Chinese treasure ship
large wooden vessel commanded by the Chinese admiral Zheng He
A Chinese treasure ship (simplified Chinese: 宝船; traditional Chinese: 寶船; pinyin: bǎochuán, literally "gem ship") is a type of large wooden Chinese junk in the fleet of admiral Zheng He, who led seven voyages during the early 15th-century Ming dynasty. The treasure ships' cargo comprised valuable goods, including fine textiles, porcelain, and tea, to be traded abroad. The size of the treasure ships, the largest ships in Zheng He's fleet, has been a subject of much controversy, with some old Chinese records mentioning the size of 44 zhang or 44.4 zhang, which has been interpreted by some modern scholars as over 100 m (330 ft) in length. Meanwhile, others have stated that Zheng He's largest ship type was around 70 m (230 ft) in length.
Accounts
Chinese
According to the Guoque (1658), the first voyage consisted of 63 treasure ships crewed by 27,870 men.
The History of Ming (1739) credits the first voyage with 62 treasure ships crewed by 27,800 men. A Zheng He era inscription in the Jinghai Temple in Nanjing gave the size of Zheng He ships in 1405 as 2,000 liao (500 tons), but did not give the number of ships.
Alongside the treasures were also another 255 ships according to the Shuyu Zhouzilu (1520), giving the combined fleet of the first voyage a total of 317 ships. However, the addition of 255 ships is a case of double accounting according to Edward L. Dreyer, who notes that the Taizong Shilu does not distinguish the order of 250 ships from the treasure ships. As such the first fleet would have been around 250 ships including the treasure ships.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Chinese treasure ship” as large wooden vessel commanded by the Chinese admiral Zheng He. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q702138. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1658, 1739, 1405 and 1520.
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