Maldivian Cowries on the High Seas: The 1407 Depletion That Fueled Zheng He’s Second Voyage

Merchants and sailors prepare sacks of cowries on a bustling dock, as majestic junks ready for Zheng He’s second voyage in 1407, highlighting the critical role of these shells in maritime trade and diplomacy.

In the early fifteenth century, the Ming Dynasty maintained substantial official stocks of cowrie shells, recorded by the Ministry of Revenue (Hubu) and preserved in the Veritable Records of the Ming. These holdings, analyzed in detail by Bin Yang in Chapter 10 of Discovered but Forgotten: The Maldives in Chinese History, c. 1100–1620, averaged around 26 million shells,roughly 65,000 pounds or 29.5 metric tons,at year-end during the periods for which figures survive. Far from circulating as everyday currency in the Chinese heartland (where cowries had largely disappeared as money after the early imperial era, surviving mainly as frontier currency in Yunnan), the shells functioned as imperial stores. They were disbursed as gifts, rewards to officials and soldiers, or for specialized purposes. The dramatic fluctuation recorded for 1407, followed by rapid recovery and long-term stability, offers a revealing insight into the practical and diplomatic operations of Zheng He’s treasure fleets.

The surviving statistics illustrate the pattern clearly. In 1393 the warehouses held more than 25.28 million shells. A sharp earlier drop to approximately 3.91 million occurred in 1402, associated with disbursements under the Hongwu Emperor. Stocks then recovered to about 25.74 million in 1404 and 27.39 million in 1406. In 1407, however, the total plummeted to roughly 2.70 million shells,a major depletion. By 1408 the figure had rebounded to approximately 27.24 million. Thereafter the reserves remained remarkably steady: 26.79 million in 1411, consistently between 26.7 and 27.5 million from 1412 to 1416, 26.48 million in 1420, and 26.56 million in 1424.

Yang proposes a persuasive explanation for the 1407 withdrawal: the shells were loaded onto the ships of Zheng He’s second voyage to the Western Ocean (Xiyang). Ordered in 1407, the expedition sailed in late 1407 or early 1408 and returned around 1409. It formed part of the seven great treasure voyages (1405–1433) sponsored by the Yongle Emperor. These massive fleets,comprising hundreds of vessels and tens of thousands of personnel,carried enormous quantities of goods intended for diplomacy, trade, and the conspicuous display of Ming prestige. Cowries proved ideal for two complementary roles. Lightweight yet dense enough to serve as ballast, they helped stabilize the large treasure ships in the same way sand or other heavy materials did. At the same time, their value as currency or prestige items in parts of the Indian Ocean world,especially Bengal, Southeast Asia, and neighboring regions,made them suitable gifts or tribute presentations for local rulers.

The second voyage concentrated on key ports in Southeast Asia and South Asia, including Champa, Java, Siam, Sumatra, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Cochin, and Calicut on India’s Malabar Coast. Later expeditions pushed farther west and included confirmed or probable stops at the Maldives, the primary historical source of the money cowrie (Monetaria moneta). Cowries themselves carried deep cultural resonance within Chinese history. They appear in Neolithic and Shang–Zhou (c. 1600–256 BCE) contexts as prestige goods, early forms of money, or ritual objects, sometimes imitated in bronze. In the Ming period the official stocks reflected both earlier accumulations and continuing private or state-sponsored inflows via maritime trade routes that linked the Indian Ocean to the Yangzi Delta and Southeast Asia.

The stability of the reserves after 1408 is equally significant. Although Maldivian tributary missions reached the Ming court in 1416 (under a king recorded as Yisufu or Yusuf), and again around 1421 and 1423/1424,missions often escorted or facilitated by Zheng He’s fleets,these embassies contributed little measurable fluctuation to the warehouse totals. The Maldives were a logical source of cowries, and it remains highly possible that the envoys presented shells among their tribute goods, alongside ambergris, coconuts, coir, and dried fish. Yet no detailed official gift lists survive for these specific missions. The steady post-1408 figures indicate that any such inflows were modest relative to the large pre-existing imperial reserves. The Ming court continued to disburse cowries later, notably as gifts to princes, officials, and soldiers in Yunnan during military campaigns along the southwestern frontier.

Taken together, the 1407 depletion and the subsequent stability illuminate how the Ming state treated cowrie shells as a managed imperial resource. Rather than relying primarily on contemporary Maldivian tribute for replenishment, the court drew on accumulated stocks to support the practical needs of navigation and the diplomatic requirements of the treasure voyages. This episode underscores both the logistical sophistication of Zheng He’s expeditions and the broader pattern of Sino–Indian Ocean engagement that reached its height under Yongle before gradually fading from Chinese records after the mid-fifteenth century.