9
The white-robed elders knelt before me and pleaded for protection from the pirates who preyed on coastal shipping and raided rich towns. They promised the allegiance of their realms and bountiful trade. The pirates’ forts I razed to rubble. Their ships I fell upon like a great storm that cannot be resisted. When the prisoners came in endless columns before me, I hardened my heart and fed the earth with their corpses.
From the log of Cheng Ho, admiral of the western seas, voyage of the fifth armada