Heroic Voyages: Zheng He And Charles Wyville Thomson

Death comes easily. Death comes with diseases spread by people living in close quarters. Death comes with a lack of nutrients from insufficient food. Death comes with a misstep that leads to a plunge into rough, frigid ocean waters, These statements are especially true in the setting of a ship at sea during the time prior to the 20th century. When people know that death is very likely in a certain situation but still agree to participate in the situation anyway, they posses a characteristic known as courage. Two examples of courageous men are Zheng He and Charles Wyville Thomson, commanders of very different ocean voyages, and both of these men led their respective crew members towards death with the hopes of conquering or exploring new lands.

First, although many historians and Chinese documents claim that Zheng He’s voyages had the main purpose of exploration, there is a plethora of proof that supports the opposite (Dreyer 28). One example is that many of Zheng He’s routes were not novel; they followed routes that were already discovered by other explorers, and only the fifth out of all seven voyages showed any signs of exploration (Dreyer 30-31). Indirect signs that point Zheng He’s motives away from exploration is the focus on pirate battles, the amount of military personnel on board, and the pride associated with battle accomplishments (Dreyer 29-33). On the other hand, Charles Wyville Thomson clearly stated the purpose for his voyage aboard the HMS Challenger: scientific exploration (Corfield 2). The HMS Challenger had specific orders “to explore the ocean and the ocean floor not just in the waters around Britain or even her imperial territories, but also across the entire world” (Corfield 2). A trait that both journeys’ purposes share is the attempt to bolster the home country’s reputation. For example, Emperor Yongle of China “‘wanted to display his soldiers in strange lands in order to make manifest the wealth and power of the Middle Kingdom’” (qtd. in Dreyer 33). Similarly with Britain’s voyage: “a scientific naval expedition simply enhanced Britain’s prestige” (Corfield 6). Each leader’s specific purpose directly relates to

In Zheng He’s fleets, “the base of each mast is secured to an adjoining bulkhead; this permits off-center … mounting, and on a multi masted ship, the masts will spread out fanwise, so that the sails may catch the wind more effectively” (Dreyer 108). In this case, the wooden ships were designed to be able to move faster, and this makes complete sense when thinking about the militant purpose and intimidation approach of Zheng He’s voyages. In an equal but opposite way, Wyville Thomson removed all forms of military equipment from the HMS Challenger and replaced it with laboratories and storage compartments in order to store and analyze the vast amounts of scientific data and materials collected from the ocean (Corfield 10). Another example of a functional form of the ship is that the HMS Challenger has a dredge with “an iron frame that held open the mouth of a bag made of finely woven material” in order to collect sediments or water samples from the ocean bottom (Corfield 33). In summary, each ship’s form follows the purpose of its respective