Zheng He was born in 1371 in Yunnan Province. His given name was “Ma He,” indicative of his family’s Hui Muslim origins since “Ma” is the Chinese version of “Mohammad.” His father was a hajji, a Muslim who had made the hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca. Zheng He’s great-great-great-grandfather, Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, was a Persian governor of the province under the Mongolian Emperor Kublai Khan, founder of the Yuan Dynasty that ruled China from 1279 to 1368.
In 1381, when he was about 10 years old, Yunnan, the last Mongol hold in China, was conquered by Chinese forces led by generals of the Ming dynasty, which had overthrown the Yuan dynasty in 1368. The young Ma He was among the boys who were captured, and he was castrated and made a eunuch. Ma He was sent to Beiping (now Beijing) to serve in the household of 21-year-old Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan who later became the Yongle Emperor. Ma He distinguished himself as a junior officer, skilled in war and diplomacy, and soon became one of the prince’s closest confidants. In the 1390s, he served as a soldier, fighting on the northern frontier and participating in the Prince of Yan’s military campaigns against the Mongols.
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