When it comes to Zheng He's voyage, the feelings of the Chinese people are quite complicated. It may contain both pride and sadness and unwillingness. A hundred years ago, Zheng He had already accomplished a larger seafaring feat, so why are we still lagging behind in modern times? Perhaps it is this phenomenon-level contradiction in the modernization process of the East and the West that has made Mr. Liang Qichao write the article "The Biography of Zheng He, the Great Navigator of the Motherland" in 1905 years, and Zheng He's research has continued to receive attention and heated discussions from all walks of life at home and abroad for a hundred years.

At present, there are several first-hand documents about the navigation of Zheng He's fleet, mainly including Ma Huan's "Yingya Shenglan", Gong Zhen's "Xibangguo City", Fei Xin's "Xingcha Shenglan" and "Ming Shilu", as well as more than a dozen stone tablets (the two links of Liujiagang and Changle are the most important). The locations recorded in these historical records are both overlapping and different. For example, the farthest place recorded in the Yingya Victory is the Heavenly Kingdom (present-day Arabia), while the farthest place recorded in the Xingcha Victory is as far as Mugudushu (present-day Mogadishu, Somalia). In the late Ming Dynasty, the document "Zheng He's Navigation Chart" marked the sites of Ma Lindi and Slow Basa, and many scholars believe that these sites could reach Malindi and Mombasa, Kenya, south of the equator in East Africa. The research of previous scholars on this issue mainly focuses on the existing literature. Although some people boldly put forward the theory that Zheng He circumnavigated the world in 90 years, many scholars insist that Zheng He's fleet may have only reached the Arab region at the farthest. In the discussion, East Africa and even Eastern and Southern Africa became the key regions in the discussion. Since the 0s of the 0th century, the discovery of "descendants of Zheng He's subordinates" in Kenya has made East Africa the focus of attention.

    1994年，美國專業作家李露曄（Louise Levathes）在長達6年的調查訪談之後，出版了鄭和傳記——《當中國稱霸海上》（When China Ruled the Seas）。書中提到，當她在肯亞進行實地調查時，一位黑人告訴她，自己是中國人的子孫，是數百年前在肯亞沉沒的一條中國商船倖存者的後裔。這一情況頗不尋常。口述歷史本身雖然在口耳相傳的過程中會導致信息的變化和流失，但這些資訊原非空穴來風。

In 1999, Nicholas D. Kristof, a reporter for The New York Times, revisited Kenya inspired by Li Luye's work and heard the same story. The Chinese crew, who was shipwrecked near the Lamu Islands, swam ashore and were accepted by the locals. They settled here and intermarried with the locals, leaving behind their descendants. From this, Ji Sidao came up with a bold inference: these Chinese sailors were most likely Zheng He's subordinates. Since then, the inhabitants of Patai Island have been dubbed "descendants of Zheng He's subordinates" and have become famous.

These reports by overseas journalists quickly attracted the attention of the Chinese media. Since 2013, Mr. Li Xinfeng, a reporter of People's Daily in South Africa, has visited the Lamu Islands in Kenya many times, written a large number of reports, and has since published a monograph "Africa Traces the Road of Zheng He". During the investigation, Mwamaka Sharifu, a family claiming to be of Chinese descent, was discovered in the village of Siyu on the island of Patai. Since then, Kenya's "descendants of Chinese" have received widespread attention from all walks of life. The 0 commemoration of the 0th anniversary of Zheng He's voyage pushed the matter to a climax. Based on the attention of the media and non-governmental circles, State Councilor Chen Zhili instructed scholars to intervene in relevant research. From 0 to 0, archaeological experts Zhang Wei, Qin Dashu, Yan Yalin, Wang Guangyao and others went to Kenya twice for research and found many relics related to China. On this basis, in 0-0 years, Professor Qin Dashu of Peking University presided over the research of land archaeology and porcelain in the Malindi area of Kenya, and achieved rich results. This is the largest scale of terrestrial archaeology in Kenya. The answer to the question of whether Zheng He's fleet had ever arrived in East Africa has gradually become clear because of this archaeological work.

The archaeological team excavated in the Malindi area of Kenya as the core, with the intention of exploring the "Ma Lin" and "Ma Lindi", which are repeatedly mentioned in Chinese Ming Dynasty documents. According to the 1000th century Arab al-Idrisi, the ancient Malindi was located at the mouth of a large river. The ruins of the old town in today's Malindi and the nearby ruins of Manbrui are at the equidistant ends of the mouth of the Sabaki River. There are still tall pillar tombs inlaid with porcelain tiles from the Ming Dynasty in both places. Therefore, the archaeological team focused its archaeological work on the ruins of Manbrui and the old town of Malindi, and carried out archaeological excavations at 0 sites in the former and 0 sites in the latter. Excavations in the two places have unearthed more than 0 pieces of porcelain from the Song Dynasty to the Republic of China, which provides important evidence for the early connection between ancient China and Africa.

In the 2013th year, the archaeological exploration where the author is located unearthed two important relics that may be related to Zheng He's voyage - "Yongle Tongbao" and Yongle official kiln blue and white porcelain pieces. In 0, American archaeologists found two more "Yongle Tongbao" copper coins on Manda Island in the Lamu Islands. Although "Yongle Tongbao" can give us a very rich and beautiful imagination, if you think about it, it seems that they cannot independently bear the heavy responsibility of proving that Zheng He once reached the coast of East Africa.

As a currency, ordinary people can obtain "Yongle Tongbao". It may have been carried to East Africa by Zheng He, smuggled in by Chinese merchants, or brought through the transit trade of Middle Eastern merchants. In contrast, the blue and white porcelain pieces of the Yongle official kiln should be a stronger evidence of the arrival of Zheng He's fleet on the coast of East Africa.

Since the Song Dynasty, the government has had many restrictions on the circulation of porcelain from official kilns. Judging from the archaeological discoveries, the Ru kiln site of Baofeng Qingliang Temple, the site of the Xiunei Siguan kiln in Hangzhou Tiger Cave, and the site of the Zhushan Imperial Kiln in Jingdezhen all have the phenomenon of unsuccessful products and defective products being broken and buried on the spot, indicating that even if the porcelain is burned, it is never allowed to flow into the people. This shows the government's strong control over the official kilns and the imperial kilns. The "Ming Shilu Xuanzong Shilu" and "Ming Shilu Yingzong Shilu" respectively recorded the beheading of eunuchs because "most of the imperial porcelain they made were given to them in the same column" and the prohibition of the purchase of imperial kiln porcelain as gifts. Wang Guangyao believes that before the Ming Dynasty, the possibility of imperial porcelain being circulated among the people is extremely small. In the Ming Dynasty, official kiln porcelain was mainly used in four ways: porcelain for the court, porcelain for the palace, porcelain for internal rewards and porcelain for foreign affairs. Judging from these four use cases, it is basically excluded that private merchants carried official kiln porcelain to East Africa. The most likely way for Yongle official kiln porcelain to arrive in East Africa was diplomatic porcelain, and the only large-scale voyage during the Yongle period was Zheng He's voyage. Zheng He's fleet could only have given porcelain from the official kilns to local chieftains or dignitaries. Although we cannot completely rule out the possibility that Chinese Ming Dynasty official kiln porcelain changed hands between the Middle East and East Africa as gifts, the discovery of official kiln porcelain at the site of Mambuyi in the early Ming Dynasty as material evidence greatly increases the possibility that Zheng He's fleet once arrived in East Africa.

It is worth noting that the discovery of official kiln porcelain in the coastal areas of Kenya in the early Ming Dynasty is not an isolated case. In the investigation of porcelain, Professor Qin Dashu and others found that porcelain from the Longquan official kiln in the early Ming Dynasty were found in the ruins of the ancient city of Gedi not far from Malindi and the ruins of Ungwana at the ancient mouth of the Tana River. The discovery of porcelain and porcelain pieces from many official kilns has added considerable weight to the material evidence of the arrival of Zheng He's fleet in East Africa.

Zheng He's voyage was a culmination of China's exploration of the overseas world. In fact, from the late Tang Dynasty onwards, a large number of Chinese goods, represented by ceramics, arrived on the coast of East Africa. This has been the case for nearly a millennium. Behind this, perhaps the more interesting question is, what kind of changes have the Chinese and their goods brought to the local society? What kind of impact is it?

Pillar tombs on the East African coast are a unique form of burial, and these pillar tombs often have many small niches for inlaying ceramic products from China and Arabia. This phenomenon provides clues for archaeological work and serves as a starting point for us to think about the social function of Chinese porcelain in East Africa.

The main type of Chinese porcelain unearthed in East Africa is bowls and plates, which were originally used for catering. Compared with locally produced pottery in East Africa and even imported Islamic glazed pottery, the exquisiteness of Chinese porcelain is obvious to all. This exquisiteness extends and breaks through its original practical function. In traditional Swahili houses on the East African coast, there is often a wall full of niches. Each niche on the wall is furnished with a piece of exquisite artifact from overseas. Chinese porcelain often occupies most of the wall space. Why display Chinese porcelain?

The East African coastal region is an important window of communication between the continent and the outside world, and local commercial activities are very prosperous, and the upper classes of society are often engaged in commercial trade. Overseas merchants who want to trade in East Africa's coastal ports must find local collaborators. Locals want to work with overseas businessmen to make a profit. According to the travelogues of the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta in the 14th century, we know that on the coast of East Africa at that time, when foreign merchant ships docked, there would always be servants of local celebrities carrying food to invite overseas merchants to their homes. In the course of the visit, the Chinese porcelain in the niche was seen as a symbol of the owner's wealth. At the same time, the host will deliberately use Chinese porcelain when entertaining guests to express the importance that the host attaches to the guests. This process shows that Chinese porcelain, as a symbol of wealth and status, was an important prop in the process of local commercial trade, and even had a ceremonial function.

The niches on the pillar tombs were inlaid with Chinese porcelain and Islamic glazed pottery, presumably inspired in part by the display niches of the houses. In addition to the surrounding walls of the pillar tombs, the tops or heights of the pillars are often decorated with Chinese porcelain. This creates an upward perspective. From the "high" of the visual space, it indicates the "high" of the column tomb and the class of Chinese porcelain users. This seems to be more indicative of the status of Chinese porcelain. From the point of view of the plan, the tall pillar tombs are often adjacent to the high-profile Friday Mosque and are the core of the entire settlement space. From the arrangement of the flat space of the settlement to the construction of the three-dimensional space of the pillar tomb, it seems that the intention is to highlight the central position of the owner of the pillar tomb. The blue and white porcelain tiles of the Yongle official kiln are being unearthed a few meters near the largest pillar tombs in the Malindi area, including the Gedi site, the Malindi Old Town site and the Manbrui site. It is likely that it was originally inlaid on a pillar tomb. In addition, the area near the pillar tomb is also the area with the largest number of porcelain pieces unearthed in China. The size of the pillar tomb is so commensurate with the size and number of porcelain tiles, which seems to indicate that the local population was fully aware of the rank of the porcelain and the status of the owner of the pillar tomb, and the use of a large number of porcelain, or even high-grade porcelain, on the pillar tomb should be a recognition and flaunting of the power, status or wealth of the tomb owner. The examples of houses and pillar tombs show that Chinese porcelain was deeply involved in the completion of local commercial work, the identification of social ranks, etc., greatly extending and breaking through the original catering function, and in the local society, it was a symbol of wealth and power.

Zheng He is an outstanding representative of China's overseas exploration. Judging from the long history, he is only one of the more prominent among many Chinese with a deep pioneering spirit. Judging from the archaeological discoveries, Chinese products represented by ceramics have reached as far as Africa as early as the Tang Dynasty, and have been deeply involved in the lives of local people, gaining new cultural connotations in the interaction between objects and people, and changing and improving the quality of life, living habits and lifestyles of the people in the consumer areas, and even playing a role in the local hierarchy and key activities.

    明初官窯產品，為我們研究鄭和提供了有力的證據。中國陶瓷，凝立於萬里之外異鄉柱墓的頂端，為東非沿海人群的生活增加新的可能與色彩，參與著東非沿海聚落的興衰。500年後，我們又來到它們面前，聆聽它們無聲地訴說，初衷未改。

The text of this edition is organized by Yan Huan