The Ming court launched its famous expeditions overseas in the early fifteenth century and suddenly terminated these voyages after 1436. This article attempts to reassess the driving force of this event and its termination in the context of the Ming's domestic financial system, revealing that both the initiation and the cessation of Zheng He's voyages could be explained by the political and fiscal tension between emperors and bureaucrats. This article will also discuss how the cessation of Zheng He's voyages contributed to the onset of private sailings after the mid-fifteenth century.

The expedition of Zheng He's fleet to the Western Ocean1 in the first half of the 15th century is an important event in the history of navigation, which has attracted the broad attention of domestic and foreign scholars from different fields2. This paper reveals the relation between Zheng He's voyages and the Asian Monsoon from a geographical perspective. Historical records show that Zheng He's seven voyages to the Western Ocean were precisely organized and successfully carried out due to careful consideration of the conditions and periodical patterns of the Asian tropical and subtropical monsoon. Details such as fleet routes, sailing schedules, wind-waiting points, divergent and rendezvous points were painstakingly planned and arranged in advance by the organizers of the expedition, who all paid close attention to the changing patterns of the Asian Monsoon.