A quiz question · medium
What animal did Zheng He's fleet famously bring back to the Ming court in 1414, received as the mythical qilin?
The giraffe from Malindi was presented as the auspicious qilin of Confucian prophecy. Within decades the voyages were cancelled and the records left to vanish.
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The Treasure Fleets of Zheng He, Which Sailed to Africa and Back — and Were Then Deliberately Forgotten Between 1405 and 1433 the Ming admiral Zheng He led seven expeditions of up to 300 ships and 27,000 men across the Indian Ocean — to India, Arabia, and the Swahili coast, returning once with a giraffe for the emperor. Then China turned inward: the voyages stopped, and the records were left to rot or worse. Europe's small ships entered an ocean the treasure fleets had vacated.
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