Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 1 | Page 75

New Tales of the Ming Treasure Voyages
St Stephen's College Preparatory School, Mui, Megan - 6
Chapter One: The First Voyage: 1405 – 1407
In a thunderous night I was summoned to come to the royal palace. His Highness
Yongle Emperor could not sleep. He eyes were swollen as he yelled in pain
saying, “I could not sleep and I am having these nightmares that my nephew will
be coming back seeking his revenge. Our spies reported that he disguised as a
monk and left the country on a large fishing boat a few months earlier. We
thought that he hid somewhere in the South Sea. Gather a fleet and hunt him
down.”
In early spring 1405, we set sailed with twenty ships and two thousand sailors. It
was like a picture painted in blue with our treasure boats scattered like little dots in
the sea. Our fleet sailed straight through the Indian Ocean following rumours on
the whereabout of Jianwen Emperor.
We were not able to locate Jianwen Emperor but we ran into a local priate named
Chen Zuyi at Palembang on our return trip. He was a priate who dominated the
Malaccan Strait. He sent his pirate ships to attack our ships with arrows and fire
bombs in the middle of the night. We returned fire and destoryed ten of his boats
and captured another seven. Chen sped quickly knowing that he is no match to
our fleet. Chen and his lieutenants were captured and publicly executed on 2 nd
October 1407.
News spread quickly and our victory was widely publicied. We returned to
Nanjing at the end of October; two and a half years after we left. Members of
our fleet, the local officials and the people in the vincinities staged an extravagent
welcome for our return. The city put up dazzling fireworks during the night to
celebrate our return. That night gitters lit up Nanjing while we enjoy our feast.
Dancers performed in front of major municipal officials and local mandarins from
the vincity. Scores of people came out to congradulate us on our victory as the
local establishments gave the sailors free food and drinks.
We brought foreign envoys from Calicut, Quilon, Semudera, Aru, Malacca, and
other smaller nations along the sea routes that we visited. We went back to
Beijing with the envoys two days later. We were invited to visit the Ming court to
pay homage and present tribute to the great Yongle Emperor. His Highness
ordered the Ministry of Rites to prepare generous gifts for the foreign envoys to
show his appreciation.
Everyone in the court was amazed by exotic animals such as monkeys from
Malaysia; Tapir and Orangutan from Indonesia. We asked the natives to teach the
cooks in the royal courts how to prepare food with the spices we brought back.
Everyone but the Emperor seems to have forgotten what the underlying objective
of our trip – to hunt for the fugitive Jianwen Emperor, who is still at large. But
before we were able to indulge on our success, His Excellence asked us to plan our
next trip and set sail as soon as we can.