Posted on 03/04/2002 3:24:49 PM PST by blam
Explorer from China who 'beat Columbus to America'
By Elizabeth Grice
(Filed: 04/03/2002)
HISTORY books in 23 countries may need to be rewritten in the light of new evidence that Chinese explorers had discovered most parts of the world by the mid-15th century.
Next week, an amateur historian will expound his theory - backed up by charts, ancient artefacts and anthropological research - that when Columbus discovered America in 1492, he was 72 years too late.
And so were other explorers, such as Cook, Magellan and Da Gama, whose heroic voyages took them to Australia, South America and India.
Instead, according to Gavin Menzies, a former submarine commanding officer who has spent 14 years charting the movements of a Chinese expeditionary fleet between 1421 and 1423, the eunuch admiral, Zheng He, was there first.
According to Menzies, it was Zheng He, in his colossal multi-masted ships stuffed with treasure, silks and porcelain, who made the first circumnavigation of the world, beating the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan by a century.
Menzies will present his findings at the Royal Geographical Society on March 15 before an invited audience of more than 200 diplomats, academics, naval officers and publishers. Their initial reaction, based on an outline of his thesis, ranges from excitement to scepticism.
But if the number of acceptances - 85 per cent - is anything to go by, he will not be ignored.
He originally intended to write a book about the significance of the year 1421 around the world. While researching it in Venice, he was shown a planisphere, dated 1459, which included southern Africa and the Cape of Good Hope.
Yet the Cape was not "discovered" as a sea route by Vasco da Gama until 1497. On the planisphere was a note in medieval Phoenician about a voyage round the Cape to the Cape Verde Islands in 1420 - and a picture of a Chinese junk.
Menzies felt he was on to something.
Using Chinese star charts and maps that pre-date the expeditions of Cook, Magellan, de Gama and Columbus, he has reconstructed what he believes is the epic voyage of Zheng He.
He says his knowledge of astro-navigation helped him to work out that the Chinese, using the brilliant star Canopus to chart their course, had sailed close to the South Pole.
He determined their latitude and went on to find literary and archaeological evidence to show that the Chinese had effectively circumnavigated the world.
Menzies, 64, admits that his greatest fear was being ridiculed.
He said: "When I started, I was terrified people would think I was a crank. But although my claim is complicated and stands history on its head, I am confident of my ground.
He added: "What nobody has explained is why the European explorers had maps. Who drew the maps? There are millions of square miles of ocean. It required huge fleets to chart them. If you say it wasn't the Chinese, with the biggest fleets and ships in the world, then who was it?"
Admiral Sir John Woodward, who served on submarines with Menzies in the 1960s and will be at his lecture, describes him as a brilliant maverick.
He said: "I was his teacher on a commanding officers' qualifying course and he was the cleverest, sharpest and best I had seen. He is not some mad eccentric but a rational man, good at analysis - and he certainly knows all about charts."
Chinese ocean-going supremacy in the first half of the 15th century is not in question.
The expeditionary junks were three times the size of Nelson's Victory and dwarfed the 16th century ocean-going European caravels. Under his patron, the Yong-le Emperor Zhui Di, Zheng He made seven great voyages to bring foreigners into China's tribute system.
When he returned in October 1423, China was in political and economic chaos. The treasure fleet, now considered frivolous, was mothballed, admirals pensioned off and shipyards closed.
Although most of the records of Zheng He's voyage were expunged, a few maps and star charts survived.
Menzies believes they were taken to Venice by a merchant traveller, Nicolo da Conti, who had joined one of the Chinese junks in India. In his travel book published in 1434, da Conti claims to have sailed to China via Australia - 350 years before Captain Cook.
Menzies argues that, on his way through Venice in 1428, the King of Portugal's eldest son obtained the salvaged maps and incorporated them into a map of the world.
The most controversial part of his theory is that copies of parts of this mappa mundi were used by da Gama, Magellan and Cook. Some of these still survive in museums: Patagonia (1513), North America (1507), Africa (1502) and Asia and Australia (1542).
The letters and logs of the European explorers - including Columbus - certainly acknowledge that they had maps, says Menzies. "They knew where they were going before they set out."
Using his knowledge of winds and tides, Menzies has located what he believes are nine Chinese leviathans wrecked in the Caribbean in December 1421.
Pictures of the hull ballast on the seabed show stones identical in shape and size to those found in a Chinese treasure ship recently excavated in the Philippines.
Menzies declines to name the uninhabited island because he believes some of the ships may still contain treasure and he wants to investigate them.
Gillian Hutchinson, curator of the history of cartography at the National Maritime Museum, is not persuaded that there is a provable link between the Chinese maps and those the Europeans used.
She says: "It is possible that Chinese geographical knowledge had reached Europe before the Age of Discovery. But Mr Menzies is absolutely certain of it, and that makes it difficult to separate evidence from wishful thinking."
Diplomats of the countries whose early history may be affected by his thesis are reacting with a surprising degree of warmth.
Gregory Baughen, first secretary at the New Zealand High Commission, says: "It sounds exciting. We're all ears. Chinese artefacts have been found around the coast for some time."
Luis de Sousa, press councillor at the Portuguese Embassy, says: "Magellan is in all the books and his descendants carry his name with -+pride. But if the Chinese circumnavigated the world first, which is quite possible, then let's give them their 15 minutes of limelight."
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According to Menzies, it was Zheng He, in his colossal multi-masted ships stuffed with treasure, silks and porcelain, who made the first circumnavigation of the world, beating the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan by a century.
Since when is 72 years a century?
Man, they'll let any tard scribble on some paper and call them a reporter
Saw a two hour special on this guy tonight. Even Chinese historians think he's a loon. The show pretty much tore his "theories" apart and he came across pretty weak in "cross examination".
"I believe that Columbus found maps - or at least legends - that came from the Vikings, who reportedly heard the stories from the Irish."
I've read that Columbus deserves great credit for combining politics, business and technology, to reach a goal.
A Modern Manager, of sorts. History proves his discovery made the world different, which none of the other alledged discoveries did.
True enough the Vikings preceeded him, but little came of it, save perhaps maps.
Other explorers contributed knowledge of ocean currents, which went into his calculations for an attempted new route.
He put it all together, complete with national sponsorship and funding.
Well, if he had balls he would have set up a colony or too and then there would have been no debate.
"Explorer From China Who 'Beat Columbus To America'"
The Chinese did not have ships to traverse the oceans 72 years before Columbus discovered the continent, nor did they have the knowledge to do so.
This is a lot of malarky.
De Souza wants to re-write a well known era of Chinese history. The emperor's ship's indeed discovered the arabian peninsula and several unimpresive parts of Africa, wherupon they returned to China and reported to the emperor that the rest of the world was not worth exploring. Therupon... the emperor ordered the fleet of the "central kingdom" destroyed.
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Fascinating art.I don’t know why these theories of connection weren’t explored and developed in our curriculm when we were in school. Are they taught today?
Is there an explanation of why he was a eunoch? Did he pose a threat to an emporer. And his crew? Were they all eunochs too? I know that the Chinese imported slaves from Africa in the 1600-1800s (purchased from Arab slave traders) and all of them were made into eunochs before they could be admitted to a Chinese household as a servant. Most of them died before ever leaving Africa as a result of the operation.
Blam: Most of your links do not work. :(
I only guarantee links for five years...this article is eight years old.(ahem)
I always find your links and pictures interesting and I’m disappointed when they don’t work. :( Jes sayin’.
I do ya one better — I don’t guarantee links for five minutes. ;’)
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
Note: this topic is from . Thanks blam.
rest of the Gavin Menzies keyword, corona sorted, oops, I mean chrono sorted:
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