Deccan tulwar

[ariel]

Originally Posted by Ren Ren

The advances in maritime archeology over the past 20 years have made speculation about Zheng He's fleet irrelevant. No weapons for trade or gifts were found on Chinese ships. It was found on Japanese ships, but they did not reach the coast of India.
Cross-cultural influence took place in other ways. This was especially true in the 14-16 centuries.

I had to go to a big review by Sally Church doi:10.2307/40727457.
She discusses the plausibility of the claim that Zheng He’s flotilla contained 450 feet long trade ships.
Everything is based on old documents and technical speculations.
Obviously, maritime archeology would have been decisive, but there is no mention of ever finding actual ZH’s vessels.
Where did you get your information from? Is it possible that maritime archeologists found much later ships? How many of them were found, if any?
ZH’s flotilla was composed of 317 ships. What is the minimal number of ships to be examined to be certain that the entire armada did not carry weapons as gifts?