While Zheng He's fleet was unprecedented, the routes were not. His fleet followed long-established, well-mapped routes of trade between China and the Arabian Peninsula that had been used since at least the Han dynasty. That fact, along with the use of a more-than-abundant number of crew members who were regular military personnel, leads some to speculate that the expeditions may have been geared at least partially at spreading China's power through expansion. During the Three Kingdoms Period, the king of Wu sent a 20-year diplomatic mission led by Zhu Ying and Kang Tai along the coast of Asia, which reached as far as the Eastern Roman Empire. After centuries of disruption, the Song dynasty restored large-scale maritime trade from China in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans and reached as far as the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa. When his fleet first arrived at Malacca, there was already a sizable Chinese community. The General Survey of the Ocean Shores (, Yíngyá Shènglǎn), composed by the translator Ma Huan in 1416, gives very detailed accounts of his observations of people's customs and lives in the ports that they visited. He referred to the expatriate Chinese as Tang people ().