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"The writings and logs of Christopher Columbus, James Cook and Ferdinand Magellan acknowledge they had and used maps," said Menzies. "The question is: Who drew those maps? The answer is: The Chinese, who were the first to rule the oceans, with Zheng He's ships, each crewed by 500 or more men."

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Did Chinese Explorers Beat Columbus To America?

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We are on a quest to retrace the route of the man who ranks as perhaps China's greatest adventurer, the 15th century admiral, Zheng He. A Muslim, a eunuch, a warrior, Zheng He vastly outdid his approximate contemporaries, the Western naval heroes who helped define the global Age of Exploration. His armada of giant junks was several times bigger than any of the fleets Columbus commanded nearly a century later. And his ships were five times longer than those of the celebrated Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama. With more than 300 oceangoing vessels and a crew of nearly 30,000 men, Zheng He helped transform China into the region's, and perhaps the world's, 15th century superpower. He exacted tribute, brought Sultans to their knees and opened up trade routes that helped develop the enduring taste abroad for Chinese porcelain and silk. He brought home quirky items, too, including the first giraffe China had seen—initially misidentified as the qilin, the unicorn central to Chinese mythology.

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The Asian Voyage: In the Wake of the Admiral

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Cheng Ho's seven voyages (1405 - 1433) dwarfed Columbus's four in distance and grandeur. His 444-foot, nine-masted flagship far surpassed in length the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria tethered end to end. Cheng's splendid flotillas of several hundred junks could safely venture the nearly 10,000 miles to Zanzibar off the southeast coast of Africa thanks to Chinese inventions like the compass, the rudder, and watertight internal compartments. As the Emperor's ambassador, Cheng established diplomatic relations with three dozen kingdoms around the China Sea and Indian Ocean. In contrast, Columbus made only tenuous contact with a single advanced culture, the Maya, and his relations with weaker tribes were hardly diplomatic.

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The Eunuch Columbus

However, as befits my partial Viking heritage, this is all meaningless to me. Everyone knows early October is Bjarni Herjulfsson Day.

edited: Heehee, if just glancing at this thread, I still suggest reading the last link.

[ September 24, 2002: Message edited by: clockwork ]

I'm pretty sure the Chinese junks weren't similarly armed. Id even hazard that they weren't armed in such a fashion because they weren't involved in major sea struggles against the Spanish, Dutch, or Portuguese or whoever.

Read what you want into that, if you accept my interpretation.

edited: "a little learning " makes much more sense than a "little leaning".

[ September 25, 2002: Message edited by: clockwork ]

I think (based on my skin thin knowledge of things Chinese-- but hey, I have read the English Translation of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms") that it goes back to geography.

And since I finally got around to reading the rest of the Time link, it even touches on Confucianism:

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There are many theories as to why China curtailed its maritime aspirations in the mid-15th century. The simplest is that the Confucians prevailed. The imperial bureaucracy sought to contain the expansionary ambitions of its sailors and the increasing power of its merchant class: Confucian ideology venerates authority and agrarian ways, not innovation and trade. "Barbarian" nations were thought to offer little of value to China. Other factors contributed: the renovation of the north-south Grand Canal, for one, facilitated grain transport and other internal commerce in gentle inland waters, obviating the need for an ocean route. And the tax burden of maintaining a big fleet was severe. But the decision to scuttle the great ships was in large part political. With the death of Yongle, the Emperor who sent Zheng He on his voyages, the conservatives began their ascendancy. China suspended naval expeditions. By century's end, construction of any ship with more than two masts was deemed a capital offense. Oceangoing vessels were destroyed. Eventually, even records of Zheng He's journey were torched. China's heroic age was over; its open door had slammed shut. "The expeditions wasted tens of myriads of money and grain," a 15th century Minister of War complained. Roderick MacFarquhar, a sinologist at Harvard University, characterizes the conservative triumph this way: "Yellow River over blue water."

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I've read that one of the concessions the British won after the Opium Wars was the power to gain Imperial audiences when they want and right to address members of the Imperial court, and even the emperor, as equals.

As to China's isolation, they were (and I think, still are) a civilization onto themselves. Estimates pegged China's population in the 1500's as 150 million compared to Europe's 50 million. Even under the Ming dynasty, which was in power at this time, they controlled more than half of what is now modern China. (the Ming dynasty was taken over by the Manchu's in the mid 1600's). Actually, it's kind of weird. I grew up knowing that Native groups within North America were distinct (or that European states were distinct), but it wasn't until recently that I started thinking if China in terms of different population groups. I'm not at all sure it's right to consider all of China as a monolith any more then it's proper to paint the Iberian Peninsula and points west with the same map colour. I wonder if China's "isolationism" should be weighed within this context. Granted, I haven't read that China was quite as ethnically and as linguistically diverse as any other given area.

Anyway, back to this Zheng He guy, I still find it amazing. According to my first link, he traveled around in 1000 foot boats, although my third link contradicts by saying his longest ship was 500 feet. But still. If you're like me, you have trouble conceptualizing "feet", so here are some comparisons:

HMCS Haida (sitting at Ontario Place): 377 feet

Bluenose (you should be shot if you don't know what the Bluenose is): 161 feet

Santa Maria (one of Chrissy-poo's ships): (est) 59 feet

USS Nimitz (basically an air field built over a nuclear reactor with a rudder added for good measure): 1092 feet

Titanic: 852 feet.

Spanish Galleons: 100-120 feet

I once read that it's not unusual for an explorer to lose 40% of the crew on a trip (in fact, I recently read the Captain Cook was hailed as a great sea captain since he only lost 40% of his crew). The links say Zheng He traveled with 30,000 men. I wonder if he was any better.

Anyway, I have to bring this up. There is a reason I explicitly singled out the third link:

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We may never resolve whether the Old World did more for or to the New World. But, at the end of a century in which North Americans prevailed over Prussian militarism, Aryan Nazism, and Soviet Communism, the tragedy of Cheng Ho demonstrates that we should honor Columbus for what America did for Europe: save Europe from itself.

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It's easy to infer perhaps, that anything new might have been seen as a threat to the harmony?

And, there is the fact that technologically, China was pretty much ahead of the rest of the world's civilizations at the time, so maybe there was some wisdom, in strict cost benifit analysis, to the conservative view.

After reading "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", a historical account of the Warring States period at the end of the Han dynasty (200 A.D., if my memory serves) I became aware that China is not a monolithic culture or "race", but that there are many 'nationalities' that periodically get united under an emporer.

I could have been more articulate on this a few years ago, when I was delving into Chinese history a bit more, and my memory was fresher.

What I took away from my self study was mostly a feeling that what we know popularly barely scratches the surface of Chinese history.

Geez, I got work to do. But if I get a chance, I'm going to do a quick search on Cook. I think he did at least one voyage where he lost just a few men to accident or desease. Something else tells me he linked diet to crew loss not through experience at sea, but from studying the records at the Admiralty.

I'll look that up too, but sometimes it's fun to excersize the memory, then find out how good it actually is compared to the facts.

We'll see.

Yar, 'ere we go matey:

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Cook had five cases of scurvy reported by his surgeon and no deaths from it. Wallis's men were dogged by the disease, three dying of it, and he himself appears to have been suffering from it when he came across Tahiti. Byron reports the 'dreadful havock' made among his crew by the disease, while Carteret records 31 men dead of scurvy, and his ship for the most part of his voyage a hospital. In his next two voyages Cook's good management, or luck, persisted, and no deaths from scurvy were reported. Since then he has been hailed as the conqueror of the sea's great plague.

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More Here:Scurvy dogs

Later in the article, it seems that it wasn't limes or malt that cured scurvy, but Cook's prohibition from consuming fat from boiling pans is the likely reason. Apparently, this prevents the body from absorbing not only vitamin C, but other essentials, like the B group.

As for Cook discovering the "cure" to scurvy from the Admiralty records, I must have that mixed up with some other bit of esoterica.

[ September 26, 2002: Message edited by: TommyPaineatWork ]

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Scurvy did not emerge as a problem for maritime explorers until vessels started penetrating the Indian and the Pacific Oceans. Vasco da Gama lost two thirds of his crew to the disease while making his way to India in 1499. In 1520 Magellan lost more than 80 per cent while crossing the Pacific. Two voyages made by Pedro de Quiros early in the 17th century resulted in huge mortality from a sickness Sir Richard Hawkins called, after his venture into the South Seas, 'the plague of the Sea, and the Spoyle of Mariners'.

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It's easy to infer perhaps, that anything new might have been seen as a threat to the harmony?

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Those people should shoot themselves in the foot if they were still living (or, er, commit the equivalent of hari kari, if there is such a thing in Chinese culture) for destroying China (and destroy is the right term, since I've read, hopefully correct, that the foreign subjugation of China contributed a lot to their current state of affairs… apparently they got stiffed by Britain et al in the Treaty of Versailles, eg: granting Japan concession over Chinese territory). I'm gonna assert that these conservative elements, the ones who despised the barbarians, no modern corollary intended of course, set the sun on China's greatness (figuratively and literally, as Japan figures prominently within modern Chinese history).

But I might be a dope, though. It's not like a historical behaviour has any meaning in today's political climate. Israel doesn't generate headlines, the Kurds don't generate headlines, Kashmir doesn't generate headlines, African nations don't generate headlines, Germany doesn't generate headlines.

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And, there is the fact that technologically, China was pretty much ahead of the rest of the world's civilizations at the time, so maybe there was some wisdom, in strict cost benefit analysis, to the conservative view.

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My reading of history, and this applies to not only to China but Arab states, America, etc, is that you have to embrace change or you lose your place within history (but, in a nod to the US, change isn't something they shy away from).

Rome was taken over by barbarians. China lost it's place. The Catholic Church is no longer the force it was, apparently. Communism is dead. Islam even lost it's place. Change kills if you're not attentive. In relation to China, I've read that Confucianism had changed: half the stuff attributed to the guy is false. The Bible changes, religions change, social values change. Mao would roll over in his grave if he knew what the current leadership was doing.

Obviously, TP, I'm attacking something more than China here. It might even, if you are of a certain political persuasion, tie into my comment that I highlighted to which no one has responded.

But it's possible that all us babblers are my wavelength (ha, cough, cough, ha).

I even tried to open myself to attack in my arguments. Attack, attack, change me!

[ September 27, 2002: Message edited by: clockwork ]

The problem with the conservative view as it discounts the value of the unknown. Are we surprised it was the Republicans who killed the Super Collider in the States? Why, it's "pure science", what's the pay back? But we know the unknown is where all the riches have come from.

I have a sneaking suspicion that as the historians point to the ascendancy of Commodus to the Roman Throne as the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire, so too will future historians point to the cancellation of that project as the beginning of the end of the American Empire.

It seems to me at one time, China must have embraced the unknown, and then rejected it. Maybe all cultures go through this, and this is why no empire has ever stood the test of time.

The fear of change is related to the rejection of the unknown as an important resource, I think.

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At least my short term memory is in decent shape

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ah, but your claim was,

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(in fact, I recently read the Captain Cook was hailed as a great sea captain since he only lost 40% of his crew)

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Where my memory had it that Cook lost few men, as the Beeb verified.

"Cap'n, I'm blowing as hard on the sails as I can. I can't blow any harder. I'm not a Bangkok whore."

And, TP, I was compelled to back up my short term memory. Thank God I was right, seeing as how that tidbit I had read just last week:

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Cook was a bold navigator. Some of his charts remained in use until the 1990's. He was also self-made and a leader. He was by turns vindictive (he didn't hesitate to order the lash) and compassionate (the Endeavour's 40 percent death rate, Horwitz notes, ''wasn't extraordinary for the day; in fact, Cook would later be hailed for the exceptional concern he showed for the health of his crew''). Above all, he was a very serious man.

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And Michelle, wow: I learned a new word today, "filial".

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Kings also had the responsibility to be accountable to the people, according to Mencius, a disciple of Confucius. They had to take their subjects’ welfare into account, making sure they were not overtaxed, not hungry, not oppressed.

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Or, uh, the amateur historian plugging a book about Zheng He's discovery of America was in the NY Times Magazine.

Goodbye, Columbus!

Needless to say, this article is a bit down on this amatuer historian. It casts a sceptical shadow over the claim Zheng He was in America but makes pain to explicitly state that, yeah, sure, this Muslim eunuch could have beat Columbus here.

But the article kinda wryly notes, it was an amateur that discovered the Vikings beat Columbus to this continent a half a century before and, well, it the authors own words:

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Amateurism is derided by professionals because it is so often wrong, but think of what paleontology or astronomy (or jazz or the Constitution) would be without them. It's quite possible that the Chinese came to the Americas in 1421. It's also likely that a mission devoted largely to trade would easily be forgotten in a few years. Exchanging textiles for pepper isn't quite as memorable as, say, an army on horseback armed with cannons eager to rape and kill.

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China, any honest look at world history would show, was the most powerful and important country in the world until at least c. 1750 when Europeans started to make a real impact in Asia (buoyed by their Americas-derived wealth) as opposed to being just one more element in a maritime trading system. Much of the world carried tribute to them (including, the way they saw it, the European barbarians) so why should they exert themselves to travel to countries that contained nothing they wanted? China really was "the central kingdom" about which the rest of the world rotated. And European supremacy looks like a bit of a historical blip from this perspective.

Ming neo-Confucianism (a far more restrictive teaching than classical Confucianism) and the Ming emperors' centralizing certainly played a role in ending the treasure fleets commanded by a Muslim court eunuch, and the sea-fearing Manchus maintained these restrictions, but it's worth noting that Chinese renegades like the "pirate king" Coxinga were able to drive the Europeans out of Taiwan and establish their own kingdoms. And Chinese merchants were partners in the later European colonies -- that's why Malaysia, for instance, has such a big Chinese minority. Britain could not have ruled there without the loyalty of the "Straits Chinese." Nor could the Dutch in Indonesia, etc. So it's nowhere near as simple as "China looked inward." That's not wrong, but it's not the whole story either.

As to the "Chinese Winston Churchill" and the new world saving the old: i suppose you could make a case that Sun Yat-sen, founder of modern Chinese nationalism, played this role. He mobilized the wealth of the millions of overseas Chinese from Singapore to Vancouver to finance his movement to overthrow the emperors.

Frankly, I don't think he had the balls for it.

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There is a book out claiming the Chinese discovered South America not too long before Columbus (forget the title, I apologize).

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While I haven’t read the actual book, from the 12 or so book reviews I have read says that the hypothesis is bunk, or, at least, a lot of sailors discovered the new world previous to Columbus but Columbus was the guy who got things rolling.
The author's one wild card evidence relies on identifying a ship wreck that apparently is a Chinese Junk in some part of the Caribbean. Other than that, he relies on relics claimed to be Chinese but have been lost, stolen, whatnot, and cannot be verified.

I don't know where that thread is since... err, whatever...

[ 12 March 2003: Message edited by: clockwork ]