Viewed from Cape Dondra head southernnmost tip of Sri Lanka, the first observation of the Ming fleet is a huge shadow on the horizon. Since rising from the shadows, breaks into a cloud tight ribbed candles, flames in the tropical sun, with steely determination, the cloud gets closer and closer, and occurs in passionate embrace of a big city. A floating city, like the world has ever seen. No official announcements could have prepared, soldiers and peasants Thunderstruck spread on top of the Dondra head down on stage together. Miles above the Indian Ocean stretches terrible majesty is Zheng He’s armada, Admiral of the Ming imperial army.
Exactly 600 years ago this month the great Ming Navy anchored in Nanjing, the first of seven epic voyages west Africaalmost a century before the arrival of Christopher Columbuss in North and South America and Basque da Gama in India. Even then, the European missions may seem miserable in comparison: All the ships of Columbus and da Gama combined could have been saved in a deck of a ship of Zheng He’s fleet flying.
Zheng was not even Chinesehe was originally a Central Asian Muslims. He was born Ma He, the son of an officer of the province of Yunnan, rural areas of Mongolia, was arrested as a Chinese military invasion overthrew the Mongols in the 1382nd Rituals castrated, had trained as an imperial eunuch and the court of Zhu Di The army received the Prince of Yan.
Adapting to a long tradition, but to die, workers in Beihai, China, the skeleton of a trade of scrap wood in the fertile South China Sea fisheries. The ship design has probably changed by the Chinese admiral Zheng He commanded a vast fleet of junks, was the first of seven epic voyagesthe created 600 years ago this month to life. Serving the Ming emperor, Zhu Di, treasure fleet of Zheng had an intense trade and diplomacy in the Indian Ocean. Mandate was to enrich the royal treasury of the high number of leaders of other countries bordering the Indian Ocean, and to strengthen their faith in China.
 The shark fin is captured in the Red Sea in Al Hudaydah, Yemen may, at the end of the tables in China, where shark fin soup is highly appreciated. Maritime traders from the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen and other countries have good business throughout the Indian Ocean during the Ming period, lasted from 17 to mid 14th century. When Zheng was sailing in 1408, the fleet of the most powerful of his era. By boat and its crew of hundreds to tens of thousands, Zheng took the sea for nearly a century before the age of European exploration began in earnest.