Hi Bill. So, you want sources on Zheng He’s ruthlessness? I have just written a section on this for a chapter on Southeast Asia and China economic relations 10-18thC for a book I am co-editing on the silk roads that comes out next year (Routledge Open Access). A short list will follow.

First, I often have a giggle about the CCP trope that voyages of Zheng were peaceful. Seven fleets that usually numbered more than 100 vessels with cavalry and up to 10,000 crack troops, as the Mingshilu 明实录 records, was hardly ever about friendship. It was a massive projection of force intended to persuade the polities of Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean littoral to submit tribute as vassals.

Finlay (1991: 10) summed it up nicely: “Wealthy and heavily armed, the Chinese overawed potential opposition and crushed those unwise enough not to be willing to submit to a dependent status. Comparing Ming and Portuguese behavior in Asia, and recognizing that the former neither acquired colonies nor spread terror on the seas, should not obscure the reality of the Chinese use of massive military power to impose their will throughout Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean.” Some 48 states became “tributary clients” during these voyages.

A short reading list (some are open access):

Robert Finlay (1991) “The Treasure-Ships of Zheng He: Chinese Maritime Imperialism in the Age of Discovery,” Terrae Incognitae, 23:1, 1-12, DOI: 10.1179/tin.1991.23.1.1

Lo, Jung-pang. 2012 [1957]. China as a Sea Power, 1127-1368: A Preliminary Survey of the Maritime Expansion and Naval Exploits of the Chinese People during the Southern Song and Yuan Periods. Edited, and with commentary by Bruce A. Elleman, and Introduction by Geoff Wade. Singapore: NUS Press. Lo was early in noting the violence of Chinese overseas expeditions (don’t forget the Yuan sent a force of 30,000 men against Java in 1293 for not showing sufficient deference). For the Zheng actions, see pp.333-8.

Wade, Geoff. 2008. “Engaging the South: Ming China and Southeast Asia in the Fifteenth Century.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 51 (2008) 578-638. Geoff is the leading authority on Ming maritime relations – his PhD at HKU in the late 1980s was seven volumes (BTW, we were Australia China Council students at Nanjing University in 1983-84).

- See pp.594-7 for Zheng’s military actions: the pacification of Jiugang (Palembang) with 5000 killed in 1407, violent intervention in Java in 1407, threats to Burma in 1409, the invasion of Sri Lanka and return of its king to submit to the Nanjing court in 1411, and the support of pro-Ming forces in a civil war in Sumatra 1414-5.

The article is in fact an introduction to Geoff's translations of the Ming shilu 明实录 and you can read for yourself the MSL references via the website at NUS.

epress.nus.edu.sg/msl

A Google search will turn up Geoff’s savaging of the nonsense written by Gavin Menzies on Zheng missions. Amateurs like Menzies who don’t read Chinese are a real menace and a valuable tool for the CCP in their manipulation of history to serve party goals.