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He was a Muslim, a eunuch and possibly a giant. Most importantly, he ranks among the world's greatest seafarers, although his epic voyages of the early 15th century are only patchily remembered round the world. In this one-off documentary, Nick Baker asks "why don't more of us know more about Zheng He?"

Nearly a century before the European explorers with their tiny ships and small crews started their journeys, Zheng He was commanding fleets of huge ships – some more than 400ft long – with tens of thousands of men and high class cargo. He was travelling epic distances, discovering new routes and establishing Chinese dominance. He certainly travelled from the east coast of China as far as the coast of Africa – and some say he went far beyond. China's influence across a great swathe of the globe was immense, but it stopped abruptly.

Zheng He's legacy is not well known around the globe. Those who live in China or South East Asia may well know the name, although China has been through periods of overlooking (or even deliberately forgetting) one of the world's most important naval figures. It is only since the Eighties that Zheng He's story has been revived in the People's Republic.

To find out more about Zheng He, Nick Baker travels to China, where he clambers aboard a great (reconstructed) ship, talks to historians and meets a man in his fifties who claims an extraordinarily close link with China's forgotten Admiral.