Deng's lamentation and the itinerary of the final expedition of Zheng He

向歷諸國，唯地上之物有異耳，其天象大小、遠近、顯晦之類，雖極遠國，視之一切與中國無異。予因此益知舊以二十八舍分隸中國之九州者，為謬也。

Told by Deng, a retired mariner who took part in Zheng He's expedition, to Zhu Yunming 祝允明

The reflection recounted to Zhu Yunming 祝允明 appears at first glance to be a modest astronomical observation. Yet beneath its restrained tone lies a profound intellectual rupture.

Zhu Yunming 祝允明 (b. 1460, d. 1527) and his friend Tang Yin 唐寅 (b. 1470, d. 1524)

Deng observes that while terrestrial customs, products, and landscapes differ from country to country, the celestial bodies remain invariant: the same stars, distances, and celestial phenomena appear everywhere exactly as they do in China. From this empirical experience he draws a striking conclusion, that the traditional doctrine which assigned the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions 二十八宿 to the Nine Provinces 九州 of China must be fundamentally dumb. $$\underbrace{宿}_{\textrm{$\lceil 27.32166 \rceil $ lunar mansions}} \xrightarrow[\text{舊者，為謬也}]{} \underbrace{州}_{\textrm{9 provinces}}$$

This short passage encapsulates a moment in which long-distance maritime experience collided with inherited political cosmology, exposing the limits of Chinese political theory at the height of the Ming dynasty’s global reach. In what follows, we argue that the mariner’s remark constitutes a quiet but devastating critique of China’s cosmological foundations of political legitimacy. His lament is not over technological backwardness or military weakness, but over an intellectual failure: despite possessing empirical knowledge capable of transforming political theory, Ming China lacked the conceptual framework, and perhaps the institutional willingness, to revise its political worldview. In this sense, the passage reveals not merely an astronomical insight, but an unfulfilled epistemic revolution.

To understand the weight of the mariner’s conclusion, one must first recognize that astronomy in imperial China, like its counterpart in medieval Europe, was never a neutral science. From the earliest dynasties, cosmology formed the backbone of political theory. The ruler governed by virtue of the Mandate of Heaven 天命, and Heaven itself was understood not as an abstract physical universe, but as a morally charged, symbolically ordered system intimately aligned with the Chinese state.

Inspired by the length of a sidereal month (the moon reset its position relative to the background stars every 27.3 days), the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions were a core component of this system. Used for calendrical calculation, astrology, and ritual timing, they were integrated into a worldview in which Heaven and man mirrored one another 天人合一. The Nine Provinces, representing the ideal territorial order of the realm, were symbolically aligned with celestial divisions. This alignment reinforced a powerful political claim: China occupied the center of the cosmos not merely geographically or culturally, but metaphysically. Thus, to suggest that the lunar coordinates were not inherently tied to China was not a minor correction in star lore. It struck at the cosmological justification for Chinese centrality itself. In imperial ideology, Heaven validated political order; to detach Heaven from China was to destabilize the symbolic architecture of the state.

What distinguishes the sailor from most Confucian scholar-officials of his time is not philosophical training, but lived experience. As a participant in Zheng He’s voyages, he had traversed Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, Arabia, and perhaps East Africa. Navigation on such routes depended not on inherited metaphysics, but on continuous empirical observation: stellar positions, rising and setting points, seasonal winds, and latitude indicators. Through repeated exposure, the mariner encountered a fact so simple it became revolutionary: the heavens did not change at the borders of China. Stars did not dim, shift, or reorder themselves according to political boundaries. Celestial phenomena were global and universal. This realization mirrors, in structural terms, the later European discovery that the laws of nature applied uniformly across the globe. Yet unlike the European case, where such insights eventually fed into scientific and political revolutions, the Ming mariner’s observation remained largely personal. It was recorded, but not systematized into a new cosmology that is not sinocentric.

Deng's statement that only things on the earth differ while the heavens remain the same is deceptively restrained. Implicitly, it reverses the hierarchy of traditional Chinese thought. In inherited cosmology, Heaven was particularized and morally differentiated, while terrestrial variation was secondary. Here, the author inverts the relationship: political and cultural difference is contingent, but nature is universal. This inversion undermines the symbolic geography of tianxia 天下. If Heaven does not privilege China, then China’s claim to universal moral authority must rest on something other than cosmic alignment. The old system of correlative thinking (linking dynastic virtue, territorial order, and celestial signs) loses its empirical grounding. The phrase 為謬也 is erroneous is particularly telling. Deng does not describe the doctrine as outdated, metaphorical, or incomplete; he calls it wrong. This is the language of factual correction, not ritual reinterpretation. In the context of Ming intellectual culture, such a claim is quietly radical.

Why, then, did such insights fail to transform Chinese political theory? The answer lies not in ignorance, but in structural constraints. Ming political thought was fundamentally symbolic rather than universalist. It did not seek to derive legitimacy from general laws applicable to all polities, but from moral exemplarity embedded in ritual order. Even when confronted with empirical anomalies, such as foreign peoples who followed their own calendrical systems yet prospered. Chinese theory tended to absorb difference as peripheral rather than revising its center. Foreign lands were outside transformation 化外, not alternative centers of order. The mariner’s observation threatens this framework by implying that no such cosmological center exists. Heaven does not recognize political borders. Yet adopting this insight would have required rethinking sovereignty, legitimacy, and the relationship between nature and rule, an intellectual leap for which Ming institutions were ill prepared.

Zheng He's expeditions demonstrate that China possessed the practical capacity to encounter the world on equal terms. Its ships were technologically advanced, its navigators skilled, its geographical reach unprecedented. What it lacked was not experience, but theory. After the voyages ceased, maritime knowledge was marginalized, and the scholar-official class, whose authority rested on textual mastery rather than empirical observation, retained ideological dominance. The insights of sailors did not reshape the curriculum, the examination system, or the cosmological foundations of the state. In this context, the mariner’s reflection becomes a lament not for China’s weakness, but for its missed opportunity. China reached the threshold of a universal worldview, only to retreat into symbolic centralism.

Seen in comparative perspective, the mariner’s insight anticipates elements of early modern global thought. His recognition of the uniformity of celestial phenomena parallels later developments in European astronomy, which ultimately undermined geocentric and theologically bounded worldviews. The crucial difference lies in institutional response. In Europe, navigational experience, astronomical revision, and political theory eventually converged, producing new conceptions of natural law and sovereignty. In Ming China, the convergence failed to occur. This failure should not be read as intellectual inferiority. Rather, it reflects a different relationship between knowledge and power. Chinese political theory prioritized moral symbolism and ritual continuity over theoretical abstraction. As a result, empirical universalism remained a personal realization rather than a systemic transformation.

Deng’s brief remark on the universality of the celestial structures captures a moment of profound epistemic tension. It reveals that Chinese engagement with the wider world generated insights capable of challenging the deepest assumptions of imperial political theory. Yet those insights remained largely unassimilated. The lamentation embedded in the passage is therefore subtle but profound. It is the sorrow of someone who has seen the world as it is, yet must return to a system that insists the world conforms to inherited symbols. China, at the height of its maritime reach, encountered the evidence for a universal order, but lacked the conceptual tools to translate that evidence into a new political theory. In this sense, the passage stands as a quiet testament to a path not taken: an alternative intellectual modernity in which empirical observation, rather than symbolic centrality, might have reshaped the foundations of Chinese political thought.

Itinerary of the outward journey

1. 19 January 1431. Set sail from Longwan.
2. 23 January 1431. Reached Xushan.
3. 2 February 1431. Passed through Fuzimen.
4. 3 February 1431. Reached Liujiagang.
5. 29 March 1431. Reached Changle Port.
6. 16 December 1431. Reached Fudou Mountain.
7. 12 January 1432. Passed through Wuhumen (16 days of sailing).
   
   
   Zheng He's outward trip reached Champa 占城 on 27 January 1432. Champa was visited again on 13 June 1433 when the expedition was on her way home.
   
   
8. 27 January 1432. Reached Champa.
9. 12 February 1432. Set sail (25 days of sailing).
10. 7 March 1432. Reached Surabaya.
    
    
    From Champa, Zheng He sailed for 25 days before he reached Surabaya. The team sailed through Kalimata islands 假里馬達 and Karimun Jawa island 吉利悶. The distance between Kalimata and Karimun is approximately 500 km.
    
    
11. 13 July 1432. Set sail (11 days of sailing).
12. 24 July 1432. Reached Palembang.
13. 27 July 1432. Set sail (7 days of sailing).
14. 3 August 1432. Reached Melaka.
15. 2 September 1432. Set sail (10 days of sailing).
16. 12 September 1432. Reached Samudera.
17. 2 November 1432. Set sail (36 days of sailing).
18. 28 November 1432. Reached Ceylon (Beruwala).
19. 2 December 1432. Set sail (9 days of sailing).
20. 10 December 1432. Reached Kochi.
21. 14 December 1432. Set sail (35 days of sailing).
22. 17 January 1433. Reached Hormuz.

Itinerary of the homeward journey

1. 9 March 1433. Set sail homeward (23 days of sailing).
2. 31 March 1433. Reached Kochi.
3. 9 April 1433. Treasure ship set sail (17 days of sailing).
4. 25 April 1433. Reached Samudera.
5. 1 May 1433. Set sail (9 days of sailing).
6. 9 May 1433. Reached Melaka.
7. 28 May 1433. Returned to Kunlun Ocean.
8. 10 June 1433. Reached Chikan.
9. 13 June 1433. Reached Champa.
10. 17 June 1433. Set sail (2 days of sailing).
11. 19 June 1433. Reached Wailuo Mountain.
12. 25 June 1433. Sighted Nanao Mountain.
13. 26 June 1433 (night): Sighted Ji Hui Mountain.
14. 30 June 1433. Reached Qitou Ocean.
15. 1 July 1433. Reached Wangan [mountain bend].
16. 6 July 1433.Passed Great and Little Chi.
17. 7 July 1433. Entered Taicang (later stages not recorded).
18. 23 July 1433. Reached the capital.
19. Between (12 December 1433 - 10 January 1434). Rewarded with silk garments and paper currency.

1. Having journeyed through many lands, I observed that only the features on earth were different. In the sky, however, the size, distance, brightness, and dimness of the celestial bodies appeared exactly the same as in China, even in the most remote countries. This makes it clear to me that the old notion of linking the Twenty-Eight Mansions to the Nine Provinces is nothing but a joke.
   
   These inward-looking Confucian scholars, capable perhaps only of clinging to antiquated notions like the Twenty-Eight Mansions and the Nine Provinces, chose to erase what had been the crowning achievement of three decades of eunuch-led enterprise, initiated under the patronage of Emperor Yongle.
   
   
   
   
2. It is an irreparable loss for historians that most official records of Zheng He’s expeditions were now lost forever. Traditionally, the Confucian scholar-officials are blamed for the destruction of these naval records. While it is perfectly reasonable to question the funding of future ventures of such scale and expense, it was sheer folly to consign these priceless naval archives to the flames. Fortunately, the Ming poet Zhu Yunming 祝允明 (b. 1460, d. 1527) stumbled on certain documents and met a retired mariner (likely in his sixties or seventies) who had sailed on the voyages. From this unlikely encounter, the itinerary of the final expedition was preserved for posterity in one of the most unexpected literary settings.
   
   
   
   
3. 下西洋: 永樂中，遣官軍下西洋者屢矣，當時使人有著瀛涯勝覽及星槎勝覽二書以記異聞矣。今得宣德中一事，漫記其槩。人數: 官校、旗軍、火長、舵工、班碇手、通事、辨事、書筭手、醫士、鐵錨、木艌、搭材等匠、水手、民稍人等共二萬七千五百五十員名。里程:
   
   
   • 宣德五年閏十二月六日龍灣開船，
     
   • 十日到徐山打圍。
     
   • 二十日，出附子門，
     
   • 二十一日到劉家港。
     
   • 六年二月十六日到長樂港。
     
   • 十一月十二日到福斗山。
     
   • 十二月九日，出五虎門， 行十六日。
     
   • 二十四日到占城。
     
   • 七年正月十一日開船， 行二十五日。
     
   • 二月六日到爪哇 斯魯馬益。
     
   • 六月十六日開船， 行十一日。
     
   • 二十七日到舊港。
     
   • 七月一日開船，行七日。
     
   • 八日到滿剌加。
     
   • 八月八日開船， 行十日。
     
   • 十八日到蘇門答剌。
     
   • 十月十日開船， 行三十六日。
     
   • 十一月六日到錫蘭山。別羅里。
     
   • 十日開船，行九日。
     
   • 十八日到古里。
     
   • 二十二日開船，行三十五日。
     
   • 十二月二十六日到魯乙忽謨斯。
     
   • 八年二月十八日開船回洋， 行二十三日。
     
   • 三月十一日到古里。
     
   • 二十日大䑸船回洋，行十七日。
     
   • 四月六日到蘇門答剌。
     
   • 十二日開船，行九日。
     
   • 二十日到滿剌加。
     
   • 五月十日回到崑崙洋。
     
   • 二十三日到赤坎。
     
   • 二十六日到占城。
     
   • 六月一日開船， 行二日。
     
   • 三日到外羅山。
     
   • 九日，見南澳山。
     
   • 十日晚，望見即回山。
     
   • 六月十四日到踦頭洋。
     
   • 十五日到碗䂺。
     
   • 二十日過大小赤。
     
   • 二十一日進太倉。 後程不錄。
     
   • 七月七日到京。
     
   • 十一月，關錫漿衣寶鈔。
   
   
   船號: 如清和、惠康、長寧、安濟、清遠之類，又有數序一二等號。船名: 大八櫓、二八櫓之類。