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Most of the depictions of Zheng He's fleet were fantastical in nature, not based on available evidence. Even if they do they are based on the drawings of the later eras. Most of the roundish ships in the photo (particularly the black-hulled one with red lines and the white-and-yellow hulled one) are not grounded in reality, I don't know who started depicting Zheng He's ship like that but those depictions are the most popular. The sail of the junk (battened) rig of this era would be squarish in shape (though it worked like a lugsail), not "fan-like" or "batwing-like", these later two only appeared after the 19th century.
The ship on the lower left seems to be partly based on the depiction of the "Tower ship" on
this page, which explains Fuchuan. The rather long ship at the lower right is strange: While it has the more accurate square-shaped junk sail, it has a square topsail,
a feature that might have been influenced by European ships after the 17th century. But it also has a middle deckhouse with crenellations like early Chinese ships. None of the models are accurate in depicting Zheng He's fleet.
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commons.wikimedia.org
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The size endorsed by the Chinese government and embassies dictates that the flagship of Zheng He would be more than 120 m in length (44
zhang long with 1
zhang = 3 to 3.5 m). This ignores the fact that other Chinese texts recorded European ships far larger than that (150 and even 180 m in length). The problem would be in the conversion of the unit used, available archaeological findings of the Chinese measurement ruler put the
zhang unit as equivalent to 1.5 to 1.6 m.
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Detail notwithstanding, miniature depictions of Zheng He's fleet almost always have an inconsistent scale. The ship on the center and lower right would have an enormous deck height compared to ships on the left. You can also see this in the popular (but propagandistic) depiction of Zheng He's
baochuan compared to Columbus' ship: The deck and the mast on the treasure ship would have been several times larger compared to Columbus'. The drawing-accurate depiction of Zheng He's flagship would be
the model made by maritime archaeologist Nick Burningham.
View attachment 710387
This scale model reflects a more realistic, but still awe-inspiring, length of over 190 feet (57.9 m).