Is a Chinese colony in the New World ever probable?

amphibulous

Banned
Hey, can you stop being sarcastic ?

Yes, but that doesn't mean that I will. Especially towards someone playing the "If you don't agree with me then you are racist!" card. Which is what you did with the eurocentric thang.

Since when this forum become a place to bash other people who have different ideas !???

What do you think you were doing calling whoever it was Eurocentric? Aren't you being a tad hypocritical?

It is fine to disagree with other people's ideas. Whining when people disagree with yours is just weak sauce. And attacking other people by suggesting that they disagree with you because they are racist is completely unacceptable.
 
Because you don't understand why Europe began exploring, that's why not. Europe began exploring to find new routes to old places. It was after those efforts produced the jackpot called the Americas, that exploring for explorings sake became viable.



Chinese society was and is just as inventive and adventurous as any other human society.



Those Chinese who were down on their luck, had no other choice, and had nothing to lose went to the places such Chinese had gone for centuries: the colonies of overseas Chinese scattered across the Indian Ocean, the Indies, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and Taiwan.



Pirates go where prey is. There is nothing to loot in the Aleutians.



Not Euro-centric, rather simply aware of the reasons why things happened the way they did.



Because China wasn't facing the same problems Europe was and didn't have the same options available to it.

OK. You do have your points but I suggest you to read the link that I have provided in my previous link.

You also replied politely and I thank you for that.

But that does not make me agree with your view.

Before anyone dismiss the above link as Chinese fantasy/myth or whatever - it was written by a European.

OK, that's all I have to say.
 

amphibulous

Banned
Because you don't understand why Europe began exploring, that's why not.

Let me suggest that we have a Chinese poster who is entirely ignorant of small things like the history of Spain and Portugal, the history of Western trade and exploration before the discovery of the Americas, and how America was actually discovered and colonized. You know - everything.
 

Flubber

Banned
I found this very article interesting.

Make sure you read this : www.sacred-texts.com/earth/pi/index.htm

It was written by a European not a Chinese.


Henriette Mertz? Oh please...

I first read her during the "Ancient Astronauts" craze of the Seventies. She ranks right up there with Donnelly, Fort, van Daniken, and more recently Menzies for accuracy and believability.

How about reading Sacred Text's own description of Mertz' work?

The strongest part of the book is her attempt to explain the available Chinese historical descriptions, even the most fanciful parts, in terms of specific locations, animals, and cultures, for the most part plausibly. On the downside, she misidentifies parts of the Hindu sacred texts as Buddhist, and indulges in the amateur etymology game, with predictable results.

Sacred Texts has been among my bookmarks for years. It's a great resource for mysticism, spirituality, and all the other mumbo-jumbo humanity has saddled itself with, but it's not a good resource for history.

If you're going to depend on Mertz for an explanation of China's many Fusang legends, you might as well quote Donnelly about Atlantis.
 

amphibulous

Banned
OK. You do have your points but I suggest you to read the link that I have provided in my previous link.

Because any "discovery" about lost secret history made by an unqualified amateur has to be true, at least if it flatters the poster's ethnic group!

Before anyone dismiss the above link as Chinese fantasy/myth or whatever - it was written by a European.

You can find some idiot "European" who spouts any stupid idea you like - there are rather a lot of us you know! As our sages say, "One European does not make an idea you should swallow."
 

amphibulous

Banned
If you're going to depend on Mertz for an explanation of China's many Fusang legends, you might as well quote Donnelly about Atlantis.

..From whom the Chinese stole the idea of the wok!

Really, China has contributed quite enough to the world without silliness about finding America. Without the base of knowledge created by Chinese engineers and transmitted to the West, the Industrial Revolution would probably have been impossible.
 
Henriette Mertz? Oh please...

I first read her during the "Ancient Astronauts" craze of the Seventies. She ranks right up there with Donnelly, Fort, van Daniken, and more recently Menzies for accuracy and believability.

How about reading Sacred Text's own description of Mertz' work?



Sacred Texts has been among my bookmarks for years. It's a great resource for mysticism, spirituality, and all the other mumbo-jumbo humanity has saddled itself with, but it's not a good resource for history.

If you're going to depend on Mertz for an explanation of China's many Fusang legends, you might as well quote Donnelly about Atlantis.

OK, fair enough. You might not agree with me but at least you do not reject the possibility of Chinese going to the Americas (or other places) and also provide some other possibilities.
 

Flubber

Banned
... you do not reject the possibility of Chinese going to the Americas (or other places) and also provide some other possibilities.


Not only do I not reject the possibility of the Chinese going to the Americas, I happen to believe that Chinese travelers did visit the Americas in much the same way Ibn Battuta traveled across most of the known world. Some survived, like Battuta, others stayed for various reasons where they traveled to, and still others died for various reasons during their journey.

Those travelers who did come back brought back tales of their journeys which over time became the legends we now know. What those travelers didn't bring back, however, was anything that made any number of other people want to retrace their journeys.
 

amphibulous

Banned
OK, fair enough. You might not agree with me but at least you do not reject the possibility of Chinese going to the Americas (or other places) and also provide some other possibilities.

Nor do I reject this possibility. If you actually knew relevant real history instead of reading fantasy written by a crank you'd know that shipwrecked Spaniards (or maybe Portugese) bought a Chinese vessel and sailed it from China to the New World with no problems. Of course, they did know where they were going and had a reason to go there...

(See the volume of Needham on Chinese nautical technology.)
 
A "volta do mar" route will result in Chinese shipping off California. The Manila Galleons routinely made landfall as far north as Cape Mendocino.

So where about are you suggesting settlement?

As for Chinese profit it also depends on what kind of industries boom after settlement. Manila to the Spanish was not only where they sold their silver and bought Chinese goods but Parain was host to thousands of Chinese of different trades that the Europeans colonists went to for goods and such because they were so much better and cheaply made (as one Spanish Bishop admitted if the Idol Worshipping Chinese).

Settlements in California and mostly elsewhere in the New World started as branching off points to discover more gold and more often then not the colonists discovered other resources and made a much more profitable use of them such as Jamestown and Tobbacco.

Therefore settlements made in this area would be settled in mind of not just supplying the ships (indeed the industries to supply ships which would flourish would be agriculture and lumber and ship repair work which could branch off to the settlers growing cash crops to the sailors and making clothes or rope or sails etc etc) but prospecting for gold and other natural goods that could be made into manufactured products and there would be a need to attract labor and skills to create the capital from such enterprises.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
China can do it technologically. But that doesn't make the several idiotic and fantastical scenarios proposed possible. It is not "eurocentric" to say that the Chinese will act rationally!

As for the pirates hearing rumours thing - is these rumours spread by the Airship Monks or the sea cucumbers???
For crissake, you just came back from a kick for being a total jerk and you are posting this sort of crap?

You are way too knowledgeable and capable to make these sorts of LCD posts. You have demonstrated that you are able to make good, civil points without being a pain in the neck.

You SO need to stop this.

Now.
 
When the Chinese meets the native Americans, it will be very interesting to see what will happens with the indigenous religions.

I can see that some of the gods (especially the major ones) will be adopted.

The Chinese "folk religion" is a mix between Daoism, Buddhism and local Chinese religions.
 

Flubber

Banned
So where about are you suggesting settlement?


That's a tough question because, if the Chinese begin sailing to North America in the manner I'm suggesting, their first settlement is going to have more akin with Spanish Guam than Spanish Manila.

Somewhat like how the Europeans rounded Africa or crossed the Atlantic/Pacific in order to bypass the Middle East and "plug into" known trade routes at different points, the Chinese in my suggestion are going to be bypassing Manila and crossing the Pacific in order to plug into a known trade route at Acapulco.

When using the North Pacific gyre, the Spanish used Guam as a last refitting point before crossing the Pacific. Spain even settled Guam for that purpose alone. Spain also began scouting along the Baja and Alta Californian coasts for another refit point after the Manila Galleon route was established. China is going to want/need a refit point in North America for the same reasons.

A Chinese "Manila" galleon will leave Asia, cross the Pacific, refit at China's continental "Guam", sail south to trade at Acapulco, and then cross the Pacific again for home.

Because this refit point can be anywhere along the Californian coast, I'm tempted to place it in San Francisco Bay where the Chinese would be close to both the gold fields and the Central Valley. That's too far north, however. It also unnecessarily lengthens the journey exposing shipping to foul weather off the coast. For their refit point, the Spanish looked at locations in Baja for those very reasons.

San Diego would be my suggestion. You've got a protected anchorage thanks to Coronado Island, there's water available, and it's far enough away from the centers of Spanish activity in North America during the period. Of course a Chinese refit settlement in San Diego is going to need naval stores in the form of lumber, masts, and spars. Those materials are available further north up the coast and that will eventually bring the Chinese to the Bay.

As for Chinese profit it also depends on what kind of industries boom after settlement.

Agreed. The settlement will begin as a refit point and then grow into much more.

Settlements in California and mostly elsewhere in the New World started as branching off points to discover more gold and more often then not the colonists discovered other resources and made a much more profitable use of them such as Jamestown and Tobbacco.

Again, agreed. It's a matter of getting them ashore in the first place so they can look around.

Therefore settlements made in this area would be settled in mind of not just supplying the ships...

They'll begin that way because nothing is yet known of the other resources which may be available. They'll grow beyond that role quickly however. While China's ATL North American refit point would be initially settled to fill the same OTL role Guam filled for Spain, China's settlement will quickly become something more than that because there are innumerable more opportunities in North America than on Guam.

Of course, the biggest flaw in my gibberish is why the Chinese would want to bypass Manila in the first place. Some other European power takes Luzon but, while this new power wants to trade, it doesn't have access to Potosi's silver like Spain? Or Luzon revolts against Spain making trade there too unsettled for China? Who knows what the details should be? All I do know is that China will have to covet New World silver enough to want trade with Spain to continue despite Manila being out of the loop.
 

katchen

Banned
From a Chinese perspective, the big problem with the Northern Greaat Circle route is Japan--which is not always hospitable to foreign vessels attempting to sail onward. Beyond that, while the Itelman of Kamchatka are reasonably friendly, the Koryak and Chukchi further up the coast are hostile to strangers and by some accounts even cannibalistic.
However, if a Chinese trader were to be blown off course to theAleutians, the trader would discover, as the Russians did, that the Aleuts are reasonably friendly and have sealskins to trade for things like metal knives and fishhooks. And even more precious sea otter pelts. That was what attracted the Russian's interest to the Aleutians and that would definitely attract Chinese private interest. And the trading would likely go on from there, on both sides of the Alaska Peninsula, up the Bering Sea until the traders found Innuit who had walrus and narwahl tusks--and tusks from frozen mammoth. And rarities like Polar Bear gall bladders and paws. But it would be the sealskins that would be the bread and butter.
To the South, more sea otter and beaver pelts--and deer and elk antlers--still valuable in Chinese medicine and hard to get in China or Southeast Asia. Possibly morel mushrooms if traders stayed long enough to notice them. And then working their way down the Pacific Coast to the Inside Passage and thence to Puget Sound, which is where Chinese might actually build a trading entrepot. The Fraser Valley is well protected from Pacific storms and has a long enough growing season now to grow rice--I suspect that rice could even be grown there in the 1600s despite the Little Ice Age. And there are gold and silver deposits well within 100 miles of the east end of the Fraser Valey, gold around Kamloops and silver at the Hudra deposit, 25 miles east of Hope BC OTTL.
And there ae other gold deposits in places like the Yakima Valley and around Kittias in what is OTTL the Washington Cascades. Then once one gets to Humboldt Bay, a great number of gold mines according to King of Malta's map. And sea otter along the coast and more beaver in inland rivers. Then California and finally the San Francisco Bay. Then Mexico (Manzanillo or Puerto Vallarta before Acapulco. And the gold --and the silver -- from Taxco and Zacatecas, some of which could be smuggled to the coast around Mazatlan, avoiding Spanish governmental controls. Then back across the Pacific, perhaps discovering Hawaii--and it's sandalwood--along the way.
All it would take for this to happen would be a Chinese ship blown off course to the Aleutians by accident, probably from trading at Tsugaru or Sendai in Northern Japan. Sendai, in particular was not xenophobic. (The daimyo, Date Matsunuga, became a Christian OTTL).
The best reason for a Northern Great Circle Route (at least for Europeans) would be the need for fresh fruits and vegetables along the way to avoid scurvy. I would imagine though, that Chinese are far more astute than Europeans about things like viamin C deficiency and how to preserve citrus fruit so as to avoid that. In that case, a more southerly Great Circle Route would certainly be feasible.
 
What about Kublai Khan, after the two failed attempts against Japan, sending a 3rd expedition to discover what lays beyond that annoying Japan?
He was the great-son of Genghis Khan and not yet 'sedated / settled'. As the Chinese sailors progress along the stepping stones of the Northern Great Circle route they are more and more likely to hear about a great land in the East. Shared shamanism between the Mongols embarked as 'marines' and the populations met along the way could perhaps ease the relationships?

But the Sino-Mongols just like the Norses lack that cultural incentive of OTL Europeans: the Sacred Duty to convert entire humankind. Now, a Nestorian Kublai Khan:confused:

 
What about Kublai Khan, after the two failed attempts against Japan, sending a 3rd expedition to discover what lays beyond that annoying Japan?
He was the great-son of Genghis Khan and not yet 'sedated / settled'. As the Chinese sailors progress along the stepping stones of the Northern Great Circle route they are more and more likely to hear about a great land in the East. Shared shamanism between the Mongols embarked as 'marines' and the populations met along the way could perhaps ease the relationships?

But the Sino-Mongols just like the Norses lack that cultural incentive of OTL Europeans: the Sacred Duty to convert entire humankind. Now, a Nestorian Kublai Khan:confused:


Yeah, I think having the Mongols gain peripheral parts of Japan like Sakhalin, Kyushu and Hokkaido temporarily could make Japanese more paranoid about its neighbors and decide to focus on expanding to Hokkaido and Sakhalin causing them to accidentally discovering the Americas the gold will take sometime to be discovered and when the Gold is discovered it will make the Japanese rich and the Chinese try to follow the Japanese when they know about where the Gold came from.
 
What about Kublai Khan, after the two failed attempts against Japan, sending a 3rd expedition to discover what lays beyond that annoying Japan?
He was the great-son of Genghis Khan and not yet 'sedated / settled'. As the Chinese sailors progress along the stepping stones of the Northern Great Circle route they are more and more likely to hear about a great land in the East. Shared shamanism between the Mongols embarked as 'marines' and the populations met along the way could perhaps ease the relationships?

But the Sino-Mongols just like the Norses lack that cultural incentive of OTL Europeans: the Sacred Duty to convert entire humankind. Now, a Nestorian Kublai Khan:confused:
I should remind you that the Mongols reached Sakhalin Island, which is even closer to the Western Hemisphere, and they didn't bother exploring the area beyond. And this was before the failed Japanese expeditions too.
 
Flubber said:
Of course, the biggest flaw in my gibberish is why the Chinese would want to bypass Manila in the first place. Some other European power takes Luzon but, while this new power wants to trade, it doesn't have access to Potosi's silver like Spain? Or Luzon revolts against Spain making trade there too unsettled for China? Who knows what the details should be? All I do know is that China will have to covet New World silver enough to want trade with Spain to continue despite Manila being out of the loop.

Given the feverant way they traded with Spain in OTL it seems likely that they will still have a interest given their interest is rooted in domestic currency issues after the failure of Printed Money and Depletion of domestic Silver and Copper supplies.

I do believe that completely preventing the start of Chinese-Spanish trade by means of Spain never getting a toehold in the region would not be preferred POD as it was the Philippines expedition that allowed the Spanish to know of China's interest in Silver.

Therefore Manila and the Spice Islands would have to become unavailable to Spain after settlement. Completely with little chance of allowin Spanish ships to return to there as a base of operations. Japan is a possible solution if paranoia concerning the Catholics continues. Likewise a native revolt is possible as well. The Dutch seizing the Philippines would be opportune for this period. Perhaps Portugal manages to take Spanish posessions following the Portugal Restoration War. Or as I have suggested elsewhere a Japanese-Dutch initiative to expel the Spanish. Or a combination of a Dutch-Japanese invasion which leads to the destruction of Manila/weakling of European power that leads to a native state capable of fending off the Spanish. Also, probably throw in a worse outbreak of malaria here and there.

Also, the settlement of San Diego or Monterrey in 1606 by Sebastian
Would help.

Though, would Guam run risk of becoming the next Manila/Meeting place if left in Spanish posession. Perhaps Chinese, public and/or private, are a tad more earnest in finding the source of Spanish gold or at least keep an eye on things, which leads to one of the interests in establishing way stations.

Or the Spanish Viceroy/Governor wants more people to tax in California.
 
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I'm toying around with a timeline where the POD is the Yongle emperor choosing his second son as his successor, rather than his first, making Ming China a little more exploration-focused, at least for one more emperor's reign. I want to have a ship land in the Americas, and I know plenty of alt histories have done this (usually with Zheng He, obviously), but I'm trying to work out the specifics and am just unsure of how probable it would really be.

If a ship did reach somewhere, what could motivate them to establish a colony? And what could make the colony last, especially since the Ming is already on pretty thin ground, financially. Where would they have to land on the Pacific coast to find gold, or some other valuable-enough resource to maintain contact to the point of a permanent colony being established?

The butterflies after this would be, of course, extreme - a new source of gold or silver would mean Spain and Japan don't have the stranglehold they did in OTL, possibly leading to a stronger and longer-lasting Ming. And old world diseases would have a 60-some year head-start in the West of the continent. And a bunch of other things my brain isn't even reaching at the moment.

But all of that is dependent on the feasibility of the colony in the first place. It's been done, but does it ever make sense?

I wonder if POD's that brought Northern Australia and New Zealand into East Asian trade networks would make a difference? Then you'd have more chances of contacts with Polynesia, maybe expeditions sent out that way, and so on.
 
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