Great link good stories

I found this looking a Junk info.

Zheng He was to flaunt the might of Chinese power and collect tribute
from the "barbarians from beyond the seas." On his first trip, leading
more than 60 massive galleons, Zheng He visited what would later become
Vietnam and reached the port of Calicut, India. On his return, he
battled pirates and established massive warehouses in the Straits of
Malacca for sorting all the goods accumulated on this and subsequent
voyages.

While voyaging to India, the ships encountered a ferocious hurricane.
Zheng He prayed to the Taoist Goddess known as the Celestial Spouse. In
response, a "divine light" shone at the tips of the mast, and the storm
subsided. This heavenly sign -- perhaps the static electrical
phenomenon known as St. Elmo's fire -- led Zheng He to believe that his
missions were under special divine protection.

The emperor launched Zheng He's fourth and most ambitious voyage in
January 1414. Its destination was Hormuz on the Persian Gulf, where
artisans strung together exquisite pearls and merchants dealt in
precious stones and metals. While Zheng He lingered in the city to
amass treasure for the emperor, another branch of the fleet sailed to
the kingdom of Bengal in present-day Bangladesh.

Here the travelers saw a giraffe that the east African potentate of
Malindi had presented to the Bengal ruler. The Chinese persuaded their
hosts to part with the giraffe as a gift to the emperor and to procure
another like it from Africa. When the giraffe arrived at the court in
Nanjing in 1415, the emperor's philosophers identified it, despite its
pair of horns, as the fabled chi'i-lin or unicorn, an animal associated
with an age of exceptional peace and prosperity. As the fleet's
merchants laid treasures from Arabia and India at the feet of the
emperor, this omen must surely have seemed fitting.

To navigate throughout the Indian Ocean, Zheng He would have made use
of the magnetic compass, invented in China during the Song dynasty.
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The initial diplomatic contact with Malindi now encouraged Zheng He to
plan a direct trading voyage to eastern Africa. Landing at Somalia on
the coast, he found himself offered such exotic items as "dragon
saliva, incense, and golden amber." But even these substances paled
before the extraordinary beasts that were loaded on board his ships.
Lions, leopards, "camel-birds" (ostriches), "celestial horses"
(zebras), and a "celestial stag" (oryx), were shipped back to the
imperial court. Here officials showered congratulations on Zheng He and
bowed low in awe before the divine creatures that accompanied him.

End of an era
Toward the end of his seventh voyage in 1433, the 62-year-old Zheng He
died and was said to have been buried at sea. Although he had extended
the wealth and power of China over a vast realm and is even today
revered as a god in remote parts of Indonesia, the tide was already
turning against foreign ventures.

The conservative Confucian faction now had the upper hand. In its
worldview, it was improper to go abroad while one's parents were still
alive. 'Barbarian' nations were seen as offering little of value to add
to the prosperity already present in the Middle Kingdom.

The renovation of the massive Grand Canal in 1411 offered a quicker and
safer route for transporting grain than along the coast, so the demand
for oceangoing vessels plummeted.

In addition, the threat of a new Mongol invasion drew military
investment away from the expensive maintenance of the treasure fleets.
By 1503 the navy had shrunk to one tenth of its size in the early Ming.
The final blow came in 1525 with the order to destroy all the larger
classes of ships. China was now set on its centuries-long course of
xenophobic isolation.


Impressive as they are, Chinese junks today are but pale shadows of
medieval Chinese ships.
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Historians can only speculate on how differently world history might
have turned out had the Ming emperors pursued a vigorous colonial
policy. As it is, porcelain shards washed up on the beaches of east
Africa and old men's folktales of shipwreck are among the few tangible
relics of China's epic voyages of adventure.