From Wikipedia

The Treasure Fleet

Zheng He  (1371–1433), was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral, who made the voyages collectively referred to as the travels of "Eunuch Sanbao to the Western Ocean"  or "Zheng He to the Western Ocean", from 1405 to 1433.

There are claims that Persian stories of Sinbad the Sailor are based on the voyages of Zheng He.

Zheng He was born in 1371 in modern-day Yunnan Province, which was at that time the last stronghold of the Yuan Dynasty in its struggle with the victorious Ming Dynasty. Zheng He was a Muslim The term Hui in Chinese refers to the Islamic religion because of its association with the Hui ethnic group.

According to the History of Ming, he was originally named Mǎ Sānbǎo (馬三保) and his home was Kunyang (昆阳), present day Jinning (晋宁). He belonged to the Semu social caste. He was a sixth-generation descendant of Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, a famous Khwarezmian Yuan governor of Yunnan Province, originally from Bukhara in modern day Uzbekistan. The family name "Ma" came from Shams al-Din's fifth son Masuh (Mansour). Both his father, Mir Tekin, and grandfather, Charameddin, had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and their travels contributed to the young boy's education.

In 1381, following the defeat of the Northern Yuan, a Ming army was dispatched to Yunnan to put down the Mongol rebel Basalawarmi. Ma Sanbao, then only eleven years old, was captured and made a eunuch. He was sent to the Imperial court, where he eventually became a trusted adviser of the Yongle Emperor, assisting him in deposing his predecessor, the Jianwen Emperor. In return for meritorious service, the eunuch received the name Zheng He from the Yongle Emperor.

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