--- title: China: the Ming and Zheng He's voyages — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «China: the Ming and Zheng He's voyages», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: The Ming dynasty, from 1368 to 1644, moved the capital to Beijing and built the Forbidden City, a palace of red walls and golden ro --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / China: the Ming and Zheng He's voyages # China: the Ming and Zheng He's voyages Lesson 56 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 19 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/0/) — The Ming dynasty, from 1368 to 1644, moved the capital to Beijing and built the Forbidden City, a palace of red walls and golden roofs. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/1/) — Mei says it has 9,999 rooms because only Heaven may have 10,000: a lovely legend, but surveys count about 8,700. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/2/) — Admiral Zheng He sailed seven great voyages with hundreds of ships to India, Arabia and East Africa, long before Columbus. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/4/) — Mei once read that China discovered America in 1421. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/5/) — The teacher says no, and he is right: there is no evidence. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/6/) — The true story already has a giraffe from Africa that the emperor's court mistook for a lucky magical beast. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/7/) — The Ming also rebuilt the famous brick-and-stone parts of the Great Wall and traded silk and porcelain for silver from the Americas; in the end famine and rebellion inside weakened it before the Manchus came. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/8/) — The Ming dynasty, 1368–1644, moved the capital to Beijing, where the Forbidden City was built from 1406 to 1420 by many thousands of workers. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/9/) — The legend says the Forbidden City has 9,999 rooms because only Heaven can have 10,000; surveys count about 8,700. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/10/) — Admiral Zheng He led seven great voyages from 1405 to 1433 to Southeast Asia, India, Arabia and East Africa, with hundreds of ships and about 27,000 men. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/11/) — The biggest treasure ships are said to have been about 120 m long; many historians think they were smaller, but they were still much bigger than Columbus's ships. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/12/) — A 2002 popular book claimed Zheng He's fleets reached America in 1421; historians reject this because there is no evidence in Chinese records, maps or archaeology. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/13/) — In 1414 a giraffe from Malindi, in today's Kenya, was brought to the Ming court, where people took it for a qilin, a lucky mythical beast, and painted it. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/14/) — After 1433 the voyages stopped: they were very expensive, court officials opposed them, and the Ming focused on defending the north against the Mongols. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/15/) — The Ming rebuilt and greatly extended walls in brick and stone, including the famous sections at Badaling and Mutianyu, mostly in the 15th and 16th centuries. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/16/) — The Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci, Chinese name Li Madou, lived in China from 1582 to 1610, mastered Chinese, made a world map in Chinese and was buried in Beijing with the emperor's permission. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/17/) — Rare Ming blue-and-white porcelain can sell for millions at auction, but much Ming porcelain was exported in huge numbers and ordinary pieces are not so valuable. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/18/) — In the 16th and 17th centuries Spanish silver from the Americas flowed into Ming China through Manila to buy silk and porcelain. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/19/) — Famine, rebellion and money troubles weakened the Ming; the rebel Li Zicheng took Beijing in 1644, and then the Manchus entered and founded the Qing. - ← previous: [China: the Song and the Mongols](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/) - next →: [China: the Qing and the Opium Wars](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)