<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We all learned the rhyme at some point in our schooling:\u00a0 <\/span>Fourteen hundred ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 For far too many years, our history classes were fixated on giving Christopher Columbus credit for being the first to discover the Americas.\u00a0 Without considering the indigenous people who already lived in both North, South, and Central America, the claim seems rather hollow.\u00a0 After reading retired British Naval Officer Gavin Menzie\u2019s book <\/span>1421 – The Year China Discovered America <\/span><\/i>(Harper Perennial Books – 2002), I had to marvel how much of a late comer Columbus was in getting to these shores.\u00a0 There are probably many reasons why historians decided to began the story of the Americas with Columbus and the other European voyagers who came after him.\u00a0 The truth is, their voyages did not \u2018discover\u2019 these new lands – their voyages ‘re-discovered\u2019 lands previously visited by the Chinese.\u00a0 Menzies\u2019s research points out that these Chinese voyagers also aided the European\u2019s later expeditions.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Gavin Menzies (4\/14\/1937 – 4\/12\/2020) spent the first two years of his life in China (1937-38).\u00a0 He joined the Royal Navy in 1953 and his career as a junior officer and navigator gave him many insights into the voyages of discovery that took place so long ago.\u00a0 By the time Gavin\u2019s naval career ended in 1970, he had sailed many of the same routes pioneered by the likes of Magellan, Cook, and (yes) Columbus.\u00a0 Upon retirement, he returned to China many times and visited hundreds of museums and ports of call around the world.\u00a0 His background gave him a unique perspective that helped him decipher ancient charts, maps, and texts as he sought to unravel the mystery of who discovered what and when.\u00a0 What he found was plentiful evidence that the Europeans credited with \u2018discovering America\u2019 were not the first to these shores.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Menzies opens <\/span>1421 <\/span><\/i>with a synopsis of Chinese history to help explain why very few historians give them their due.\u00a0 He begins with events happening in the fourteenth century that would shape the world of exploration.\u00a0 Imperial China was a country without parallel in 1421 but their rise to power actually began back in 1352 when the Mongol overlords who ruled China began to lose their grip.\u00a0 The Mongols had controlled China since 1279 when Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, and his army invaded.\u00a0 A terrible pandemic and widespread flooding of valuable farmland in the mid 1300s caused the oppressed peasants to rise up in revolt.\u00a0 The once fearsome Mongols had become complacent.\u00a0 Under the leadership of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Chinese rebels managed to cut off the Mongol supply lines to the northern capital Ta-tu (Beijing).\u00a0 They also captured Nanjing in 1356 and by 1368, they had succeeded in driving out the Mongol emperor, placing Zhu Yuanzhzng as the head of the newly formed Ming Dynasty.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In 1382, at the age of twenty-one, Yuanzhang\u2019s son, Zhu Di, was given charge of the forces sent to root out the last strongholds of the Mongol population.\u00a0 The Mongol adults were butchered while the young men were castrated.\u00a0 Those that did not perish from this physical assault were put to work as \u2018palace menials, harem watch dogs, and spies\u2019.\u00a0 These eunuchs would become intensely loyal to the Chinese who now held the throne and would play an important rule in the growing Ming dynasty.\u00a0 With the Emperor\u2019s \u2018Mandate from Heaven\u2019 to rule, only the palace eunuchs were considered to be \u2018cowed enough\u2019 to serve his majesty directly (all others were forbidden to even look at him).\u00a0 The aging emperor, now known as Hong Wu, was extremely paranoid and set out to purge anyone he perceived as an enemy to his rule.\u00a0 He named his grandson Zhu Yunwen to be his successor and sent Zhu Di to Ta-tu (which he renamed Beijing) to protect the northern border.\u00a0 When the emperor died six years later, Zhu Yunwen, continued the old man\u2019s campaign to eliminate anyone he felt was a threat to his reign.\u00a0 Yunwen sent assassins north to get rid of Zhu Di whom he viewed as his biggest enemy.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Di learned of the plot and successfully avoided the assassins by living on the street like a beggar for a period of time.\u00a0 With the help of his loyal eunuch Zheng He, Zhu Di turned the tables on his execution squad and killed them before they could take him out.\u00a0 Di then began raising his own army.\u00a0 Yunwen sent a half a million men north to dispose of Di once and for all but the emperor made a fatal error in judgement.\u00a0 Yunwen\u2019s troops were ill equipped for the changing weather and they reached Beijing weak and demoralized, leading to their rout by Zhu Di\u2019s troops.\u00a0 In 1402, Di and his great army marched south to complete the conquest of Yunwen\u2019s government.\u00a0 Yunwen escaped, never to be found.\u00a0 Zhu Di took the name Yong Le and ruled from the Dragon Throne with his trusted servant, Zheng He, at his side.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Zhu Di had big plans.\u00a0 He wanted to enroll the world in the sphere of the new Chinese dynasty and dispatched expeditions to neighboring countries and city states.\u00a0 A great trading alliance was formed with the new capital established at Beijing.\u00a0 Having never been to sea, Zheng He was named Commander-in-Chief of the naval forces and charged with doing something the Mongols had failed to do – establish trade relations with other countries.\u00a0 He was to increase China\u2019s ship production and make them a greater maritime power.\u00a0 How better to show the rest of the world the superiority of Chinese culture than to make the lesser powers (and they were deemed lesser realms to China) part of their alliance?\u00a0 Having them brought in as tribute paying members of the Ming sphere paid dividents for other cultures.\u00a0 They would be protected by Chinese might and be allowed to trade with their new benefactors.\u00a0 Apparently these outsiders did not know the Chinese viewed the rest of the world\u2019s cultures as \u2018barbarians\u2019, but they were aware of the benefits inherent with joining their alliance.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Prior to Zhu Di\u2019s rebuilding of China, they had already been involved in many centuries of global trade.\u00a0 They dispatched large treasure fleets across the oceans to trade with India, Africa, and a vast number of city states spread throughout the Indian Ocean.\u00a0 Chinese astronomers were able to use stellar navigation to plot latitude accurately using the North Star.\u00a0 In the southern oceans, they had to develop a method to plot latitude using the stars of the Southern Cross,\u00a0 but they lacked a way to calculate longitude.\u00a0 The use of dead reckoning to compute east – west locations was apparent on the maps and charts they produced.\u00a0 Their rate of travel was influenced by ocean currents and it took some time before they found a better way to compute longitude. \u00a0 Still, it was a remarkable achievement – European mariners would not be able to plot longitude for another three and a half centuries (thanks to John Harrison\u2019s invention of a portable chronometer).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As Zhu Di continued building the new China, he dispatched a massive treasure fleet to map and explore the world in 1421.\u00a0 The Chinese built large \u2018capital ships\u2019 – square framed junks 480 feet long and 180 feet across.\u00a0 They were composed of watertight compartments that would allow them to remain afloat even if several of these cells were flooded.\u00a0 The large ships of this\u00a0 armada would be attended by a fleet of smaller 90 foot long support vessels.\u00a0 The fleet\u2019s crew numbered in the thousands with support ships carrying rice, fruit, fresh water, and live animals to support the long voyages.\u00a0 After six centuries of ocean exploration, the Chinese were well equipped to handle the oceans of the world.\u00a0 Zhu Di\u2019s treasure fleet would be the sixth of that era and consisted of five different armadas under the command of Admirals Zheng He, Yang Qing, Zhou Man, Hong Bo, and Zhou Weng.\u00a0 Each was given charge to explore and map a different part of the world, make contact with other cultures, and plant Chinese colonies.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The only drawback to these massive Chinese ships was their dependance on square rigged sails.\u00a0 They could handle any kind of seas, but they were difficult to navigate in any direction but with the trade winds.\u00a0 Their use of magnetic compasses allowed them to navigate within two degrees of a desired course.\u00a0 To make up for the inability to sail upwind, the Chinese became proficient at using the trade winds, ocean currents, and seasonal monsoon weather patterns to go from port to port.\u00a0 China was far ahead of the rest of the world in everything from agriculture to fine arts.\u00a0 Their accumulated knowledge was gathered into great volumes called Books of Knowledge which they freely shared with the barbarians they encountered.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0By the time Di\u2019s treasure fleet ships had returned from the 1421-1423 voyages, the China they had left had changed.\u00a0 Two months after they had departed, a lightning strike caused a major conflagration that destroyed most of the newly built Forbidden City.\u00a0 This blow to Zhu Di\u2019s \u2018Mandate from Heaven\u2019 rule set an ominous tone for him.\u00a0 Di temporarily handed over power to his son Zhu Gaozhi.\u00a0 The emperor\u2019s confusion about what had happened led to conflict between the mandarins (who served in many government posts) and the ruler’s loyal servant class (who essentially did everything the emperor asked them to do).\u00a0 The old man had begun to lose control of the outlying provinces and the resources they provided.\u00a0 He also lost many of his most trusted ministers before he died in August of 1424 while leading an expedition to capture the last of the Mongol leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When his son, Gaozhi, ascended to the throne in September of 1424, he ordered all ship building to cease.\u00a0 The returning treasure fleets were to be anchored and mothballed.\u00a0 In the brief year Gaozhi was the emperor, the fat, studious, and religious leader began turning China inward. He followed the advice of the mandarins who controlled finances and ignored the eunuchs who had aided his father\u2019s expansionary agenda.\u00a0 Upon Gaozhi\u2019s death in 1425, his son Zhu Zhanji intensified this new path until his own death in 1425.\u00a0 By then, China had taken giant steps backward and all but abandoned their technological genius, burned their books of knowledge, and turned their back on the rest of the world.\u00a0 The history of China\u2019s most ambitious period of circumnavigating the globe was lost in their new \u2018China First\u2019 agenda.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If the chronicles of their expeditions were burned, how did Gavin Menzies come to learn so much about them?\u00a0 Accurate maps and charts of the world were left in the hands of the barbarians they had encountered.\u00a0 Some of the books of knowledge survived the purge.\u00a0 Interestingly enough, evidence of Asian flora and fauna spread by the treasure fleets existed long before the European age of re-discovery began (as were the non-Asian examples that were brought back to China).\u00a0 There were Asiatic chickens in the Americas before the Eurpoeans ever got there.\u00a0 Crops like corn, which originated in the Americas, were found in Europe before Columbus ever set sail.\u00a0 Plants species that could not have been spread by floating on the ocean tides or carried by birds are found along the same sea routes the Chinese treasure fleets followed during their centuries of exploration.\u00a0 The same pattern has been found in how some diseases and parasites were spread across the globe.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Once he noticed these patterns, Menzies began looking for signs left behind by the Treasure fleets.\u00a0 Surely some of them were shipwrecked as evidenced by how few ships actually returned to their home ports.\u00a0 Indeed, on the coasts of every continent save Antarctica, Gavin began hearing tales about shipwrecked junks that fit Chinese designs.\u00a0 When he began looking at genetic samples in these locations, it became clear that some of the Chinese crews were left behind and absorbed into the local populations.\u00a0 Chinese words, building methods, artisan craft types, and even clothing styles have been found in pockets of indigenous populations in areas where wrecks have been found..<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Chinese fleets always took stonemasons with them.\u00a0 Their habit was to erect stone monuments in areas they had visited.\u00a0 Even the so-called Newport Round Tower found in Rhode Island matches observation post \/ lighthouses constructed in China.\u00a0 Some credit Norse explorers\u00a0 with this structure, but they did not build anything of this nature anywhere else.\u00a0 The design and\u00a0 construction certainly does match Chinese building techniques and astronomical alignments.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The maps and charts found in museums around the world are accurate.\u00a0 Such detailed map making would require long and repeated observations.\u00a0 Prior to the dawn of the European Age of Discovery, only the Chinese Treasure fleets could have accomplished this level of cartographic excellence.\u00a0 Columbus didn\u2019t bravely sail into the Atlantic Ocean hoping for the best.\u00a0 He and his brother had seen detailed charts that allowed them to determine that a route to the Spice Islands could be found by going east or west.\u00a0 They picked west with hopes of opening their own lucrative trade route.\u00a0 Magellan quelled a mutiny by his crew when they wanted to turn back before they had rounded the tip of South America.\u00a0 He told them there was a passage ahead that would lead them to a new ocean.\u00a0 Magellan had seen maps in the Royale Portuguese Archives that were so closely guarded, the penalty for revealing their contents was death.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Little physical evidence of the sixth (and final) treasure fleet remains on the Chinese mainland.\u00a0 Menzies learned of a monument carved in stone at Zheng He\u2019s direction.\u00a0 It has been translated as follows:\u00a0 \u201c<\/span>The emperor\u2026has ordered us [Zheng He] and others [Zhou Man, Hong Bo, Zhou Wen, and Yank Qing] at the head of several tens of thousands of officers and imperial troops to journey in more than a hundred ships\u2026to treat distant people with kindness\u2026We have gone to the western regions\u2026altogether more than three thousand countries large and small.\u00a0 We have traversed more than one hundred thousand li [forty thousand nautical miles] of immense water spaces<\/span><\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Although I haven\u2019t cracked open a History text book in quite some time, I am willing to bet that the history of the Americas still begins with Columbus.\u00a0 If you wish to delve into this topic further, Menzies published a couple of more volumes on the subject and left behind a massive amount of his research data which can be found at <\/span>www.gavinmenzies.net<\/span><\/a> .\u00a0 The first volume is entitled <\/span>1434:\u00a0 The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance<\/span><\/i> and the second is <\/span>Who Discovered America?\u00a0 The Untold History of the Peopling of the Americas <\/span><\/i>(co-authored by his assistant Ian Hudson).<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 As long as the Chinese used the stars of the Southern Cross to navigate in the southern seas, that is good enough reason for me . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We all learned the rhyme at some point in our schooling:\u00a0 Fourteen hundred ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.\u00a0 For far too many years, our history classes were fixated on giving Christopher Columbus credit for being the first to discover the Americas.\u00a0 Without considering the indigenous people who already lived in both North, 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