Hello, I am doing a University term paper on which, if any, pre-modern civilisations could have exploited steam power, and what would have been the result? Thanks for all replies in advance.
What I've come up with so far:
Admiral Zheng He (Jung Huh) has steam power in his arsenal. Instead of isolation and the world's greatest navy capitulating on itself, He travels Europe and meets Vasco da Gama. Gama is terrified of the massive Chinese vessels and no great European exploration age occurs. Instead, China dominates all the seas.
China discovers the New World. Using steam power they colonise it rapidly, killing off the Indians far quicker than Christopher Columbus did. China becomes a global empire until its inevitable decline when the rest of Europe and the world catches up. China becomes too big to defend and falls into decline, after becoming extremely wealthy.
What do you all think? I'm sure steam power can be applied to railways too, so China conquers all of Asia too using effective use of rail as transportation and has pretty much a global Empire bar Europe and the West.