Q: You need to read the given passage and construct a question about the information present in the passage. The question should be answerable from the passage. Most importantly, only those questions are allowed whose answers cannot be determined from a single sentence. Do not generate questions that require only a single sentence to answer. Instead, try to combine two sentences and create a question from that combination. Do not create open-ended questions, i.e., the answers to them cannot be found precisely from the information provided in the passage.
Paragraph- Sent 1: The Glory of Melaka: In the early days, if you were not a pirate or a mosquito, Melaka was not much of a place to live.
Sent 2: The land was infertile, just a swampy plain, the river small and sluggish.
Sent 3: But it had a sheltered harbor, protected from the monsoons by neighboring Sumatra.
Sent 4: Later, the strategic location and deep-water channel close to the coast brought in the bigger vessels of the trade-wind traffic crossing the Indian Ocean.
Sent 5: The first to realize the larger commercial potential, as so often throughout the country's subsequent history, were the Chinese.
Sent 6: In 1409, under a new directive from Emperor Chu Ti to pursue trade in the South Seas and the Indian Ocean, a Chinese fleet of 50 ships headed by Admiral Cheng Ho called in at Melaka.
Sent 7: They made Parameswara an offer he could not refuse: port facilities and an annual financial tribute in exchange for Chinese protection against the marauding Thais.
Sent 8: In 1411, Parameswara took the money to Beijing himself, and the emperor gratefully made him a vassal king.
Sent 9: Twenty years later, the Chinese withdrew again from the South Seas trade.
Sent 10: The new ruler of Melaka, Sri Maharajah, switched his allegiance to the Muslim trading fraternity by marrying into the Muslim faith, wedding the daughter of a sultan in Sumatra.
Sent 11: Islam won its place in Malaya not by conquest — as had been the case in North Africa and Europe — but by trade, dynastic alliances, and peaceful preaching.
Sent 12: Bengali peddlers had already brought the faith to the east coast.
Sent 13: In Melaka and throughout the peninsula, Islam thrived as a strong, male-dominated religion of individuality, offering dynamic leadership and preaching brotherhood and self-reliance — all qualities ideally suited to the coastal trade.
Sent 14: At the same time, Sufi mystics synthesized Islamic teaching with local Malay traditions of animistic magic and charisma, though Islam did not become the state religion until Muzaffar Shah became sultan of Melaka (1446-1459).
Sent 15: But the key figure in the sultanate was Tun Perak, bendahara (prime minister) and military commander.
Sent 16: He expanded Melaka's power along the west coast and down to Singapore and the neighboring Bintan islands.
Sent 17: He also had orang laut pirates patrolling the seas to extort tribute from passing ships.
Sent 18: After allied district chiefs had repelled assaults from Thai-controlled armies from Pahang, Tun Perak personally led a famous victory over a Thai fleet off Batu Pahat in 1456.
A:
Who owned a fleet of ships in the story?