Treasure ship's technology in European hands

[Condottiero]

What if some Chinese Treasure ships manage to circumnavegate Africa and arrive to Europe. The crews exhausted and sick cannot defend the ships. Some of them are captured by Spain, Portugal, France and England…

 

[Forum Lurker]

A new bout of plagues sweeps Europe. Both large trading vessels and China have historically brought diseases to which Europeans have scant immunities; this is true event today.

 

[Tyr]

What 'technology' is there to be captured?
The world isn't a strategy game. If the Europeans captured a Chinese ship this wouldn't mean they could instantly build ships just as good. At best one or two people would learn a little bit about ship design which would spread across the continent over the next century or two.

 

[zoomar]

I would also suggest that the technological differences between China and Europe were not all that great, really, and a lot of it would not be on display in a ship. Compasses and other navaigation aids, maybe, I'm not too sure what else. Europeans themselves were well on the way in the 1400's to synthesizing much better oceanic vessels out of various indigenous maritime traditions.

It certainly not like the disparity which would exist if some Aztecs came across a wrecked Chinese ship with a few healthy not contageous survivors to tell them about stuff (assuming of course they were not sacrificed to Huitzilipochtli and eaten first)

 

[fortyseven]

Chinese food is good but what about the Chinese themselves?

 

[Jason]

1421 with a twist?

Hmm, sounds a bit like a modified Gavin Menzies theory to me, though on his website there was an idea there was some 'evidence' that the Chinese visited Ireland during the 1420s (I never got to the bottom of that one, I guess it must have been a ship or ships that got a bit lost either on the way to America or on the way back when the rest of the fleet went via Greenland-if you accept his claims).

When we say Treasure ships, we do mean the nine masted monsters that could carry 2,000 tons of cargo, 500 feet long, 40 feet high rudders (eg almost as long as the Nina), etc? I seriously doubt the shipwrights of Europe would be able to even attempt to build anything on a similar scale-I think the largest European ships of that time were 150-200 feet long (please correct if I'm wrong on that last point).

My own feeling is it would have seriously have shocked whoever caught it, I wonder if anyone would have had a port or dock big enough for one? They might have had a go at trying to copy some of the ideas (maybe multiple hull compartments, etc) if they realised what they did. However the biggest effect is it might have scared the Europeans, they might not have tried to sail eastward on the evidence of such giant ships.

The more interesting 'what if' is what if Gavin Menzies is correct (basically the Chinese visit America, Australia, etc in the early 1420s) and then carry on, establishing colonies (though small and not as part of some attempt at colonialisation) and perhaps help the various native people to develop, even giving them firearms? If and when Columbus et al turn they find some lot more advanced cultures in the new world and far east and the European Conquest fails or just never gets started...

 

[Condottiero]

Wouldn't the huge ships mean the idea of building biggers ships? The europeans would also be interested about a nation capable of building such monsters. Maybe I should not have posted it as chinese technology being copied but of having the aim of finding who could have built the abandoned vessels.

It is also interesting the idea of new sicknesses arriving Europe (but wouldn't they have come by land routes with the silk and the traders?), maybe we could have a colonization of Europe (think of the "Years of rice and salt").

 

[Forum Lurker]

Plagues seldom arrived by land routes; as far as I'm aware, both smallpox and the major bubonic plagues (Justinian's and the Black Death) have all been traced to seaports. The rats help a lot.

 

[carlton_bach]

Plagues seldom arrived by land routes; as far as I'm aware, both smallpox and the major bubonic plagues (Justinian's and the Black Death) have all been traced to seaports. The rats help a lot.

Well, they both crossed most of Central Asia by land. the insistence on seaports seems to stem more from the fact that these can be readily identified, and ships can outpace the usual land-based infection pathways. There is 'the' place where the plague entered Greece, italy, france and England, but interestingly, there is no corresponding 'the' place where it entered Germany, Russia or Poland - because it came by land.

It is possible the Chinese ship carries germs that kill large numbers of Europeans, but in 1420 Europe is solidly part of the Eurasian disease community and almost anything that will kill large numbers of Europeans would also kill Chinese in equal numbers.

BTW, the story of 'influence by encounter' happrened in Danzig. A French-built, Italian-style ship entered port, but was impoundeed because the captain racked up det and couldn't pay. THe vessel, significvantly larger and taller than the hanseatic cog and with three masts, created enough of a stir that local shipwrights began copying and adapting the design. This is not the only way carvel-built craft entered northern waters, but the most famous one. A Chinese ship could create similar interest, and the shipwrights of the time were clever enough to adapt rather than copy slavishly.

 

[President Ledyard]

I wonder why those treasure ship behemoths weren't used more extensively? My guess is that they were horribly expensive to construct and inefficient at just about every possible usage.

I once (maybe it was on this board) heard Zheng He's voyages analogized to the Apollo program - a bloated prestige program that wisely had its funds cut after successfully "planting the flag." Columbus on the other hand...

 

[Galbatorix]

i agree Colon way of exploring was more economic and had more future

?what could have copied the europeans from the chineses?