He set one of the hostage ships on fire, and a compromise was offered, 40,000 rupees. This time, Chivers agreed to take it, but when the money failed to show, he burned a second ship.

At its height, Zheng's fleet included nearly 300 ships and a crew of 20,000, among them a large medical corps. A stone epitaph rubbing of one of the doctors who served in the fleet is featured in the ...