> More than a mere diary, Ying Yai Sheng-lan is a treatise on society and nature across half the planet in the 15th century, and the comprehensive account of a

> More than a mere diary, Ying Yai Sheng-lan is a treatise on society and nature across half the planet in the 15th century, and the comprehensive account of a novel undertaking: Zheng’s fleet, the most lethal in existence, will ply the seas for three decades without conquering a single foreign state or annexing a sliver of territory. > In the words of the late Franz Schurmann, another legendary Berkeley sinologist, the vision behind the mammoth enterprise is “a world of exchange, rather than a world of conflict.” An inconceivable world, by the standards of Western imperialism, which takes the stage a century later. Seems likely that Cheng Ho was a likely inspiration (given both his name and the description of his voyages) for Vernor Vinge's Qeng Ho space-faring trading decentralized civilization of sorts.