East Asian discovery of the New World
- Thread starter smjb
- Start date
Flubber
Banned
Pretty savvy, huh? They gave Columbus less than half the money he needed and their kingdom still reaped all the subsequent benefits.
He never claimed it was India or the East Indies or even Cipangu. He claimed he'd found the stepping stone islands and now needed to pick his way along them to the real goal.
Dumb luck? Sure much like winning the lottery is dumb luck, but finding the Americas wasn't the point of the expedition at all. Sailing west to reach the East Indies was a calculated risk and one that Spain eventually achieved.
Isabella and Ferdinand were dead by the time the conquistadors were active but all that gold and silver still flowed to their heirs, didn't it?
wolf_brother
Banned
You have a better chance of the Orient discovering Australia than you do North America. Beyond all other criticisms I don't think some people here are understanding just how massive the Pacific Ocean is, especially when you're in a 'ship' just barely the size of a modern two bedroom house.
No, it's not. Sailing to islands you know and going in search of other islands in the same area =/= sailing across the largest ocean on the goddamn planet.
For all they knew, they found actual gold,slaves, and other goods.
King of Malta said:
You haven't made a single reasonable point on the subject in the entire thread. And comparing Casino gambling to voyages of exploitation . . . I don't know where to start.
None of your post shows any understanding of why anyone would actually attempt this, in entirely different conditions than those that lead to Columbus and his fellows, without something like what they were looking for a route to awaiting them.
East Asian people in East Asian circumstances are not just going to fund voyages to the East just because some people think things like an Emperor wanting as a child to see the other side of the ocean actually make sense as reasons to spend significant sums of money.
Seriously, when you make comments like "Are East Asians humans capable of virtues and vices; ideas and imaginations on the same level as any other people? Yes." it shows just how little you understand about what drove European voyages and what saw OTL East Asia not make anything of the sort.
Zuwarg said:
There's no reason for them to come up with this idea. They don't need shorter routes to the profitable trade locations, they don't need new overcome their competitors near home, they don't need to find resources that have become scarce at home (whether as in furs or as in ship-worthy timber), they don't have a single one of the economic motives that made investing in Atlantic voyages worthwhile for Europe AND they have further to go before hitting the Americas.
At some point, the idea that they're going to do like the Europeans did runs into the fact that it would be tantamount to Holland doing what Brandenburg did - utter nonsense in their position.
Last edited:
Flubber
Banned
It would be better if you remembered that the early European explorations had a known goal and weren't the result of some potentate's whim.
The Spanish discovery of the Americas was an unintended side effect and the Americas were, at first, an obstacle to Spain's real goal. The Spanish milled around for nearly 3 decades trying to find their way through the Americas to the Pacific and their real goal before coming across the Mesoamerican nations. It was only then that the Americas became a goal in their own right .
But Flubber, all the Chinese need are imagination and some ships. Having a destination in mind is utterly irrelevant.
Flubber
Banned
How could I have not understood that?
It's all so clear now!Herp derp derpity herpity doo...
Columbus knew America would be there before he sailed there, obviously. He didn't have a different location in mind and then stumble upon a new one.
Exactly. The Chinese would sail in search of more East Indonesian islands and then come across either the Polynesian islands (if lucky, Hawaii), who will tell them of more land to the east, or find nothing until they reach the Americas.
Flubber
Banned
He knew there were islands to the west thanks Norse and other old records plus the physical evidence I mentioned earlier. He never suspected there were two continents.
I know they no longer teach geography in school but that is simply pathetic.
The East Indies are south of China. As wolf brother correctly pointed out, that would lead any further Chinese exploration south to Australia and not east across the biggest fucking ocean on the planet.
wolf_brother
Banned
Again, going this way you're going to have the Chinese discover Australia, not America.
And, again, you're underestimating the vastness of the Pacific Ocean - especially when the majority of currents & wind patterns will be pushing you back to East Asia.
And, again, you're underestimating the vastness of the Pacific Ocean - especially when the majority of currents & wind patterns will be pushing you back to East Asia.
I wasn't being serious.
There's this thing called Papua New Guinea and Polynesia. The latter of whom in fact were still expanding east at the time.
I have yet to see substantial evidence supporting any reason why they couldn't.
Again, from the top of a proposed Japan POD involving Better choices on the part of Hideyoshi or Tokugawa. Sometime in the late 16th to early 17th Century.
- People who would want to pull it off are able to without any restrictions from the state.
-The Shogun could order it, Wealthy Nobles or Merchants could organize it.
-Crossing the Pacific bad been done several times at this point from both directions. Something which seemed to be common knowledge or obtainable knowledge if Drake did it.
-Competition by Chinese,Korean, Indonesian, and/or European merchants and navies makes expansion westward an southward untenable.
-Japan has the technology and resources to have oceanic ships with the supplies and manpower to crew them.
-The Americas are already discovered. The image being that people that go there find gold and wealth alot.
-Knowledge of local currents would set the bar low, having ships follow the Pacific Current NorthEastward into the North Pacific Current. Sweeping along the coast of California. Making several trips on land. Even being attacked by wolves. Noting the lack of development amongst the locals.
-Expedition to Japan returns via the equilateral current, being pushed slightly south of Japan they sail north to home. Backers are disappointed by lack of gold, but determined to discover it.
-News of the expedition and likely the route and details spread via word of mouth.
-Another expedition sent out. Landing on the California Coast the expedition splits. One portion heading inland to search for value, the second sailing south to try to find New Spain.
-Results are mixed. No gold is found, but a land of plenty is. New Spain isn't found, but evidence of knowledge of the Spanish having been in the area to the south looking at trades goods of coastal tribes and recognition of a Cross shape when drawn in the ground.
-Expedition returns. Disappointment at lack of gold. Whoever financed all this realizes they are in too deep. They have to find profit somehow. One of the dead animal skins brought back by the sailors is noted to be very water resistant and possibly fashionable. Knowledge of the Americas spreads further in Japan with rumors good and bad spreading.
-European merchants are once more questioned about the Americas. The Dutch are pleased at worrisome reactions from their Spanish opposites. Word is returned to the nearest Dutch East Indies Company headquarters.
Again, from the top of a proposed Japan POD involving Better choices on the part of Hideyoshi or Tokugawa. Sometime in the late 16th to early 17th Century.
- People who would want to pull it off are able to without any restrictions from the state.
-The Shogun could order it, Wealthy Nobles or Merchants could organize it.
-Crossing the Pacific bad been done several times at this point from both directions. Something which seemed to be common knowledge or obtainable knowledge if Drake did it.
-Competition by Chinese,Korean, Indonesian, and/or European merchants and navies makes expansion westward an southward untenable.
-Japan has the technology and resources to have oceanic ships with the supplies and manpower to crew them.
-The Americas are already discovered. The image being that people that go there find gold and wealth alot.
-Knowledge of local currents would set the bar low, having ships follow the Pacific Current NorthEastward into the North Pacific Current. Sweeping along the coast of California. Making several trips on land. Even being attacked by wolves. Noting the lack of development amongst the locals.
-Expedition to Japan returns via the equilateral current, being pushed slightly south of Japan they sail north to home. Backers are disappointed by lack of gold, but determined to discover it.
-News of the expedition and likely the route and details spread via word of mouth.
-Another expedition sent out. Landing on the California Coast the expedition splits. One portion heading inland to search for value, the second sailing south to try to find New Spain.
-Results are mixed. No gold is found, but a land of plenty is. New Spain isn't found, but evidence of knowledge of the Spanish having been in the area to the south looking at trades goods of coastal tribes and recognition of a Cross shape when drawn in the ground.
-Expedition returns. Disappointment at lack of gold. Whoever financed all this realizes they are in too deep. They have to find profit somehow. One of the dead animal skins brought back by the sailors is noted to be very water resistant and possibly fashionable. Knowledge of the Americas spreads further in Japan with rumors good and bad spreading.
-European merchants are once more questioned about the Americas. The Dutch are pleased at worrisome reactions from their Spanish opposites. Word is returned to the nearest Dutch East Indies Company headquarters.
Last edited:
The question KoM isn't whether or not you can sail from Japan or China to the Americas, the question is that there is no reason for them to do it, quite a lot of reasons it would be ridiculous, and no sign of any concern on the part of, as Flubber put it, the Usual Suspects to acknowledge the difference between Europe's situation (where "sailing West in search of better routes to Asia" makes a lot of sense) and China's or Japan's or Korea's (where sailing East into the unknown makes no such sense).
People who would want to pull it off are missing.
Drake doing it does not make it common knowledge in Japan.
More untenable than a voyage into the bloody unknown where there's no reason to think that there will be something worth the expense on the other side except rumors and hearsay?
God's stinkin' gym socks man, who in their right mind is going to launch an expensive expedition on that?
So much for "East Asian discovery of the New World", but okay, fine. And the areas where gold and wealth are found are already under Spain's control, and the idea that because "there's gold here, therefore there's gold elsewhere" is wishful thinking.
Not utterly impossible, but not really desirable, either.
Backers are disappointed by lack of gold, disappointed by lack of any other results, and wonder why they should fund another expedition.
And this is ignoring the issues with just following the current - nevermind any dangers of running out of food or water because this is Civilization where you just need "shields".
Including its failure to find anything that justifies the costs!
Given the Japanese social stigma about working with animal skins, this underlined part . . . is rather remarkable.
I'll profess a degree of ignorance off the bat.
There. My disclaimer.
It seems the majority of the arguments against revolve around the "why" the Chinese (or anyone else in East Asia) would want to head east. So, instead of trying to pound the square peg of Asian reasoning into the round hole of travel east, what about the POD being in the Americas?
Say something analogous to the Inca's kicks off 1,000 years earlier. From there, you get a more strongly developed mining industry (or at least, a much accelerated OTL schedule). Not necessary, but if we could combine this with the Poly's/Mapuche somehow getting into contact, we could see Incan silver scattered across the South Pacific.
Not vast quantities, but enough to pique interest. Casual exploration of Indonesia and the westernmost Poly islands doesn't turn up any sources, but it does give rumors of something farther to the east where it is abundantly available: a South Pacific El'Dorado.
Might there be enough interest generated that way?
There. My disclaimer.
It seems the majority of the arguments against revolve around the "why" the Chinese (or anyone else in East Asia) would want to head east. So, instead of trying to pound the square peg of Asian reasoning into the round hole of travel east, what about the POD being in the Americas?
Say something analogous to the Inca's kicks off 1,000 years earlier. From there, you get a more strongly developed mining industry (or at least, a much accelerated OTL schedule). Not necessary, but if we could combine this with the Poly's/Mapuche somehow getting into contact, we could see Incan silver scattered across the South Pacific.
Not vast quantities, but enough to pique interest. Casual exploration of Indonesia and the westernmost Poly islands doesn't turn up any sources, but it does give rumors of something farther to the east where it is abundantly available: a South Pacific El'Dorado.
Might there be enough interest generated that way?
Faeelin
Banned
While I mostly agree with you, coastal China did suffer from timber shortages by the 18th century, and furs were in big demand in Qing China.