Chinese person here, I don't think those numbers are that accurate or those ships were being maintained or seaworthy. That period was chaotic on the seas and pi

Chinese person here, I don't think those numbers are that accurate or those ships were being maintained or seaworthy. That period was chaotic on the seas and piracy was rampant with frequent attacks in-land, as well during that period the Chinese Haijin was in force, which means no private seafaring (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin). If they had that many ships, it was likely inherited off Zheng He's expeditions and the 1400s Chinese period's brief uprise in naval interest (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He#Expeditions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He#Expeditions), the Vietnamese conquest or the Mongolian Yuan dynasty who might have used them as an naval invasion force or even other previous dynasties who were far more interested in commerce but all these events were more than 50 years before the 1500s. However, note at that period, China had went from years of prosperity in the early 1500s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongzhi_Emperor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongzhi_Emperor) to chaos in the mid to late-1500s and land wars were more important with Chinese fighting Mongols and Japanese (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanli_Emperor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanli_Emperor).