Abstract
By examining the activities of Zheng He and members of his expeditions at the Malabar Coast, Sri Lanka, and Bengal, this article argues that the Yongle emperor wanted to exert military power in South Asia in order to legitimize his usurpation at the Ming court. The essay analyzes Zheng He’s intervention in the dispute between Calicut and Cochin, the armed conflict in Sri Lanka in 1410-11, and the expedition’s involvement in a dispute between Bengal and its neighboring polity, Jaunpur. These episodes in South Asia make it difficult to accept the modern representations of the Zheng He expeditions as diplomatic missions intended to promote peace and harmony. Rather, they were, as the essay contends, part of the Yongle emperor’s aim to establish hegemony over “all the known world under the Heaven” or the tianxia.
Children affected by armed conflict in South Asia : a review of trends and issues identified through secondary research / Jo Boyden andhellip; [et. al.].
