Laufer (Relations of Chinese to the Philippines, p. 251) gives 1372 as the date of the first tribute embassy to China from the Philippine peoples under their present name of "Luzon-men," then designating principally Manilans (Ming Chronicles chap. 323, p. 110 according to his reference). Luzon was then stated to be situated in the South Sea very close to Chinchew, Fukien province. The ruler of the great Middle Kingdom in return sent an official to the king of Luzon with gifts of silk gauze embroidered in gold and colors. The commentator adds a well founded caution against accepting the word "first" as meaning anything other than that the chronicler was unfamiliar with previous notices. Laufer quotes from the Ming Chronicles of the Malayan tribe F'ing-ka-shi-lau whom he concludes are the Pangasinanes, inhabitants of the western and southern shores of Lingayen Bay, Luzon, but in earlier days apparently extending further north. Early in the XV century they had a small realm of their own, sending an embassy to China in 1406 and presenting the emperor as gifts "with excellent horses, silver and other objects" and receiving in return paper money and silks. In 1408 the chief was accompanied by an imposing retinue of two headmen from each village subject to his authority and these in turn each accompanied by some of his retainers. This time the imperial gifts were paper money for the sub-chiefs and for each hundred men six pieces of an open-work variegated silk, for making coats, and linings. Besides a 1410 embassy from Pangasinan there was another tribute party from Luzon headed by one Ko-Ch'a-lao who brought products of his country, among which gold was most prominent. This last party came because in 1405 the Emperor Yung-lo had sent a high Chinese officer to Luzon to govern that country. Here is definite political identification with the Chinese empire. In 1407 it is probable this moral force of respect for the superior culture of what was the Rome of the Orient witnessed also a physical demonstration, for in that year the eunuch Cheng-ho set sail, with his 62 large ships bearing 27,800 soldiers, on the expedition which explored as far as the Arabian Gulf and required the nominal allegiance of the numerous countries visited during repeated voyages extending over thirty years. Ian C. Hannah states in his "Eastern Asia: A History" that outside the North of Toh Chow, in Shantung province, by a little mosque, is yet marked the burial place of a former sultan of Sulu who died on a visit to the Emperor Yung-lo in 1417. In the same year, Sulu's eastern, western and village rajahs with their wives, children and headmen all came to the Chinese court with tribute, and another tribute mission from Sulu arrived in 1420.