second year of Yongle (1424), he sent an envoy to the Timurid Empire. Tired officials pass through politics and make the department right pass through politics.
In one of his poems, he described the exoticism of Central Asia as follows:
The green grass is paved, and the snow in the empty mountains is silver.
I often feel cold in four days, and I don't know spring in June.
After Zhu Di's death, in the first year of Hongxi (1425), Chen Cheng returned to his hometown of Linchuan, Jiangxi, built the "Zhuyuan Garden", traveled the years, and died 32 years later, with a high life expectancy of ninety three.
Chen Cheng's mission to Central Asia was no less significant than Zheng He's seven trips to the West. Since the late Tang Dynasty, the influence of the Central Plains Dynasty in China has rarely reached Central Asia. Under the grand world pattern of Ming Chengzu, foreign friends like Chen Cheng had the opportunity to carry out great geographical explorations and push China's influence to Central Asia again.
Chinese historian Xie Guozhen said that his merits were not diminished by Zheng He. "From now on, all parties will be moralized, and no labor will be levied and issued on three sides."
Even the historian of the former Soviet Union, Vladimir. Zoff, also hailed Chen Cheng as the most outstanding peacemaker of the 15th century.
In the seventh year of Yongle (1409), the Ming Dynasty set up the Nuer Gandu Division in the northeast region, and clearly included the vast area of the Heilongjiang River basin under its jurisdiction.
Zhu Di sent a Jurchen lieutenant to lead a fleet to the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River to proclaim national prestige to the local tribes.
Two years later, Yishiha led 1,000 men in 25 boats from Jilin and went down the Songhua River into Heilongjiang.
He propagated the Ming Weide in the savage Jurchen tribe and set up Nuer Gandu to command the envoys.
Soon after, the Savage Jurchen tribes sent a huge tribute mission of 178 people to meet Zhu Di:
Nuergan, Qilimi, Fuliqi, Wura, Suhar, Guru, Lost Duha, Wushixi and other ** Zhiye people leader Quasi-Tunu Ta lost and other 178 people came to the court and paid tribute. Zhi'er Man, Wura, Shunmin, Guru, Lujing, Ha Man, Tating, Yesun Lun, Kemu, Fusimu, Eleven Guards, and Quasi-Tunu were ordered to command thousands of households, and gave seals, crowns, belts, robes, and banknotes, and there was a difference. ("Records of Ming Taizong").This geographical exploration of Yishiha explored the vast areas of the Songhua River, the Ussuri River, the Urmi River, the Mudanjiang River and the Nenjiang River.
From 1413 to 1414, the Ming Dynasty again sent Yishiha to explore the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River. From the mouth of the Heilongjiang River to the coastal area of Sakhalin Island, he proclaimed Weide, canonized the chieftain, and established a guard.
In particular, it is worth mentioning that in this exploration, Yisha built Yongning Temple on the Terling Capeland, and erected stone tablets in Han, Mongolian, and Jurchen languages to remember it. The "Yongning Temple Tablet" became the evidence of the Ming Dynasty's governance of the Heilongjiang River basin and Sakhalin Island.
In the Yongle period after that, Yisha went to Nuergan three more times. As a Jurchen, he greatly promoted the frequency of tribute paid by the local Jurchen tribes to the Ming court.
After Zhu Di's death, during the reign of Ming Renzong and Ming Xuanzong, the Ming Dynasty continued the national policy of the Yongle period, and also lost Ha and arrived in the Nuergan area many times. He traveled the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River basin for a total of nine years.
In the ninth year of Xuande (1434), the short-sighted "good saint grandson" Ming Xuanzong abandoned the slave and changed the order to Liaodong.
After the Tumu Fort Change, this great geographical explorer disappeared from historical records.
The Qing Dynasty entered the customs and revised the "History of the Ming Dynasty" for a hundred years, but deliberately erased this great geographical explorer. Because Yizha was a Jurchen, the emperor of the Qing Dynasty wanted to erase the fact that their ancestors were the first of the Ming Dynasty and conceal the relationship between the Jianzhou Jurchens and the Ming Dynasty.
The "Yongning Temple Stele" is now lying quietly in the Arsenyev Museum in Vladivostok, quietly telling the years of the great geographical discoveries of the Chinese more than 600 years ago.
The Chinese homeland where the "Yongning Temple Tablet" is located is now renamed "Vladivostok".
The Russian name means "to rule the East"....
To this day, the three geographical exploration activities of the Ming Dynasty and Zhu Di are still underestimated.
This is a great geographical discovery for the Chinese. It represents the determination and courage of the Chinese to explore the world and go to the world.
It's just that such great explorations and discoveries were submerged in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
We have embarked on the ...... of closing the country to the outside world