明仁宗
Ming-3 is a parallel universe almost entirely dominated by a Chinese empire whose fleets of exploration under Zheng He (Jeng Ho in the text) were never scrapped as they were in our history; the scenario credits the mother of the Xuande Emperor with having persuaded her son to put a final end to his voyages (her husband, the Hongxi Emperor, having opposed them during his short reign), and posits a plague that ended her life and her influence over Xuande. The plague also forces the imperial household to remain in the southern port city of Nanjing instead of moving to Beijing; accordingly, Zheng He's fleets were sustained, reached every corner of the Indian Ocean and rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Amphibious delivery of soldiers and supplies was developed out of necessity during a war with Annan province (Vietnam), which stood China in good stead when it found the need to pacify the lands in its naval trading sphere: Indonesia, the Malay Peninsula, southern India, various Arabian ports, and the eastern coast of Africa from Mogadishu to Mozambique.