Gavin Menzies - 1421: THE YEAR CHINA DISCOVERED THE WORLD

[Melvin Loh]

I referred to this book on 1 of the previous threads on the old board. The author hypothesises that a Chinese eunuch admiral (I don't recall his name right now) sailed with a fully-equipped fleet of teak ships as large as modern-day aircraft-carriers from China in 1421 and was able to discover Australia, while also later travelling to America and Africa. However, when the then-Emperor, so interested in outside exploration, died and was replaced by his son who was internally-minded, these extended exploration voyages ceased- had they continued, it was speculated that Imperial China could've established colonies in Aust well before any European powers, thereby totally changing the course of hist as we know it. Anybody hold with this AHthesis ?

[Kuralyov]

Wasn't this in one of the What-If books, the second one if I'm not mistaken? It seems familiar from someplace...

[Prunesquallor]

It's a subject of which I know very little, but glancing at the reviews I got the impression that the historians saw the author (a former naval captain if I remember correctly) as a bit of a Thor Heyerdahl figure, one who was grabbing bits of data from all over the place to fit in with a pre-conceived thesis. They thought he was pushing the argument much too far. But having said that, I saw at least one generally favourable review in a broadsheet.

[zoomar]

Originally Posted by Prunesquallor

It's a subject of which I know very little, but glancing at the reviews I got the impression that the historians saw the author (a former naval captain if I remember correctly) as a bit of a Thor Heyerdahl figure, one who was grabbing bits of data from all over the place to fit in with a pre-conceived thesis. They thought he was pushing the argument much too far. But having said that, I saw at least one generally favourable review in a broadsheet.

Your characterization is very accurate. It was all very circumstantial.

[wkwillis]

1421 is close enough to 1492 that I won't blanch at it. Any earlier and I would worry that corn would have been transported and would be in the archeological record, which it isn't.
The largest sailing ships were maybe a few thousand tons. Even with steel they never built a windjammer more thant 8000 tons. The Chinese were supposed to have sent out multiple fleets to do their exploring around the 1420 period.
It's possible. I certainly don't say it really happened. We'll know soon enough. We are sequencing the DNA of many crops already. If the germ lines around the world have one pattern, it's the Spanish and Portuguese, if the other, it's the Chinese, followed by the Spanish and Portuguese, that spread those crops. The truth will fall out of the data.