The Chinese Columbus?
Zheng He ran one of the greatest fleets of all time. Did he discover the New World?
That, of course, is an alternative history that didn't happen. Although there is compelling evidence that the Chinese reached Australia and South America before Cook and Columbus, contact probably occurred centuries before Zheng He set sail. Zheng He's greatest legacy is the vast diaspora of Chinese entrepreneurs who, with Zheng He as inspiration, broke with imperial edicts and the classical Confucian custom of staying near home and ancestry to seek out lives of commerce in foreign lands. The trickle of deserting sailors from the fleet opened a floodgate of emigration that continues to this day: Ethnic Chinese still dominate the economies of many Southeast Asian countries. In Indonesia, Zheng He is revered as a local god; thousands visit a temple dedicated to him every year. Even in Africa, there are many who claim Chinese heritage. Indeed, some believe they are descendants of Zheng He's shipwrecked sailors.
Today, more than 34 million Chinese live overseas in 140 countries, spreading over all the known lands depicted in the 21-foot scroll map, the Wu Bei Zhi, and beyond. A beguiling passage on a 1432 stone tablet erected by Zheng He survives in Fujian province, a maritime area that has provided much of the Chinese diaspora. It reads: "We . . . have beheld in the ocean huge waves like mountains rising sky high, and we have set eyes on barbarian regions far away hidden in a blue transparency of light vapors, while our sails, loftily unfurled like clouds day and night, continued their course [as rapidly as] a star, traversing those savage waves as if we were treading a public thoroughfare."
China's Golden Age On the Seas
By 1421, the Chinese had developed an extensive knowledge of astronomy and navigation. Their vast fleets included 250 large treasure ships that would dwarf European vessels, including Columbus's flagship, the Santa María.
[Drawing labels]
Chinese treasure ship
400 to 500 feet long
Nine masts
Santa María
85 feet long
Three masts
The ships carried porcelain and silk from China and returned from voyages with live exotic animals. Their hulls were constructed of multiple watertight compartments, useful in the event of a breach.
Sources: 1421: The Year China Discovered America, by Gavin Menzies; When China Ruled the Seas, by Louise Levathes; The Rise and Fall of 15th Century Chinese Seapower, by Michael Bosworth; Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Doug Stern--USN&WR
DID YOU KNOW?
The first European to see North America may have been Bjarni Herjolfsson. According to Norse sagas, the Viking trader was sailing from Iceland to Greenland in 986 when he got lost in the fog. He made his way to "a flat and wooded country"--Canada, no doubt--but never left the boat. The sagas tease him for his timidity. But he did share his news with (and sell his ship to) the next Euro-visitor to the Americas, Leif Ericson.
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