Chinese Exploration of North America

@Intransigent Southerner, you're onto something. There's no way anybody at the time would be able to build any defenses against such an enormous event. Looking at the course of the yellow river it seems to be an event that would affect the north of China much worse than it would affect the south. It would certainly cripple the Jin, making them exceptionally vulnerable to Song invasion. Might Song suffer much less, being further south? Might be able to work this into my timeline, Song victory over Jin primarily due to luck (the people of Southern China will probably view this as an "act of heaven" much to the anger of the Northern Chinese). It won't save Song though, they'll collapse soon after and be replaced by another dynasty.

Do you see Song collapsing roughly towards the end of 14th Century or perhaps more towards the beginning? Would it be more plausible that Song collapses first, Jin is unable to conquer the fragments and then the flood results in the collapse of the Jin Dynasty?

Good point about horses. Prior to its collapse might Song be able to buy horses from other places like the Middle East or hire people to train their troops in cavalry combat? Could this help even the odds against Jin by any significant amount?

@Faeelin, I see your point. Quite a few explorations were made by China. By land they got as far as Roman Syria. Chinese junks were described in the 11th century by a Moroccan geographer Al-Idrisi. Looks like it could be possible for at least some Chinese to make the trip. Thanks for the input.
 
The thought occurs as to why would one want to go all the way to America when all of Siberia and the modern Russian Far East is already to hand?
 
@yulzari In my timeline they certainly did. Exploration to Siberia occurred with trade for furs and later mining leading to the establishment of kingdoms by the various native Siberian peoples. The exploration of America occurred as a side consequence of another exercise. Song felt that its place in the world was diminishing with the rise of Jin and other empires around them. They attempted to prove themselves by circumnavigating the world. This led to the discovery and charting of America as exploration fleets charted out a safe route for the official circumnavigation attempt. Trade opened up once they found the civilizations of Central America and their gold.

How long it would take for 1200's era Song China to map out the route and make the official attempt? Assume Song is preparing the route at both ends (exploring east and west simultaneously halves the time to map out the circumnavigation route) and that as the fleets proceed with their mapping the folks back home were working specifically on better blue water ship tech to further speed up the circumnavigation attempt. Would about 40 years be about right? About how many years into the project would they be likely to bump into South America?

Roughly how long would it take for a warring states period to end in China if everyone had the tech of Europe in the mid 1600's? How about with European tech from the late 1800's? My current draft has a 40 year conflict for the 1600's tech dynasty change and a 20 year conflict for the late 1800's tech dynasty change. How long would each time period's China take to recover from such a warring states period? I've also got a dynasty that collapses as a result of industrialization and then global trade grinding to a halt over the course of a century. How long might it take for that to bring down a dynasty? About 120 years?

In by current draft I've got Song collapsing in the 1370's due to internal strife. After the flood of 1351 devastates Northern China an uprising weakens Jin and it is finished off by Song. Even though the Jin are gone the Han Chinese in North China cause trouble and fight against the Song, greatly accelerating their demise. They do not want the Jurchens to come back but simply do not want to be part of the Song Empire. The resistance groups eventually group into larger entities in order to more effectively resist Song rule so that when Song does collapse about 20 years later the Northern Chinese have a head start. At the time of the Song collapse there is already a large resistance group called the Chau in control of a large area around Beijing who have inherited the Jin's strong cavalry force and tactics. They proceed to reunify China. The new government is deeply humiliated that foreign invasions had conquered the north of the country for so long and in order to find its place in the world begins a more outward focused policy. Does that sound about right?

If this timeline already had a global trade network in the 1300's could we see the world's nations being crippled in the 1500's when a group of new powers begins disrupting these trade routes? The powers would mostly start by demanding those using the routes pay them, destroying those who attempt to defend the routes and setting up bases on the territory of some of the weaker nations. I was going to have the world become so reliant on the trade routes that it struggled to function without them. In a way the world's strength was turned against it and this set the stage for that timeline's World War. Could we see the previously mentioned Chau dynasty crippled by this event, causing another dynasty change?
 
........ Since the whole world hasn't been explored yet the scientific community would point out there could be a "Wall Continent" that makes it impossible to circumnavigate the world. China would look pretty stupid if they sent out a fleet with great fanfare only to run into a dead end, thus the smaller fleets would be sent out to make sure it could be done before making any big announcements.

This might seem to be a possibility when they run into the Americas. They would split their fleet into two, one to go north and one to the south to find a way around the Americas. The northern fleet could arrive at the North West passage during northern winter and run into a frozen impassable area, something that would seem ominous for their mission. They would wait until northern summer to see if the path becomes passable. The southern fleet could round South America and complete their voyage.
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I doubt it..

Tierra del Fuego is nasty sailing even by modern standards
After losing a few ships to ice (Bering Sea or Antarctic Ocean) it would merely confirm to doubters that a "Wall Continent" exists.
Smug, Chinese "flat earth societies" would use the evidence to confirm that the world is flat and ringed by ice.

As for crossing the Isthmus of Panama?
Only a handful of grouchy Aztecs or Olmecsor Mayans would discourage Chinese explorers. Why anyone would want to cross the diseased Darian Gap would remain a mystery to the Chinese.
 
@riggerrob, good point. Going around the tip of South America would be a rough journey. If we have the Song dynasty sending fleets east and west simultaneously (halving the theoretical time needed to map out a route) we could have both fleets making contact with different coasts of the civilizations of Central America. The eastern fleet could reach the Central America first, then later the western fleet would reach the other coast of those same civilizations. Those civilizations might inform the western fleet that they had made contact with the eastern fleet. This would disprove the flat earth societies. Once contact is made with the Central American civilizations we could go with what Thesaurus Rex suggested and have that result in a trade network being established to the area.

As for the issue of the "Wall Continent". It would definitely gain traction after the Chinese start losing ships. I can imagine seeing seemingly impassably violent ocean or ice would cause a different response than just seeing a continuous mass of land blocking your way. I can see the Chinese fleet waiting to see if the ice melts (trading with the locals in the meantime) then attempting the North West Passage and getting ships destroyed in the process. Other ships could try the Tierra del Fuego and be driven back. How long into the exploration stage would it be until the Chinese reached this point?

At this point the Chinese would be faced with a theoretically passable route (you can see water going off into the distance when going around South America) which was practically impassable with the available technology and sailing techniques. Perhaps this may spur the Chinese over time to develop better blue water tech and sailing techniques? Maybe word got out about their circumnavigation plan and its subsequent failure. The Chinese have a pretty high opinion of themselves and would find the laughter of surrounding nations rather humiliating. Wanting to prove themselves they start investing in developing better tech and sailing techniques. Eventually much later a Chinese adventurer completes the mission at great danger to himself and after losing a few ships. At what point may that become possible?

Once the Central American Civilizations establish contact with China they could obtain sluice, canal and flash lock tech from Song China. Constructing something on the scale of the Panama Canal may be beyond the ability of Central America's people to build in the 1200's. In the future they may eventually complete such a project. How long until the before mentioned tech passes into Central America and when is the earliest that something like the Panama Canal could be built? Would the civilizations of Central America want to build such a thing?

@EmperorOfTheNorthSea, do you mean the fragmented nations of China completing against each other and expanding in a similar fashion to Europe? That's an interesting idea.
 
Honestly the Chinese would probably prefer circumnavigating the Earth the other way around and go past the Cape of Good Hope. Depends on the technological level of the ships but Zheng Hue era Junks could make the trip from western Africa to Brazil.
 
Good to know. So how long does this enterprise take? I figure about 30 years to eventually figure out if they can or cannot complete the trip.

Having the Mohists survive sounds like an interesting idea. Perhaps having the horizontal alliance form and having neither side be able to overcome the other might work. It could set up a stable equilibrium between the warring states.

On another note there something I've been wanting to ask:

Could we see Song undergoing an industrial revolution? They were quite close when the Mongols destroyed them and were set back by Jin conquering Northern China where most of the coal was. In this timeline Jin collapses some time in the 1350's and Song reunifies China, gaining control over the coal supply. In OTL the wealth from colonization helped trigger the industrial revolution, ATL the global trade network provides this wealth. It allows China to offload products onto an external market, with the gold from the Central and South America acting as an incentive to sell products externally.

No matter what Confucianism says about merchants I imagine popular attitudes would start to change when the general population sees merchants start returning from Central America with ship fulls of gold.

How long might Song have to be exposed to the northern Coal supplies to trigger an industrial revolution? Currently I have them take about 30 years post reunification to start the revolution. Might Song import coal to use in this timeline prior to reunification or would they just switch to lumber for heating?

Got an idea for an alternate approach. Song doesn't have significant coal reserves but it does have oil in its territory. It's got the Sichuan Basin, Jianghan Basin and some oil west of Shanghai in addition to other smaller fields. How plausible would it be that oil gets used for the industrial revolution instead of coal? Did the Song Dynasty know about where a significant amount of oil was and have the capacity to extract it? Would this make an effective machine?
 
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So we've got China trading with the nations of Central America. Nobody at this point in the timeline is interested in conquest or colonization. Nobody has the ability to construct the Panama Canal yet. Would we see people setting up trading posts and developing the cultures on the isthmus of Panama? Would it be more likely that they'd remain ignored as trade ships travel between the richer nations?

If this is occurring sometime in the 1300's is there anyone worth travelling so far to trade with? The Mayan Civilization would be there. The Aztec and Inca Empire don't exist yet. There's the precursor civilizations to both in existence. Tenochtitlan has been founded. Is there anybody else worth trading with and would that be enough?

I'm asking this because it related to the timeline's World War. If nobody takes interest in these cultures we'd probably see them fall to European colonization later on. If this area gets developed and acquires gunpowder then they might become too much trouble to conquer and could get missed by European colonization. As soon as the Caribbean starts to come under attack they might fall under the protection of the local powers. The Panama Canal is going to get built eventually and who controls this region is going to affect which side of the World War controls the canal.
 
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The Chinese Industrial Revolution idea is pretty intriguing. Oil, though, is really hard to extract. I'm really can'tsee anyone mass-extracting oil even in the best non-ASB conditions until 1750 at most. If this timeline has a more inventive, energetic China, I can definitely see a coal-based industrialization occurring in the 1500s. This is based on how long it took the UK to do the same after becoming a word trading power. I find 30 years implausible.

What's Japan's role in this? Are they doing anything? Korea?
 
@Admiral A. Kolchak , thanks for the feedback :)

Mass extracting oil can be a challenging task. In China's case there seemed to be the techniques to extract oil from up to 800 feet underground and a coordinated effort to retrieve this oil since the the first century B.C. It was used for many applications including weaponry, medicine, lubricants, ink and for lighting. In 1090 a scientist called Shen Kua wrote an essay about it called "Dream Pool Essays". In it he predicted that oil would become a major source of energy. So we have extraction of oil, the idea already introduced that it could be a good energy source and knowledge of where exactly the oil is located. The exact quantity extracted seems to be unknown. Perhaps even if there wasn't enough to fuel an industrial revolution having those conditions already there might be able to shave quite a significant amount of time off until oil is used industrially? The industrial revolution led to a scientific revolution. If the industrial revolution happens early, so does the scientific revolution which might really help out on the oil extraction front. Might that bring down the estimate further?

If Jin sticks around over the centuries and the Song Dynasty is replaced by another dynasty (it was beginning to show the signs of decline before the Mongols destroyed it OTL) would it be plausible for China to undergo a coal fueled industrial revolution? Most of the coal would still be in the north with the Jurchens but there was still quite large reserves of coal in Southern China. Reportedly enough for steel production on a level that won't be seen for several centuries. Might that still be enough to get a revolution off the ground?

How long do you think it would be for Song to collapse without the Mongols and how do you think it would happen? I'm guessing that it would probably be sometime in the 1300's. There were reports of people from the merchant class bribing and corrupting officials. Morale among the people was low. We've got reports of people not resisting the Jurchens when they invaded and then fiercely resisting the Song when they returned to some areas. Since the Song have so many restrictions on the military I'd say the revolution would come not from the military but from the officials. A gang of officials might stage a coup against the emperor after having lost confidence in him. These would have the backing of some of the merchant class who could help this gang gain power by bribing the appropriate people. When the new emperor declares the start of another dynasty the military would be in a poor state to oppose him. The Song tended to shuffle commanders around and put restrictions on most of their competent commanders. Military pay was extremely low. On top of this the new emperor might appeal to their low morale and promise that he will improve the standing of the military and treat the people better. We could get a change of dynasty with minimal damage to the infrastructure. Perhaps a transition in under a decade if enough of the military are too demoralized to fight, the people are disillusioned enough and enough important officials recognize the new dynasty.

The 1500's sounds pretty good. If China discovers the Americas and begins trading potatoes to the nations of the world this would boost the world's population significantly. China OTL has been slow to introduce potatoes as a large part of its diet so we could see the world's population grow relative to China's, increasing demand. We've also got China discovering the Americas (that's easily much more than 100 million people) and trading for the gold there. If we boost demand like this could we get industrialization even further, down to the 1410's?

I see Japan and Korea being fueled by this revolution. Coal or Oil, China will eventually have to import whatever energy source they are using to continue developing. They'd import from countries including Korea and Japan. The technology from China would probably leak out into the surrounding nations, with most of the world industrialized within 150 years. China tried to stop the rise of any empires who could destabilize Asia, resulting in Japan never expanding beyond their borders. Korea industrializes early and becomes a powerhouse to rival the most powerful European nations before they begin colonization.

@Admiral A. Kolchak perhaps 30 years to too little for the global exploration mission. How long do you think it would take?
 
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Given what you've said, it actually seemed to me very likley that the Song would undergo an oil-fueled Industrialization, probably quite soon, in the early 1400s. The reason why I'm not setting the date back further is the fact that China in the 1200s is not the UK in the 1700s. The social structures are very different. In Britain, the enourmously booming population, very powerful middle-class, and resulting high demand for mass-produced textiles and similar products led to the Industrial Revolution. In OTL Song China however, the upper-class is utterly dominant, and peasantry is firmly entrenched. That's why countries like Austria didn't industrialize until forced to, they had this sort of political situation. Your China is creating an expanding world trading empire. Although its ability to access oil will speed up the trasition to an environment favourable to Industrialization, it will also be slowed down by the sheer size of China, and the fact that OTL China is really upper-class dominated.

If the Song are trading with Europe at this point, which is more geared towards industrialization to start than China was, than I can see the major trading powers of Europe industrialized in less than a century. Japan and Korea will undoubtedly pick up very soon and start trying to copy China, although as you said it won't be happy about this. Probably Oman will also be industrial fairly quickly, but the rest of the world at this point simply does not have the conditions for this to happen rapidly. It took over 150 years for the entire world to entire some level of industrialization, so most likely a similar amount of time here.

History will also have the appropriate speed-up it got in the modern world. I think this speed was attributable to industrialization and the emergence of Great Powers, which will happen in the 1400s-1500s in this TM. The Jin might be fully extinguished as China begins to industrialize, with Korea probably gaining a lot of land. After this, China might collpase into regional states fairly quickly, paving the way for two seperate centres of power in the world, each with multiple colonial powers.
 
@Admiral A. Kolchak , thanks for the reply. Would 70 years sound more plausible for the time between the Chinese sending out the exploration voyages to the discovery of Central America?

China wouldn't be interested in colonizing the Americas but they would be interested in the resources there, especially the oil post industrial revolution. Would it be likely to see whatever dynasty is in charge providing assistance to develop and boost the population in the Americas? A bigger population would be able to extract these valuable resources at a greater rate and encouraging industrialization of the nations there would boost this even further. Perhaps the dynasty would recognize that a bigger population would buy more from China, increasing its wealth. A more developed and more populated Americas could also better secure its waters against pirates which would secure the flow of resources between the Americas and the rest of the world.

I imagine if the Central America and the Caribbean develop a sugar trade with the rest of the world they would become a significant part of the global trade. This could make them a valuable area for the major trading powers. If anything happened to the nations in Central America and the Caribbean (such as the outbreak of disease that hit them OTL) could we see the major world powers devoting resources to boost the population back up and secure the region? Post population collapse, with access to potatoes, infrastructure and the farms that they had previously would the population doubling every 50 years be plausible?

If the Song dynasty collapses into several warring states would this push back industrialization, not affect it or actually push it forwards? I've heard that having several competing nations rather than one dominant nation in a region may speed up development. How much damage would such a revolt inflict on China? On one hand there was pretty low morale for soldiers during the Song Dynasty so instead of fighting any large rebel factions soldiers may simply defect to them. On the other hand soldiers had a pretty low ability to coordinate (generals and officers and constantly shuffled around) and a revolution could damage the infrastructure needed for the industrial revolution. We'd need the each faction to secure a large swath of territory and either reasonably preserve the infrastructure there or have the competition between different factions be enough to counteract the loss of infrastructure.

Admiral A. Kolchak, 1200's China was quite upper class orientated but China was in a state of change and 1-2 centuries is quite a while. During the Song Dynasty income for peasants went from near subsistence level to 5 times that with an upward trend in progress until the Mongols destroyed the Song Dynasty. Peasants at one point were starting to buy items they couldn't have afforded before. Perhaps the continued upward income trend could have created an extensive middle class given enough time? Wealth could equal increased collective power for those not in the upper classes and result in a less upper class orientated society.
 
This is sort of a random spitball, but if you want a less divergent timeline what if China colonized America after a European discovery? So the Song survive and innovate but don't necessarily discover America. However, they do make contact with the West and even get some greater trade with the Middle East going. Word filters back about a new, empty Western continent. The new Song emperor is young and seeking to "make a mark." He sends out a fleet to find it. The first fleet fails (most likely) but the second one doesn't and finds either California or somewhere in South America. Trading posts are set up. This all leads to a Chinese-Spanish conflict which I think would be pretty cool.
 
I think your reasoning is very good, and makes a lot of sense. I do not think that the Americas would industrialize much faster than Europe, considering their relatively undeveloped state. Your estimate for the time span of colonization seems reasonable. Remember that they are not trying to get there intentionally, but are really unitentionally island-hopping. Your actual TM will probabaly make it clear how the Chinese discover the new world.

I think that the Song must collpase eventually, in some way, and when it comes there will be some mechanic making rebellions easier, like the ones you described. Damage might be similar to that inflicted by the Taiping rebellion.

Balkanization can also speed up industrialization by fostering a competitive spirit between nations.

Your idea of precisley how China might develop the conditions for industrialization seem reasonable to me. As outlined in my previous post, the 1400s seem a reasonable date for Chinese industrialization; given your resopnse, I might add that the development of a mercantilist middle class could occur quite soon, although how soon is dependent on the date of the POD.
 
@cmakk1012 , sounds like an interesting scenario. Sounds like by that point the Spanish Empire would be quite large. Could give China a challenge. How do you think that world could turn out afterwards?

@Admiral A. Kolchak , if Central America can't industrialize before Europe could they become tough enough that none of the European civilizations would attempt to conquer them? Perhaps they'd go after weaker nations in North and South America instead.

Thanks for the help on the Song Industrialization. The timeline I've got so far has the Song collapsing due to a military revolt in 1350, the warring states period lasting until 1380 (with pike and shot tactics and tech) and industrialization taking place in 1410. Jin is absorbed into Song's successor dynasty in a war starting in 1450 to 1470. Jin attempted to invade the former Song during its warring states period but was pushed back. I'm hoping that it plausible that the fragments of the former Song can prevent Jin from making any gains until China is reunified. So we've covered the effects of the Song Dynasty fragments on the situation (it speeds up industrialization). Does the Jin threat have a similar effect?
 
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I think that Central America, if it is a formal dominion of China, would be safe from attack, although an adventurous conquistador might cause an international incident. It will probably be on its own when the Song collapses, and might become a significant regional power, disrupting European colonization, although they could be the subject of some unequal treaties. They might not bother with the native tribes, on the other hand this nation could also become like OTL America and try to absorb them. It would probably have a considerable native population to start with, given the difficulty of mass emigration halfway around the world.

I doubt any of the successor states would be strong enough to conquer the Jin, but on the other hand they would be unable to expand into former Song due to a technological disadvantage. On the other hand, the Jin might collpase on their own, in which case we might see a strong Korean state.
 
@Admiral A. Kolchak , how would the warring states period affect Chinese global exploration? During a civil war might they find it hard to find the will and resources to launch such far reaching fleets? Might the civil war instead spur further exploration via competition like the Wu during the Three Kingdoms? If the Chinese successor states are in a pike and shot level of tech, how long would they take to reunify? Is about 30 years appropriate?

If disease hit the Native American peoples like in OTL how long might it take for them to recover? They'd have all their old developed farmland and other infrastructure. Nobody would attack them for roughly 140 years. They would be connected to a global trade network, providing them with tech such as steel and agricultural tech. Potatoes would be freely available to them and China was beginning an industrial revolution at the time first contact is made (30 years before the major outbreak of disease began).

Might we see some of the tribes of North America attempting the growth of sugar for profit? If they are devoting much of their agricultural capacity to sugar growth then those regions around them could profit by supplying them with food and other products. OTL after disease wiped out the Native Americans they left behind large tracts of farmland which were extremely valuable to the European colonists. Perhaps in this timeline the American Indians could reclaim their own fields? Whilst further farmland and infrastructure remains to be reclaimed, how plausible would a doubling of population every 50 years be?

Like you suggested Admiral A. Kolchak, they may not industrialize before Europe but pre-contact there were many agricultural nations on North America. Even with the onset of this disease perhaps by the time the Europeans arrive in 140 years the American Indians could have guns and cannons based on those used by China? Some nations might still be defeated but perhaps it would be an occupation rather than the native peoples being wiped out? American Indians could remain a majority in occupied regions and reduce the amount of power derived from the continent via frequent revolts. Eventually the American Indians could regain self-rule and European rule over the Americas would become a short blip in the long history of the American civilizations.
 
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