A display at the Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai, UAE compares the size of ships used by Zheng He and by Christopher Columbus.

A Treasure ship (Chinese: 宝船; pinyin: bǎochuán) is the name for a type of large wooden vessel commanded by the Chinese admiral Zheng He on seven voyages in the early 15th century in Ming Dynasty. Scholars disagree about the factual accuracy and correct interpretation of accounts of the treasure ships.^[1][2]

The purported dimensions of these ships at 137 m (450 ft) long and 55 m (180 ft wide)^[3] and a capacity of 2800t are at least twice as long as the largest European ships at the end of the sixteenth century and 40% longer and 65% wider than the largest wooden ships known to have been built at any time anywhere else^[4]. These dimensions are disputed on practical engineering grounds with some suggesting they were as short as 61–76 m (200–250 feet) or that they could only have been used on special occasions in the relative safety of the lower Yangtze river.

Accounts of treasure ships[link]

Early 17th century Chinese woodblock print, thought to represent Zheng He's ships.

The modern understanding of the ships derives from empirical and theoretical knowledge of the technical limitations of wooden sailing ships, historical Chinese records and accounts from European travelers who visited China around this time. However, there is debate amongst scholars about how these records should be interpreted. Some accounts suggest that treasure ships may have first appeared as early as the Song dynasty (宋朝) (960-1279). The modern analysis of the shape and structure of these ships is based on the contemporary Tian Fei Jing (The Worship of the Celestial Spouse) and the Wubei Zhi (The Records of Armaments and Military Provisions)^[5]

If the accounts can be taken as factual, Zheng He's treasure ships were mammoth ships with nine masts and four decks, capable of accommodating more than 500 passengers, as well as a massive amount of cargo. Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta in their translated accounts described multi-masted ships carrying 500 to 1000 passengers ^[6] Niccolò Da Conti, a contemporary of Zheng He, was also an eyewitness of ships in Southeast Asia, claiming to have seen 5 masted junks weighing about 2000 tons.^[7] Zheng He's fleet included 300 ships, including 62 treasure ships, some of which were said to have been 137 m (450 ft) long and 55 m (180 ft) wide.^[3][8][9] There are even some sources that claim some of the treasure ships might have been as long as 180 m (600 ft).^[10][11] On the ships, there were more than 28,000 people, including navigators, explorers, sailors, doctors, workers, and soldiers. Chinese records assert that Zheng He's fleet travelled extensively, sailing as far as East Africa.

Description[link]

A stationary full-size model of a "middle-sized" treasure boat (63.25 m long) at the Treasure Boat Shipyard site in Nanjing. It was built ca. 2005 from concrete and wooden planking

The Treasure Ships were recorded to have a size of 44 zhang, 4 chi, giving the number 444. This was no coincidence. There are four cardinal directions, four seasons, and four virtues. The number four was an auspicious association for treasure ships^[12] Some of the drydocks at Longjiang were 27 to 36 m (90 to 120 feet) wide, but two were 64 m (210 feet) wide, which is big enough to build a 50 m (166 feet) wide ship. Compared with other ships, treasure ships were wide in ratio to their length as typical with fuchuan. As a result, they achieved stability created by the V-shaped hull, the long keel, and the heavy ballast. The keel consisted of wooden beams bound together with iron hoops. In stormy weather, holes in the prow would partially fill with water when the ship pitched forward, thus lessening the violent turbulence caused by waves. Treasure ships also used floating anchors cast off the sides of the ship in order to increase stability. The stern had two 2.5 m (8-foot) iron anchors weighing over a thousand pounds each, used for mooring offshore. Like many Chinese anchors, these had four flukes set at a sharp angle against the main shaft. Watertight compartments were also used to add strength to the treasure ships. The ships also had a balanced rudder which could be raised and lowered, creating additional stability like an extra keel. The balanced rudder placed as much of the rudder forward of the stern post as behind it, making such large boats easier to steer. Unlike typical fuchuan, the treasure ships had nine staggered masts and twelve square sails, increasing its speed. Treasure ships also had 24 cast-bronze cannons with a maximum range of 240 to 275 m (800–900 feet). However, treasure ships were considered luxury ships rather than warships. As such, they lacked the fuchuan's raised platforms or extended planks used for battle.^[13]

Criticism[link]

Some scholars argue that it is highly unlikely that Zheng He's ship was 450 feet (140 m) in length, some estimating that it was 110–124 m (390–408 feet) long and 160–166 feet wide instead ^[12] while others put them as 61–76 m (200–250 feet) in length,^[14][15] since in later historical periods ships approaching the extreme sizes claimed for the treasure ships (such as HMS Orlando and the schooner Wyoming) were unwieldy and visibly undulated with the waves, even with steel braces.

One explanation for the alleged size of these colossal ships was that the largest 44 Zhang treasure ships were merely for a display of imperial power by the Emperor and imperial bureaucrats on the Yangtze River when on court business, including when reviewing Zheng He's actual expedition fleet. The Yangtze River, with its calmer waters, may have been navigable for such large but unseaworthy ships. Zheng He, would not have had the privilege in rank to command the largest of these ships. The largest ships of Zheng He's fleet were the 6 masted 2000-liao ships. This would give burthen of 500 tons and a displacement tonnage of about 800 tons; still easily the largest sea-going vessels up to its time.^[5][15][16]

Fate of the treasure ships[link]

A stone tortoise overlooking the former 4th working pool of the Longjiang Shipyard (now a park), where treasure ships were built 600 years ago.

Zheng He returned from his voyages to find a new emperor, whose court was uninterested, even hostile, to the continuation of his naval adventures.^{[citation needed]}

After Zheng He's voyages, the treasure ships were decommissioned, and sat in harbours until they rotted away.^{[citation needed]} Some suggest that Confucian scholars ordered that many of the treasure ships be burned, although exact information on their fate is not known.^{[citation needed]} Chinese craftsmen and officials subsequently lost the knowledge for building such large vessels.^{[citation needed]}

Replica[link]

The story of the treasure ships has captured popular imagination, both in China and in the West. In fact, a 233.3-foot (71.1 m) replica of a treasure ship was announced in 2006 to be completed in time for the 2008 Olympic Games.^[17] In 2010, the press showed some pictures of the replica of this size in the process of construction in Nanjing.^[18][19] The ship is to be ready for sailing by 2013.^[20]

See also[link]

• List of world's largest wooden ships
• Ancient Chinese wooden architecture
• Pagoda of Fogong Temple

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Zheng He Fleet

• Traditions and Encounters - A Global Perspective on the Past by Bentley and Ziegler.

• When China Ruled the Seas: Treasure Fleets of the Dragon Throne by Louise Levathes

Zheng He
Statue from a modern monument to Zheng He at the Stadthuys Museum in Malacca Town, Malaysia.
Born	1371 Yunnan, China
Died	1433
Other names	Chinese: 馬三寶
Occupation	Asian explorer
Title	Admiral of the Ocean Sea
Religion	Islam

Zheng He (1371–1433; simplified Chinese: 郑和; traditional Chinese: 鄭和; pinyin: Zhèng Hé), also known as Ma Sanbao (simplified Chinese: 马三宝; traditional Chinese: 馬三寶) and Hajji Mahmud Shamsuddin (Arabic: حاجي محمود شمس الدين‎) was a Hui-Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral, who commanded voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, East Africa, and the Horn of Africa collectively referred to as the Voyages of Zheng He or Voyages of Cheng Ho from 1405 to 1433.

Life[link]

The route of the 7th voyage of Zheng He's fleet. Solid line: main fleet; dashed line: a possible route of Hong Bao's squadron; dotted line: a trip of seven Chinese sailors, including Ma Huan, from Calicut to Mecca on a native ship. Cities visited by Zheng He's fleet or its squadron on the 7th or any of the previous voyages are shown in red.

Zheng, born as Ma He^[1] (馬和 / 马和), was the second son of a Muslim family which also had four daughters, from Kunyang, present day Jinning, just south of Kunming near the southwest corner of Lake Dian in Yunnan.^[2][3][4]

He was the great great great grandson of Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, a Persian who served in the administration of the Mongolian Empire and was appointed governor of Yunnan during the early Yuan Dynasty.^[5][6] Both his grandfather and great-grandfather carried the title of Hajji, which indicates they had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. His great-grandfather was named Bayan and may have been a member of a Mongol garrison in Yunnan.^[2]

In 1381, the year his father was killed, following the defeat of the Northern Yuan, a Ming army was dispatched to Yunnan to put down the army of the Mongol Yuan loyalist Basalawarmi during the Ming conquest of Yunnan. Ma He, then only eleven years old, was captured by the Ming Muslim troops of Lan Yu and Fu Youde and made a eunuch. He was sent to the court of one the emperor's son, Zhu Di the Prince of Yan, where he was called San Bao (三寶/三宝, or 三保^[7]) meaning 'Three Jewels.' The young eunuch eventually became a trusted adviser of the Prince of Yan, and assisted the prince in his insurrection against his nephew the Jianwen Emperor. For his valor in this war, the eunuch received the name Zheng He from his master. Once Zhu Di deposed Jianwen and became crowned as Yongle Emperor (r. 1403-1424), Zheng He continued serving in his court as a Eunuch Grand Director (太監, taijian).^[2][4][8] It was during the Yongle era that Zheng He, with the rank of Chief Envoy (正使, zheng shi) carried his first of six overseas missions.

In 1425 Yongle's successor the Hongxi Emperor appointed Zheng He to be Defender of Nanjing. In 1428 the Xuande Emperor ordered him to complete the construction of the magnificent Buddhist nine-storied Da Baoen Temple in Nanjing, and in 1430 appointed him to lead the seventh and final expedition to the "Western Ocean".^[9] It is commonly believed that Zheng He died during the treasure fleet's last voyage, on the returning trip after the fleet reached Hormuz in 1433.

Expeditions[link]

Between 1405 and 1433, the Ming government sponsored seven naval expeditions. The Yongle emperor designed them to establish a Chinese presence, impose imperial control over trade, impress foreign peoples in the Indian Ocean basin and extend the empire's tributary system. It has also been claimed, on the basis of later texts, that the voyages also presented an opportunity to seek out Zhu Yunwen (the previous emperor whom the Yongle emperor had usurped and who was rumored to have fled into exile) – possibly the "largest scale manhunt on water in the history of China".^[10]

Zheng He was placed as the admiral in control of the huge fleet and armed forces that undertook these expeditions. Wang Jinghong was appointed his second in command. Zheng He's first voyage, which departed July 11, 1405, from Suzhou,^[11]:203 consisted of a fleet of 317 ships^[12][13][14] (other sources say 200 ships) holding almost 28,000 crewmen (each ship housing up to 500 men).^[12]

One of a set of maps of Zheng He's missions (郑和航海图), also known as the Mao Kun maps, 1628.

Zheng He's fleets visited Arabia, Brunei, the Horn of Africa, India, Southeast Asia and Thailand, dispensing and receiving goods along the way.^[14] Zheng He presented gifts of gold, silver, porcelain and silk; in return, China received such novelties as ostriches, zebras, camels, ivory and a giraffe from the Swahili.^{[15][11]:206[14][16][17]}

While Zheng He's fleet was unprecedented (compared to previous voyages from China to the east Indian Ocean), the routes were not. Zheng He's fleet was following long-established, well-mapped routes. Sea-based trade links had existed between China and the Arabian peninsula since the Han Dynasty (there being trade with the Roman Empire at that time.) During the Three Kingdoms, the king of Wu sent a diplomatic mission along the coast of Asia, reaching as far as the Eastern Roman Empire. During the Song Dynasty, there was large scale maritime trade from China reaching as far as the Arabian peninsula and East Africa.^[18]

Zheng He generally sought to attain his goals through diplomacy, and his large army awed most would-be enemies into submission. But a contemporary reported that Zheng He "walked like a tiger" and did not shrink from violence when he considered it necessary to impress foreign peoples with China's military might.^[19] He ruthlessly suppressed pirates who had long plagued Chinese and southeast Asian waters. For example, he would defeat Chen Zuyi, one of the most feared and respected pirate captains, and return him back to China for execution.^[20] He also waged a land war against the Kingdom of Kotte in Ceylon, and he made displays of military force when local officials threatened his fleet in Arabia and East Africa. From his fourth voyage, he brought envoys from thirty states who traveled to China and paid their respects at the Ming court.

In 1424, the Yongle Emperor died. His successor, the Hongxi Emperor (reigned 1424–1425), decided to stop the voyages during his short reign. Zheng He made one more voyage during the reign of Hongxi's son Xuande Emperor (reigned 1426–1435), but after that the voyages of the Chinese treasure ship fleets were ended. Xuande believed his father's decision to halt the voyages meritorious, and thus "there would be no need to make a detailed description of his grandfather’s sending Zheng He to the Western Oceans."^[21] This, and the fact that the voyages "were contrary to the rules stipulated in the Huangming zuxun, Ancestral Injunctions of the August Ming,"^[21] the royal founding documents laid down by the Hongwu Emperor, account for the Ming "neglect" of Zheng He in official accounts and the scant records of the voyages available for later historians.^[21]

Zheng He died during the treasure fleet's last voyage. Although he has a tomb in China, it is empty: he was, like many great admirals, buried at sea.^[22]

Voyages[link]

The Kangnido map (1402) predates Zheng's voyages and suggests that he had quite detailed geographical information on much of the Old World.

Zheng He led seven expeditions to what the Chinese called "the Western Ocean" (Indian Ocean). He brought back to China many trophies and envoys from more than thirty kingdoms – including King Vira Alakeshwara of Ceylon, who came to China as a captive to apologize to the Emperor.

Detail of the Fra Mauro map relating the travels of a junk into the Atlantic Ocean in 1420. The ship also is illustrated above the text.

There are speculations that some of Zheng's ships may have traveled beyond the Cape of Good Hope. In particular, the Venetian monk and cartographer Fra Mauro describes in his 1459 Fra Mauro map the travels of a huge "junk from India" 2,000 miles into the Atlantic Ocean in 1420. What Fra Mauro meant by 'India' is not known and some scholars believe he meant an Arab ship.^[27] However, Professor Su Ming-Yang thinks "the ship is European, as it is fitted with a crow’s nest, or lookout post, at the masthead, and has sails fitted to the yards, unlike the batten sails of Chinese ships."^[28]

Zheng himself wrote of his travels:

We have traversed more than 100,000 li (50,000 kilometers or 30,000 miles) of immense water spaces and have beheld in the ocean huge waves like mountains rising in the sky, and we have set eyes on barbarian regions far away hidden in a blue transparency of light vapors, while our sails, loftily unfurled like clouds day and night, continued their course [as rapidly] as a star, traversing those savage waves as if we were treading a public thoroughfare… — Tablet erected by Zheng He, Changle, Fujian, 1432. Louise Levathes

Sailing charts[link]

Part of the chart showing India at top, Ceylon upper right and Africa along the bottom

Ming dynasty 24 point compass

Zheng He's sailing charts were published in a book entitled Wubei Zhi (Treatise on Armament Technology) written in 1621 and published in 1628 but traced back to Zheng He's and earlier voyages.^[29] It was originally a strip map 20.5 cm by 560 cm that could be rolled up, but was divided into 40 pages which vary in scale from 7 miles/inch in the Nanjing area to 215 miles/inch in parts of the African coast.^[30]

There is little attempt to provide an accurate 2-D representation; instead the sailing instructions are given using a 24 point compass system with a Chinese symbol for each point, together with a sailing time/distance, which takes account of the local currents and winds. Sometimes depth soundings are also provided. It also shows bays, estuaries, capes and islands, ports and mountains along the coast, important landmarks (pagodas, temples) and shoal rocks. Of 300 named places outside China, more than 80% can be confidently located. There are also fifty observations of stellar altitude.

Size of the ships[link]

Early 17th century Chinese woodblock print, thought to represent Zheng He's ships.^{[citation needed]}

Traditional and popular accounts of Zheng He's voyages have described a great fleet of gigantic ships, far larger than any other wooden ships in history. Some modern scholars consider these descriptions to be exaggerated.

Chinese records^[31] assert that Zheng He's fleet sailed as far as East Africa. According to medieval Chinese sources, Zheng He commanded seven expeditions. The 1405 expedition consisted of 27,800 men and a fleet of 62 treasure ships supported by approximately 190 smaller ships.^[32][33] The fleet included:

• Treasure ships (Chinese:宝船), used by the commander of the fleet and his deputies (nine-masted, about 126.73 metres (416 ft) long and 51.84 metres (170 ft) wide), according to later writers^{[citation needed]}. This is more or less the size and shape of a football field.^[34][35]
• Equine ships (Chinese:馬船), carrying horses and tribute goods and repair material for the fleet (eight-masted, about 103 m (339 ft) long and 42 m (138 ft) wide).^[34]
• Supply ships (Chinese:粮船), containing staple for the crew (seven-masted, about 78 m (257 ft) long and 35 m (115 ft) wide).^[34]
• Troop transports (Chinese:兵船), six-masted, about 67 m (220 ft) long and 25 m (83 ft) wide.^[34]
• Fuchuan warships (Chinese:福船), five-masted, about 50 m (165 ft) long.^[34]
• Patrol boats (Chinese:坐船), eight-oared, about 37 m (120 ft) long.^[34]
• Water tankers (Chinese:水船), with 1 month's supply of fresh water.^[34]

Six more expeditions took place, from 1407 to 1433, with fleets of comparable size.^[36]

If the accounts can be taken as factual, Zheng He's treasure ships were mammoth ships with nine masts, four decks, and were capable of accommodating more than 500 passengers, as well as a massive amount of cargo. Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta both described multi-masted ships carrying 500 to 1000 passengers in their translated accounts.^[37] Niccolò Da Conti, a contemporary of Zheng He, was also an eyewitness of ships in Southeast Asia, claiming to have seen 5 masted junks weighing about 2000 tons.^[38] There are even some sources that claim some of the treasure ships might have been as long as 600 feet.^[39][40] On the ships were navigators, explorers, sailors, doctors, workers, and soldiers along with the translator and diarist Gong Zhen.

The largest ships in the fleet, the treasure ships described in Chinese chronicles, would have been several times larger than any wooden ship ever recorded in history, surpassing l'Orient (65 m/213.3 ft long) which was built in the late 18th century. The first ships to attain 126 m (413.4 ft) long were 19th century steamers with iron hulls. Some scholars argue that it is highly unlikely that Zheng He's ship was 450 feet (137.2 m) in length, some estimating that they were 390–408 feet (118.9–124.4 m) long and 160–166 feet (48.8–50.6 m) wide instead^[41] while others put them as small as 200–250 feet (61.0–76.2 m) in length, which would make them smaller than the equine, supply, and troop ships in the fleet.^[42]

One explanation for the seemingly inefficient size of these colossal ships was that the largest 44 Zhang treasure ships were merely used by the Emperor and imperial bureaucrats to travel along the Yangtze for court business, including reviewing Zheng He's expedition fleet. The Yangtze river, with its calmer waters, may have been navigable by these treasure ships. Zheng He, a court eunuch, would not have had the privilege in rank to command the largest of these ships, seaworthy or not. The main ships of Zheng He's fleet were instead 6 masted 2000-liao ships.^[43][44]

South and Southeast Asia[link]

In his book 'The Overall Survey of the Ocean Shores' (Chinese: 瀛涯勝覽) written in 1416, Ma Huan, one of Zheng He's chroniclers and interpreters, gave very detailed accounts of his observations of the peoples' customs and lives in ports they visited.^[45]

The Galle Trilingual Inscription stone tablet, erected by Zheng He around 1410 in Sri Lanka, records details about contributions of gold, silver, and silk that Zheng He made on behalf of the emperor at a Buddhist mountain temple.^[46][47] Also, a commemorative pillar at the temple of the Taoist goddess Tian Fei, the Celestial Spouse, in Fujian province records details about his voyages.^[48] It has the inscription:

We have traversed more than 100,000 li (50,000 kilometers) of immense water spaces and have beheld in the ocean huge waves like mountains rising in the sky, and we have set eyes on barbarian regions far away hidden in a blue transparency of light vapors, while our sails, loftily unfurled like clouds day and night, continued their course [as rapidly] as a star, traversing those savage waves as if we were treading a public thoroughfare…

—Erected by Zheng He, Changle, Fujian, 1432. Louise Levathes

In Malacca[link]

San Bao Temple in Malacaa

At the time when his fleet first arrived in Malacca, Chinese people were already living there. Ma Huan refers to them as tángrén (Chinese: 唐人). Ming China found Malacca to be a useful transit centre for replenishment of fleet supplies, and received valuable gifts from Zheng He's fleet. The sultan and sultana of Malacca at the time visited China at the head of over 540 of their subjects and ample tribute. Sultan Mansur Shah (ruled 1459–1477) later dispatched Tun Perpatih Putih as his envoy to China, carrying a letter from the sultan to the Ming emperor. The letter requested the hand of an imperial daughter in marriage. In the year 1459, a princess (Hang Li Po or Hang Liu), was sent by the Ming emperor to marry the sultan. The princess came with 500 sons of ministers and a few hundred handmaidens as her entourage. They eventually settled in Bukit Cina, Malacca. It is believed that a significant number of them married into the local populace.^[49] The descendants of these mixed marriages are locally known today as Peranakan and still use the honorifics Baba (male title) and Nyonya (female title).

In Malaysia today, many people believe that Admiral Zheng He (who died in 1433) sent princess Hang Li Po to Malacca in the year 1459. However there is no record of Hang Li Po (or Hang Liu) in Ming history. She is mentioned only within Malaccan folklore and in the Sejarah Melayu or Malay Annals.

Islam[link]

Islam in China
History History Tang Dynasty • Song Dynasty Yuan Dynasty • Ming Dynasty Qing Dynasty • Dungan revolts (1862-1877, 1895-1896) Panthay rebellion • 1911-Present
Major figures Chang Yuchun • Hu Dahai • Mu Ying • Lan Yu • Yeheidie'erding Hui Liangyu • Ma Bufang Zheng He • Liu Zhi Haji Noor • Yusuf Ma Dexin Ma Hualong
Culture Cuisine • Martial arts Chinese mosques • Sini Islamic Association of China
Cities/Regions Hong Kong • Kashgar • Linxia Ningxia • Taiwan • Xinjiang
Groups Hui • Uyhgurs Kazakhs • Dongxiang Kyrgyz • Salar Bonan • Tajiks Uzbeks • Tatars Utsul • Tibetans
v t e

Accounts contemporary to Zheng He's era suggest he may have been a Muslim; these include the writings of the Muslim Ma Huan.

Indonesian religious leader and Islamic scholar Hamka (1908–1981) wrote in 1961: "The development of Islam in Indonesia and Malaya is intimately related to a Chinese Muslim, Admiral Zheng He."^[50] In Malacca he built granaries, warehouses and a stockade. Indonesian scholar Slamet Muljana writes: "Zheng He built Chinese Muslim communities first in Palembang, then in San Fa (West Kalimantan), subsequently he founded similar communities along the shores of Java, the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines. They preached Islam according to the Hanafi school of thought and in Chinese language."^{[citation needed]}

Li Tong Cai, in his book 'Indonesia – Legends and Facts', writes: "in 1430, Zheng He had already successfully established the foundations of the Hui religion Islam. After his death in 1434, Hajji Yan Ying Yu became the force behind the Chinese Muslim community, and he delegated a few local Chinese as leaders, such as trader Sun Long from Semarang, Peng Rui He and Hajji Peng De Qin. Sun Long and Peng Rui He actively urged the Chinese community to 'Javanise'. They encouraged the younger Chinese generation to assimilate with the Javanese society, to take on Javanese names and their way of life. Sun Long's adopted son Chen Wen, also known as Radin Pada (Raden Patah), is the son of King Majapahit and his Chinese wife."^[51]

The Hanafi Islam that some from the fleet may have propagated lost almost all contact with its parent in China, and gradually was totally absorbed by the local Shafi’i school of thought. Long before 600 years had elapsed, the presence of ethnic Chinese Muslims had declined to almost nil.^[52]

Connection to the history of Late Imperial China[link]

A giraffe brought from Medieval Somalia^{[53][54][55][56]} in the twelfth year of Yongle (AD 1415).

In the 1950s, historians such as John Fairbank and Joseph Needham popularized the idea that after Zheng He's voyages China turned away from the seas due to the Hai jin edict and was isolated from European technological advancements. Modern historians point out that Chinese maritime commerce did not totally stop after Zheng He, that Chinese ships continued to dominate Southeast Asian commerce until the 19th century and that active Chinese trading with India and East Africa continued long after the time of Zheng. The travels of the Chinese Junk Keying to the United States and England between 1846 and 1848 testify to the power of Chinese shipping until the 19th century. Moreover revisionist historians such as Jack Goldstone argue that the Zheng He voyages ended for practical reasons that did not reflect the technological level of China.^[57]

Although the Ming Dynasty did ban shipping with the Hai jin edict, they eventually lifted this ban. By banning oceangoing shipping, the Ming (and later Qing) dynasties had forced countless numbers of people into black market smuggling. This reduced government tax revenue and increased piracy. The lack of an oceangoing navy then left China highly vulnerable to the Wokou pirates that ravaged China in the 16th century.^{[citation needed]}

Richard von Glahn (University of California, Los Angeles Professor of History and a specialist in Chinese history) commented that a majority of school history texts present Zheng He wrongly; they "offer counterfactual arguments", and "emphasize China's missed opportunity." The "narrative emphasizes the failure" instead of Zheng He's accomplishments. He goes on to claim that "Zheng He reshaped Asia." According to him, maritime history in the fifteenth century is essentially the Zheng He story and the effects of Zheng He's voyages.

A giraffe brought from Malindi, Kenya,^[17] by the fleets of Zheng He.

Von Glahn claims that Zheng He's influence lasted beyond his age, may be seen as the tip of an iceberg, and there is much more to the story of maritime trade and other relationships in Asia in the fifteenth century and beyond.^[58]

State-sponsored Ming naval efforts declined dramatically after Zheng's voyages. Starting in the early 15th century, China experienced increasing pressure from resurgent Mongolian tribes from the north. In recognition of this threat and possibly to move closer to his family's historical geographic power base, in 1421 the emperor Yongle moved the capital north from Nanjing to present-day Beijing. From the new capital he could apply greater imperial supervision to the effort to defend the northern borders. At considerable expense, China launched annual military expeditions from Beijing to weaken the Mongolians. The expenditures necessary for these land campaigns directly competed with the funds necessary to continue naval expeditions.

In 1449 Mongolian cavalry ambushed a land expedition personally led by the emperor Zhengtong less than a day's march from the walls of the capital. In the Battle of Tumu Fortress the Mongolians wiped out the Chinese army and captured the emperor. This battle had two salient effects. First, it demonstrated the clear threat posed by the northern nomads. Second, the Mongols caused a political crisis in China when they released Zhengtong after his half-brother had proclaimed himself the new Jingtai emperor. Not until 1457 did political stability return when Zhengtong recovered the throne. Upon his return to power China abandoned the strategy of annual land expeditions and instead embarked upon a massive and expensive expansion of the Great Wall of China. In this environment, funding for naval expeditions simply did not happen.

Cultural Influence[link]

In the decades after the last voyage, Imperial officials sought to eliminate memories of the voyages.^[59] However, the adventures of the fleet captured the imagination of the Chinese, and novelizations of the voyages flourished.^[60] An author from far inland Shaanxi would in 1597 write the grandest of the epics, Romance of the Three-Jeweled Eunuch, the distance from the coast and time gap since the last voyage attest to continued cultural power.^[61]

In modern times, he is the continued subject of interest and a cultural reference. In Vernor Vinge's science fiction novel A Deepness in the Sky published in 1999, Qeng Ho, named after Zheng He, are the commercial traders in human space. The expeditions of Zheng He were featured in the 2005 novel "The Map Thief" by Heather Terrell. In 2009, China's CCTV released Zheng He Xia Xiyang, a television series specially produced in 2005 to mark the 600th anniversary of Zheng He's voyages. Gallen Lo starred as Zheng He.

Relics[link]

Nanjing Tianfeigong (南京天妃宫)

Zheng He built Tianfeigong (天妃宫, Tianfei palace) in Nanjing after the fleet returned from its first western voyage in 1407.

Stele of Tongfan Deed (通番事跡碑)

The stele of Tongfan Deed (通番事跡, deed of foreign connection and exchange) is located in the Tianfeigong in Taicang, where they started their journey. It was submerged and disappeared, but has been rebuilt.

Stele of Record of Tianfei Showing Her Presence and Power (天妃靈應之記碑)

In order to thank Tianfei for her blessings, Zheng He and his colleagues rebuilt Tianfeigong in Nanshan, Changle County, Fujian province before their seventh western voyage. They also raised a stele with the inscription Tian Fei Ling Ying Zhi Ji (天妃靈應之記, Record of Tianfei Showing Her Presence and Power), which tells about their voyages.

Zheng He Stele in Sri Lanka

The Galle Trilingual Inscription in Sri Lanka was discovered in the city of Galle in 1911 and is preserved in the National Museum of Colombo. Three languages were used for the inscription: Chinese, Tamil and Persian. The inscription gives praise to Buddha and describes the fleet's donations to a Buddhist temple, the famous Tenavarai Nayanar temple of Tondeswaram.

Commemoration[link]

Tomb and museum[link]

Zheng He's tomb in Nanjing has been repaired and a small museum has been built next to it, although his body is missing as he was buried at sea off the Malabar Coast near Calicut in Western India.^[62] However, his sword and other personal possessions were interred in the typical Muslim tomb inscribed with Arabic characters.

Zheng He's assistant Hong Bao's tomb was unearthed recently in Nanjing.

Maritime Day[link]

In the People's Republic of China, 11 July is Maritime Day (中国航海日) and is devoted to the memory of Zheng He's first voyage.

Gallery[link]

• 

  Zheng He's tomb in Nanjing

• 

  Museum to honour Zheng He, Nanjing

• 

  Zheng He Gallery in Malacca

• 

  Zheng He statue in the Quanzhou Maritime Museum

• 

  A display at the Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai compares the size of ships used by Zheng He and by Christopher Columbus.

See also[link]

• Ming Dynasty
• Chinese exploration
• Hui people
• Ma Huan
• Fei Xin
• Chang Yuchun
• Hong Bao
• Ming Shi-lu
• Zhou Man
• Galle Trilingual Inscription

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

• Deng, Gang (2005). Chinese Maritime Activities and Socioeconomic Development, c. 2100 BC - 1900 AD. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-29212-4.
• Dreyer, Edward L. (2006). Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming, 1405–1433 (Library of World Biography Series). Longman. ISBN 0-321-08443-8.
• Levathes, Louise (1997). When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405–1433. Oxford University Press, trade paperback. ISBN 0-19-511207-5.
• Mills, J. V. G. (1970). Ying-yai Sheng-lan, The Overall Survey of the Ocean's Shores (1433), translated from the Chinese text edited by Feng Ch'eng Chun with introduction, notes and appendices by J. V. G. Mills. White Lotus Press. Reprinted 1970, 1997. ISBN 974-8496-78-3.
• Ming-Yang, Dr Su. 2004 Seven Epic Voyages of Zheng He in Ming China (1405–1433)
• Viviano, Frank (2005). "China's Great Armada." National Geographic, 208(1):28–53, July.
• Joseph Kahn: China Has an Ancient Mariner to Tell You About. In The New York Times of 2005-7-20.
• Newsletter, in Chinese, on academic research on the Zheng He voyages
• Cummins, Joseph (2006). History's Great Untold Stories. Murdoch Books. ISBN 1-74045-808-7.
• Shipping News: Zheng He's Sexcentenary - China Heritage Newsletter, June 2005, ISSN 1833-8461. Published by the China Heritage Project of The Australian National University.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Zheng He

• Zheng He - The Chinese Muslim Admiral
• Zheng He Journey to Arabia
• Zheng He 600th Anniversary
• BBC radio programme "Swimming Dragons".
• TIME magazine special feature on Zheng He (August 2001)
• Virtual exhibition from elibraryhub.com
• Ship imitates ancient vessel navigated by Zheng He at peopledaily.com (25 September 2006)

Charles Laughton
In film The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
Born	(1899-07-01)1 July 1899 Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England, UK
Died	15 December 1962(1962-12-15) (aged 63) Hollywood, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, screenwriter, producer, director
Years active	1926–1962
Spouse	Elsa Lanchester (m.1929-1962; his death)

Charles Laughton (1 July 1899 – 15 December 1962) was an English-born American stage and film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.^[1]

Early life and career[link]

Laughton was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, the son of Robert Laughton and his wife Elizabeth (née Conlon), Yorkshire hotel keepers.^[2] His mother was a devout Roman Catholic of Irish descent. He attended Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit school, in Lancashire.^[3] He served during World War I (in which he was gassed) first with the 2/1st Battalion of the Huntingdonshire Cyclist Regiment^[4] and later with the 7th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment.

He started work in the family hotel business, while participating in amateur theatricals in Scarborough. Finally allowed by his family to become a drama student at RADA in 1925, Laughton made his first professional stage appearance on 28 April 1926 at the Barnes Theatre, as Osip in the comedy The Government Inspector, in which he also appeared at the London Gaiety Theatre in May. Despite not having the looks for a romantic lead, he impressed audiences with his talent and played classical roles in two plays by Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard and The Three Sisters. Laughton played the lead role of Harry Hegan in the world premiere of Sean O'Casey's The Silver Tassie in 1928 in London. He played the title roles in Arnold Bennett's Mr Prohack (Elsa Lanchester was also in the cast) and in Mr Pickwick. He also played Tony Perelli in Edgar Wallace's On the Spot and William Marble in Payment Deferred. He took the last role across the Atlantic and made his United States debut on 24 September 1931, at the Lyceum Theatre. He returned to London for the 1933–34 Old Vic Season and was engaged in four Shakespeare roles (as Macbeth and Henry VIII, Angelo in Measure for Measure and Prospero in The Tempest). In 1936, he went to Paris and on 9 May appeared at the Comédie-Française as Sganarelle in the second act of Molière's Le Médecin malgré lui, the first English actor to appear at that theatre, where he acted the part in French and received an ovation.^{[citation needed]}

Laughton commenced his film career in England while still acting on the London stage. He took small roles in three short silent comedies starring his wife Elsa Lanchester, Daydreams, Blue Bottles and The Tonic (all 1928) which had been specially written for her by H. G. Wells. He made a brief appearance as a disgruntled diner in another silent film Piccadilly with Anna May Wong in 1929. He appeared with Elsa Lanchester again in a "film revue", featuring assorted British variety acts, called Comets (1930) in which they duetted in 'The Ballad of Frankie and Johnnie', and made two other early British talkies: Wolves with Dorothy Gish (1930) from a play set in a whaling camp in the frozen north, and Down River (1931) in which he played a murderous, half-oriental drug-smuggler.

His New York stage debut in 1931 immediately led to film offers and Laughton's first Hollywood film was The Old Dark House (1932) with Boris Karloff in which he played a bluff Yorkshire businessman marooned during a storm with other travellers in a creepy mansion in the Welsh mountains. He then played a demented submarine commander in Devil and the Deep with Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper and Cary Grant and followed this with his best-remembered film role of that year as Nero in Cecil B. DeMille's The Sign of the Cross. He also turned out a number of other memorable performances during that first Hollywood trip, repeating his stage role as a murderer in Payment Deferred, playing H. G. Wells' mad vivisectionist Dr. Moreau in Island of Lost Souls, and the meek raspberry-blowing clerk in the brief segment of If I Had a Million that was directed by Ernst Lubitsch. In all, he appeared in six Hollywood films during 1932.

His association with film director Alexander Korda began in 1933 with The Private Life of Henry VIII (loosely based on the life of King Henry VIII), for which Laughton won an Academy Award, the first British actor to do so. However, he continued to act occasionally in the theatre, including his American production of Life of Galileo by (and with) Bertolt Brecht.

Film career[link]

1933–1943[link]

From the trailer for Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

Laughton soon gave up the stage in preference for a film career and returned to Hollywood where his next film was White Woman (1933) in which he co-starred with Carole Lombard as a Cockney river trader in the Malaysian jungle. Then came The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) as Norma Shearer's malevolent father; Les Misérables (1935) as Javert, the police inspector; Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) as Captain William Bligh, one of his most famous screen roles, co-starring with Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian; and Ruggles of Red Gap (1935) as the very English butler transported to early 1900s America. He was also signed to play Micawber in David Copperfield (1934) but after a few days shooting asked to be released from the part, as he did not feel suited to it, and was replaced by W. C. Fields.

Back in England, and again with Korda, he played the title role in Rembrandt (1936). In 1937, also for Korda, he starred in an ill-fated film version of the classic novel, I, Claudius, by Robert Graves, which was abandoned during filming owing to the injuries suffered by co-star Merle Oberon in a car crash. After I, Claudius, he and the ex-patriate German film producer Erich Pommer founded the production company Mayflower Pictures in the UK, which produced three films starring Laughton: Vessel of Wrath (US Title The Beachcomber) (1938), based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham, in which Laughton's wife Elsa Lanchester co-starred; St. Martin's Lane (US Title Sidewalks of London), a story about London street entertainers that also featured Vivien Leigh and Rex Harrison; and Jamaica Inn, with Maureen O'Hara and Robert Newton, based on a novel about Cornish smugglers by Daphne du Maurier, and the last film Alfred Hitchcock directed in Britain before moving to Hollywood in the late 1930s.^{[citation needed]}

The films produced were not successful enough, and the company was saved from bankruptcy only when RKO Pictures offered Laughton the title role of Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). Laughton and Pommer had plans to make further films, but the outbreak of World War II, which implied the loss of many foreign markets, meant the end of the company. Laughton's early success in The Private Life of Henry VIII established him as one of the leading interpreters of the costume and historical drama parts for which he is best remembered (Nero, Henry VIII, Mr. Barrett, Inspector Javert, Captain Bligh, Rembrandt, Quasimodo and others); he was also type-cast for arrogant, unscrupulous characters.^{[citation needed]}

He largely moved away from historical parts when he played an Italian vineyard owner in California in They Knew What They Wanted (1940); a South Seas patriarch in The Tuttles of Tahiti (1942); and an American admiral during World War II in Stand by for Action (1942). He played a Victorian butler in Forever and a Day (1943) and an Australian bar-owner in The Man from Down Under (1943). Simon Callow's 1987 biography quotes a number of contemporary reviews of Laughton's performances in these films. James Agate, reviewing Forever and a Day, wrote: "Is there no-one at RKO to tell Charles Laughton when he is being plain bad?" On the other hand, Bosley Crowther of the New York Times declared that Forever and a Day boasted "superb performances".^[5]

C. A. Lejeune, wrote Callow, was "shocked" by the poor quality of Laughton's recent work: "One of the most painful screen phenomena of latter years", she wrote in The Observer, "has been the decline and fall of Charles Laughton." On the other hand, David Shipman, in his book The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years, said "Laughton was a total actor. His range was wide".^[6]

1943–1962[link]

Laughton played a cowardly schoolmaster in occupied France in This Land is Mine (1943), by Jean Renoir, in which he engaged himself most actively;^[7] in fact, while Renoir was still working on an early script, Laughton would talk to him about Alphonse Daudet's story "The Last Lesson", which suggested to Renoir a relevant scene of the film.^[8] He played a henpecked husband who eventually murders his wife in The Suspect (1944), directed by Robert Siodmak, who later became a good friend of his.^[9] He played sympathetically an impoverished composer-pianist in Tales of Manhattan (1942) and starred in an updated version of Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost in 1944.

Laughton appeared in two comedies with Deanna Durbin, It Started with Eve (1941) and Because of Him (1946). He portrayed a bloodthirsty pirate in Captain Kidd (1945) and a malevolent judge in Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1948). Laughton played a megalomaniac press tycoon in The Big Clock (1948). He had supporting roles as a Nazi in pre-war Paris in Arch of Triumph (1948), as a bishop in The Girl from Manhattan (1948), as a seedy go-between in The Bribe (1949), and as a kindly widower in The Blue Veil (1951). He played a Bible-reading pastor in the multi-story A Miracle Can Happen (1947), but his sequence was deleted and replaced with another featuring Dorothy Lamour, and in this form the film was retitled On Our Merry Way. However, an original print of A Miracle Can Happen was sent abroad for dubbing before the Laughton sequence was deleted, and in this form it was shown in Spain under the title Una Encuesta Llamada Milagro.

From the Young Bess trailer (1953)

Laughton made his first color film in Paris as Inspector Jules Maigret in The Man on the Eiffel Tower (1949) and, wrote the Monthly Film Bulletin, "appeared to overact" alongside Boris Karloff as a mad French nobleman in a version of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Door in 1951. He played a tramp in O. Henry's Full House (1952), in which he had a one-minute scene with Marilyn Monroe. He became a pirate again, buffoon style this time, in Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952). He guest-starred in an episode of the Colgate Comedy Hour on TV that also featured Abbott and Costello and that was notable for his delivery of the Gettysburg Address. He played Herod Antipas in Salome (1953, with Rita Hayworth in the title role) and repeated his role as Henry VIII in Young Bess (1953). He returned to England to star in Hobson's Choice (1954) directed by David Lean. Kevin Brownlow's biography of David Lean (1996) reveals in Chapter 26 that Lean was a great admirer of Laughton and briefly considered him for the part of Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai, hoping that Laughton would lose weight for the role. Other possible contenders for the part included Cary Grant and Laurence Olivier, though in the end it went to Alec Guinness.

Laughton received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his role as Sir Wilfrid Robarts in the screen version of Agatha Christie's play Witness for the Prosecution (1957).

He played a British admiral in Under Ten Flags (1960) and worked for the only time with Laurence Olivier in Spartacus (1960) as a wily Roman senator.

His final film was Advise and Consent (1962), for which he received favorable comments for his performance as a southern US Senator (for which accent he studied recordings of Mississippi Senator John Stennis). Laughton worked on the film, which was directed by Otto Preminger, while he was dying from metastatic renal cell carcinoma (cancer of the kidney).^[10]

[edit] The Night of the Hunter

In 1955, Laughton directed (but did not act in) The Night of the Hunter, starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish. The film is often cited among today's critics as one of the best of the 1950s,^[11] and has been selected by the United States National Film Registry for preservation in the Library of Congress. At the time of its original release, however, it was a critical and box-office failure, and Laughton never had another chance to direct. The documentary Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter by Robert Gitt (2002) features preserved rushes and outtakes with Laughton's audible off-camera direction.^[12]

Theatre[link]

Laughton made his London stage debut in Gogol's The Government Inspector (1926). He appeared in many West End plays in the following few years and his earliest successes on the stage were in roles like Hercule Poirot in Alibi (1928, the first actor to portray Agatha Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot) - a stage adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) and William Marble in Payment Deferred, in which he made his Lyceum Theatre (New York) debut in 1931.

In 1926, he played the role of the criminal Ficsur in the original London production of Ferenc Molnár's Liliom (The play was musicalized in 1945 by Rodgers and Hammerstein as Carousel, where Ficsur became Jigger Craigin, but Laughton never appeared in the musical version). While Laughton is most remembered for his film career, he continued to work in the theatre, as when, after the success of The Private Life of Henry VIII he appeared at the Old Vic Theatre in 1933 as roles Macbeth, Lopakin in The Cherry Orchard, Prospero in The Tempest and Angelo in Measure for Measure. In America, Laughton worked closely with Bertolt Brecht on a new English version of Brecht's play Galileo. Laughton played the title role at the play's premiere in Los Angeles on 30 July 1947 and later that year in New York. This staging was directed by Joseph Losey. The processes by which Laughton painstakingly, over many weeks, created his Galileo—and incidentally, edited and translated the play along with Brecht—are detailed in an essay by Brecht, "Building Up A Part: Laughton's Galileo."^[13] Brecht's essay offers a sympathetic and detailed portrait of an actor at work.

Laughton had one of his most notable successes in the theatre by directing and playing the Devil in Don Juan in Hell beginning in 1950. The piece is actually the third act sequence from George Bernard Shaw's play Man and Superman, frequently cut from productions to reduce its playing time, consisting of a philosophical debate between Don Juan and the Devil with contributions from Doña Ana and the statue of Ana's father. Laughton conceived the piece as a staged reading and cast Charles Boyer, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, and Agnes Moorehead (billed as "The First Drama Quartette") in the other roles. Boyer won a special Tony Award for his performance. The performance, recorded complete by Columbia Masterworks, is now available as an MP3 download.

He directed several plays on Broadway. His most notable box-office success as a director came in 1954, with The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, a full-length stage dramatization by Herman Wouk of the court-martial scene in Wouk's novel The Caine Mutiny. The play, starring Henry Fonda as defense attorney Barney Greenwald, opened the same year as the film starring Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg and José Ferrer as Greenwald based on the original novel, but did not affect that film's box-office performance. Laughton also directed a staged reading in 1953 of Stephen Vincent Benét's John Brown's Body, a full-length poem about the American Civil War and its aftermath. The production starred Tyrone Power, Raymond Massey (re-creating his film characterizations of Abraham Lincoln and John Brown), and Judith Anderson. Laughton did not appear himself in either of these productions, but John Brown's Body was recorded complete by Columbia Masterworks.

Laughton returned to the London stage in May 1958 to direct and star in Jane Arden's The Party at the New Theatre which also had Elsa Lanchester and Albert Finney in the cast. He made his final theatre appearances as Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream and as King Lear at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in 1959, although failing health resulted in both performances being disappointing, according to some British critics. His performance as King Lear came in for particular lambasting by critics, with many reviews saying that the portly actor looked more like Old King Cole than Shakespeare's creation, and critic Kenneth Tynan wrote that Laughton's Nick Bottom "...behaves in a manner that has nothing to do with acting, although it perfectly hits off the demeanor of a rapscallion uncle dressed up to entertain the children at a Christmas party". Although a British production of A Midsummer Night's Dream did air on television around this time, it was not the one with Laughton, but rather a 1958 production with Paul Rogers as Bottom.

Although he did not appear in any later plays, he continued to tour the US with staged readings, including a very successful appearance on the Stanford University campus in 1960.

Recordings[link]

Laughton's voice first appeared on 78-rpm records with the release of five British Regal Zonophone 10-inch discs entitled Voice of the Stars issued annually from 1934 to 1938. These featured short soundtrack snippets from the year's top films. He is heard on all five records in, respectively, The Private Life of Henry VIII, The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Mutiny on the Bounty, I, Claudius (curiously, since this film was unfinished and thus never released), and Vessel of Wrath. In 1937 he recorded Lincoln's Gettysburg Address on a 10-inch Columbia 78, having made such an impression with it in Ruggles of Red Gap.

He made several other spoken-word recordings, one of his most famous being his one-man album of Charles Dickens's Mr. Pickwick's Christmas, a twenty-minute version of the Christmas chapter from Dickens's The Pickwick Papers. It was first released by American Decca in 1944 as a four-record 78-rpm set, but was afterward transferred to LP. It frequently appeared on LP with a companion piece, Decca's 1941 adaptation of Dickens's A Christmas Carol, starring Ronald Colman as Scrooge. Both stories were released together on a Deutsche Grammophon CD for Christmas 2005.

In 1943, Laughton recorded a reading of the Nativity story from St. Luke's Gospel, and this was released in 1995 on CD on a Nimbus Records collection entitled Prima Voce: The Spirit of Christmas Past.

A Brunswick/American Decca LP entitled Readings from the Bible featured Laughton reading Garden of Eden, The Fiery Furnace, Noah's Ark, and David and Goliath. It was released in 1958. Laughton had previously included several Bible readings when he played the title role in the film Rembrandt.

Laughton was also heard narrating the story on the soundtrack album of the film that he directed, Night of the Hunter, accompanied by the film's score. This album has also been released on CD.

Also, and derived from the film they made together, a complete radio show (18 June 1945) of The Canterville Ghost was broadcast which featured Laughton and Margaret O'Brien. It has been issued on a Pelican LP.

His wife Elsa Lanchester made three LPs in the 1950s: Songs for a Shuttered Parlour, Songs for a Smoke-Filled Room, and Cockney London. Laughton introduced the various numbers with spoken introductions on the first two and wrote the sleeve notes for the third.

An online version of the complete, two-LP Columbia Masterworks recording of the 1950 Broadway staging of George Bernard Shaw's Don Juan in Hell was re-released [Saland Publishing] in April, 2009. It is available only as a download from various vendors.

However, none of Laughton's other record albums have been made available on CD as of yet. A two-LP Capitol Records album was released in 1962, the year of Laughton's death, entitled The Story Teller: A Session with Charles Laughton. Taken from Laughton's one-man stage shows, it culls together dramatic readings from several sources. Three of the excerpts are broadcast annually on a Minnesota Public Radio Thanksgiving programme entitled Giving Thanks. The Story Teller won a Grammy in 1962 for Best Spoken Word Recording. However, although the album has yet to be released on compact disc, it can now be heard in its entirety online.^[14]

Television[link]

Laughton was the fill-in host on 9 September 1956, when Elvis Presley made his first of three appearances on CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show, which garnered 72 million viewers (Ed Sullivan was recuperating from a car accident). That same year, Laughton also hosted the first of two programs devoted to classical music entitled "Festival of Music", and telecast on the NBC television anthology series Producers' Showcase. He appeared multiple times on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford.

In 1959, Laughton appeared in the episode "Eleanor" of the anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show, broadcast over CBS.

One of his last performances was on the TV series Checkmate, in which he played a missionary recently returned from China. He threw himself into the role, traveling to China for several months in order to better understand his character.^[15] Bugs Bunny spoofed Laughton playing Captain Bligh in Buccaneer Bunny (1947), Laughton's Mutiny on the Bounty as Mutiny on the Bunny (1948), The Sign of the Cross with Laughton as Nero in Roman Legion-Hare (1955), and as a spoiled king in Shishkabugs (1962). Laughton also appeared in the popular Western TV series Wagon Train.

Private life and death[link]

In 1927, Laughton began a relationship with Elsa Lanchester, at the time a cast mate in a stage play. The two were married in 1929, became American citizens in 1950, and remained together until Laughton's death. Over the years, they appeared together in several films, including Rembrandt (1936), Tales of Manhattan (1942) and The Big Clock (1948). Lanchester portrayed Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII's fourth wife, opposite Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII. They both received Academy Award nominations for their performances in Witness for the Prosecution (1957) — Laughton for Best Actor, and Lanchester for Best Supporting Actress—but neither won. Laughton and Lanchester had no children.^[16][17] Laughton's bisexuality has been corroborated by several of his contemporaries and is generally accepted by Hollywood historians,^{[18][19][20][21]} However, actress Maureen O'Hara, a friend and co-star of Laughton, claimed that Laughton told her that he and his wife never had children because of a botched abortion which Lanchester had early in her career while performing burlesque and that indeed his biggest regret was never having children of his own.^[22] In her own autobiography, Lanchester acknowledged having had two abortions in her youth (one of the pregnancies purportedly by Laughton) although she didn't mention whether this had indeed left her incapable of becoming pregnant again. According to her biographer Charles Higham, the reason she didn't have children was that she didn't want any.^[23]