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I. EARLY CHINESE VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY
Between 1421 and 1423 the Chinese language mounted the biggest fleet the world had ever seen which reached the far corners of the earth. The fleet found and charted the New World seventy years earlier than Christopher Columbus and circumnavigated the globe a century earlier than Magellan. The revelation of those achievements has challenged our notions of voyages of discovery and signifies that our information of historical past must be revised.
II. THE PIZZIGANO CHART
Within the early 1990’s Gavin Menzies, a former British navy captain, found an uncommon chart that was drafted in 1424 by a Venetian cartographer named Zuane Pizzigano. The chart confirmed a bunch of 4 islands within the Caribbean – Satanazes, Antilia, Saya and Ymana that didn’t seem in different map and marked locations the place no European had visited earlier than equivalent to Patagonia, the Andes, Antarctica and the east coast of Africa.
Menzies decided that these explorers have been Chinese language as a result of solely they’d the abilities in astro-navigation, horticulture and had an enormous fleet giant sufficient to mount such an epic voyage. (1)
III. DESTRUCTION OF DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE
When the fleet returned residence in October 1423, emperor Zhu Di had fallen from the throne and an awesome storm had destroyed his palace. This was seen as a nasty omen and in consequence when his son succeeded to the throne he rejected the surface world and destroyed nearly all of China’s paperwork recording China’s earlier expansionist insurance policies.
IV. ZHENG HE – THE EUNUCH
In 1402 emperor Zhu Di succeeded to the throne by overthrowing Zhu Yunwen and since he was not his father’s designated inheritor he sought to show the legitimacy of his regime within the eyes of the Gods by conceiving a grand plan and for its’ implementation he turned to his bodyguard, admiral Zheng He.
Zheng He was a eunuch. Eunuchs have been Mongol boys whom the Chinese language castrated by severing their penises and testicles, after defeating the Mongols within the fourteenth century. Then they have been conscripted into the military or used as private servants to the emperor.
The grand plan concerned forming an armada to ascertain an empire, constructing a brand new capital metropolis in Beijing and lengthening the Nice Wall of China.
V. THE GRAND PLAN
A. ‘Tribute System’
Zheng He was commandeered to assemble a big armada to sail and chart the oceans of the world bringing overseas rulers and the whole world into China’s ‘tribute system’. (2)
Underneath that system rulers paid tribute to China in return for buying and selling privileges and safety towards enemies. China all the time gave its’ buying and selling companions a higher worth of products – silks and porcelain at discounted costs, typically funded by mushy loans – than was acquired from them. Thus they have been in perpetual debt to China.
B. Beijing – The New Imperial Metropolis
In 1404 in furtherance of a plan to construct a brand new capital metropolis 4 and a half million artisans and laborers have been employed to work on building and a million to protect them.
Beijing was to be the mental capital of the world with libraries and storage for 4 thousand encyclopedias, the opinions of 120 philosophers and sages of the Tune dynasty along with commentaries of thinkers from the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.
This might be in contrast to anything in the remainder of the world the place printing was unknown and tradition and scientific information lagged far behind.
C. The Nice Wall of China
This had been constructed between 221 and 206 BC to guard the northern frontiers from assault and the brand new wall was to run 6,400 kilometers west from the Pacific to the Heavenly Mountains in central Asia.
VI. THE ARMADA
The Chinese language had probably the most highly effective navy on the planet. Their treasure ships have been ocean-going monsters constructed of teak, the rudders stood 36 toes excessive and so they may carry greater than 2000 tons of cargo. The galleys have been protected by archers and have been armed with gunpowder weapons, cannons, mortars flaming arrows and exploding shells.
The armada was organized like a contemporary convoy with the flagships on the middle surrounded by junks, 90 toes lengthy and 30 toes extensive and an outer ring of warships.
The ships may stay at sea for over three months and canopy 4500 miles as a result of accompanying them have been water tankers and grain ships with chickens, canine, pigs and different animals for meals and horses for the cavalry.
Buying and selling ships from different nations would take part and the altogether there have been greater than 800 ships and crews giant sufficient to fill a metropolis.
In contrast to European voyages which have been aimed toward discovering treasure Chinese language voyages
have been scientific expeditions and included varied professionals like interpreters, navigators, engineers and physicians to seek for therapeutic vegetation.
VII. MENZIES’ METHODOLOGY
As a way to assist his thesis that Zheng He had found the New World Gavin Menzies needed to comply with the route the Chinese language ships had taken but in addition to seek out traces of their presence in locations alongside these routes.
Some thirty-four strains of proof had survived the destruction of the information and he was additionally helped by his expertise as a navigator within the navy and by Chinese language historian, Ma Huan, who documented the primary a part of the voyage in his diaries. (3)
VIII. THE GREAT VOYAGE
A. Chinese language Astronomy
The armada set sail on March 8, 1421 and the hull form of the ships meant that they needed to sail earlier than the wind.
In Chinese language astronomy latitude was decided not by the space north of the equator however by the space from the North Pole which was decided by the altitude of Polaris, a vibrant star above the North Pole (i.e. its’ top above the horizon).
By crusing due south and holding Polaris lifeless astern, the fleet may measure the star’s altitude with their sextants and thereafter each twenty-four hours to find out the change of latitude (i.e. its distance south of the North Pole).
Polaris was not seen within the southern hemisphere and subsequently couldn’t decide latitude south of the equator.
B. Da Conti and Fra Mauro
In keeping with Ma Huan the armada sailed in the direction of the Indian Ocean the place it was divided into 4 fleets – three beneath the command of Hong Bao, Zhou Man and Zhou Wen. Zheng He commanded the fourth which sailed to south-east Asia earlier than returning residence in November 1421.
The fleet then sailed to Calicut in India after which up the west coast of Africa to the Cape Verde islands.
In a report of his journey to the Papacy a Venetian dealer named Niccolo da Conti (c. 1395 – 1469) described the presence of Chinese language warships in Calicut on the time of his go to. Additionally, a map of southern Africa dated 1459 and drawn by a Venetian cartographer Fra Mauro, included a drawing of Zheng He is junks.
Each males claimed {that a} Chinese language junk had sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and into the south Atlantic and this was confirmed by a Chinese language chart dat 1420 known as the Kangnido map which precisely depicted the coasts of Africa and should have been drawn by somebody who sailed around the Cape.
Moreover the Chinese language had a follow of leaving carved stones as monuments to their achievements after they stopped at locations on their voyages. Examples of stones discovered have been the Matadi Falls within the Congo, a free standing one in Janela in Africa and one other in Dondra Head in Sri Lanka.
After leaving the Cape Verde islands the fleet separated so admiral Zhou Wen went north with the present by way of the Caribbean to North America whereas admirals Hong Bao and Zhou Man took the present due south in the direction of South America.
C. The Piri Reis Map
This map of South America drafted by an Ottoman admiral named Piri Reis in 1428 confirms that the fleet went to the Orinoco Delta and the Amazon. DNA of American Indian peoples within the Amazon, Brazil and Venezuela confirmed that they’d ailments distinctive to China.
The winds then carried the fleet to Patagonia in south Argentina. A wide range of birds and animals had been taken to and from the Americas. The Piri Reis map depicted a deer in Patagonia, a guanaco (kind of camel) and a mountain lion that are native to South America. A local man and a dog-headed man or mylodon have been discovered within the Chinese language guide known as The Illustrated Document of Unusual International locations 1430 which depicted animals discovered by the Chinese language on their travels.
The Europeans additionally discovered after they arrived rice fields – a crop overseas to the Americas- in Mexico and Brazil, cotton distinctive to North America within the Cape Verde islands and coconuts from the South Pacific in Puerto Rico. Bananas, tobacco, candy potatoes and maize from the Amazon have been additionally exported to south-east Asia.
IX. THE VOYAGE OF HONG BAO
His mission was to chart the world east of the Falkland Islands. The present pushed the fleet right into a slender strait which is famously often called ‘The Strait of Magellan’ as a result of it’s a sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Then the fleet sailed to Antarctica as far south because the South Pole. A sailor from Bologna named Ludovico de Varthema in 1506 claimed that two Chinese language sailors informed him that the Chinese language had sailed by the Southern Cross to areas that have been very chilly and had daylight for under 4 hours a day which they might solely have identified by crusing there themselves. As well as the Piri Reis map confirmed ice operating due south of the Strait of Magellan and should have been drawn by somebody who sailed alongside it.
The fleet then bought beneath the Canopus, a large star immediately above the South
Pole.
A. Canopus
Getting beneath Canopus and realizing the circumference of the earth enabled the fleet to calculate the place of the South Pole. By cross- referencing Canopus to Polaris they might then use that star to acquire latitude wherever within the southern hemisphere.
B.Australia – West Coast
Hong Bao’s fleet was carried by the present to the west coast of Australia through the island of Kerguelen as recognized within the Dictionary of Ming Biography of Data and on the Chinese language chart the Wu Pei Chi 1422.
The junk dispatched to chart the realm bought wrecked and in 1836 three hunters discovered the wreck of a ship constructed of mahogany which Europeans didn’t use to construct ships and twenty years later was recognized by an Australian Mrs. Manifold because the lacking ship.
The Aboriginal Yangery tribe which dwell close to the wreck-site have a particular colour and facial options and declare that ‘yellow males’ settled amongst them who should have been from the wreck.
X. THE VOYAGE OF ZHOU MAN
Zhou Man’s fleet bought swept northward up the coast of Chile till they reached Peru. There they exchanged tributes with the indigenous Incas that are present in a novel about Zheng He is voyages in 1597 known as His-Yang-Chi-(Xi Yang Ji) all of which may very well be present in northern Peru together with llamas, cachalots (small whales) and Asiatic hens.
After leaving Peru, the fleet break up into two elements. The northern squadron sailed to the Carolinas, New Guinea and the Philippines.
Proof of their presence within the Americas have been remark platforms within the Carolinas, like these in China; Chinese language hens in Peru and maize and instruments used to grind it, indigenous to the Americas, have been discovered within the Philippines.
The southern squadron was carried by the present to the east coast of Australia.
A. Australia – East Coast
Within the imperial zoo in Beijing there’s the determine of a Kangaroo which is exclusive to Australia and within the 1840’s a ruined fortress was present in New South Wales fashioned with giant stones and mortar with a big tree rising beneath the stones. Such fortifications weren’t constructed by the Aborigines and given the age of the tree should have been constructed earlier than the British arrived.
Additionally discovered have been rock carvings depicting a Chinese language junk with individuals in lengthy robes
Indicating the presence of Chinese language.
A shipwreck was discovered close to Byron Bay in New South Wales and in 1965 sand-miners discovered an enormous rudder, 40 toes excessive which should have been Chinese language since solely they constructed ships with such giant rudders.
The similarities of one other wreckage close to Wollongong close to Sydney and two extra in Perth proves the presence of the Chinese language in east Australia within the fifteenth century.
New Zealand – The present pushed the fleet to the South Island of New Zealand the place the wreck of an previous picket ship was discovered on the southern tip and in 1831 Sydney seamen noticed mylodons and sea otters which aren’t indigenous to New Zealand and should have escaped the wreck.
On the North Island an enormous carved stone was discovered with concentric circles just like those the Chinese language left behind in Dondra Head, Janela and by the Matadi Falls within the Congo Delta.
A celebrated bell just like Zheng He is bell forged after the sixth voyage was discovered close to a ship wreck on Ruapuke seaside, an oriental figurine was discovered close to Auckland and the Maoris close to Ruapuke had a legend that ‘Patupaiarche’ or pale-skinned Chinese language settlers had married Maori ladies proving the Chinese language had reached New Zealand.
Brisbane, Australia – The fleet made a second landfall in Australia, north of Brisbane. There their engineers went ashore on horses and gathered gold and different valuable minerals and constructed pyramids in Gympie clearly to mark the placement of the dear riches.
As current as October 5, 2002 historian Brett Inexperienced unearthed the wreck of a giant Chinese language ship off Queensland proving that Captain Cook dinner didn’t uncover Australia.
After Australia they visited the Spice Islands and the Philippines the place they exchanged silks and porcelain for spices, giant sufficient to fill the imperial warehouse in Beijing.
B.The First Colony within the Americas
The style during which the islands have been drawn on the Waldseemuller map which was the primary map of the world revealed in 1507 and named after German cartographer, confirmed that Zhou Man’s fleet after leaving the Philippines arrange colonies alongside the Pacific coast from California to Ecuador.
Professor Judith A. Carney of the College of California argues that it was the Chinese language who taught the American farmer the right way to farm and by the 1870’s seventy 5 % of farm laborers in California have been of Chinese language origin. (4)
Additionally in 1874 Stephen Powers, an official inspector of the Authorities of
California discovered linguistic proof of a Chinese language colony on the Russian River in California, seventy miles north of the wreck of a Chinese language junk (the Sacramento junk) which had been in-built 1410 and was recognized by the carbon-date of the wooden.
Powers described Chinese language settlers as having intermarried with native Indians and their descendants have been paler than individuals on the coast and the older era had beards whereas the ladies have been as happy with their black hair because the Chinese language.
Somewhat than skins, ladies wore a single garment within the form of a wool sack, sleeveless and gathered on the neck. In contrast to Indian tribes, after dying the descendants desired just like the Chinese language to be buried within the ancestral soil of their tribe; they have been sedentary; 4 fifths of their food plan was vegetarian and so they had an enormous information of botanical names.
Pottery was fashioned in traditional Chinese language shapes whereas the Indians beat out a hole of a rock leaving the surface tough. The traditional tribes used lengthy knives however their descendants used obsidian or jasper (a kind of crystal); the ancestors usual tobacco pipes from serpentine whereas their descendants made easy picket ones and used a Chinese language methodology of snaring wildfowl by utilizing decoy geese.(5)
Powers’ arguments are additionally supported by DNA proof which corroborates the Asian origin of Native American populations and suggests current gene circulation from Asia. (6)
On the jap aspect of San Francisco Bay, seventy miles south of the Sacramento junk is a small stone-built village with low partitions which in 1904 Dr. John Fryer, a professor of Oriental Languages at College Faculty, Berkeley, California said was the work of the Chinese language who wall themselves in as they do in China.
Lastly, fifty stone carvings of ships and forty horses have been discovered alongside the Mississippi river suggesting that the horses have been introduced there by ship.
C. Colonies in Central America
After leaving the coast of California the fleet made landfall in Colima, Mexico.
Right here they encountered the Mayan civilization practically as previous and positive as their very own. When the Spanish conquistadores arrived in Mexico within the 1520’s they discovered Asiatic chickens; the names of birds Kek or Ki have been just like these of the Chinese language and the Mexicans just like the Chinese language used chickens for ceremonial functions.
Candy potatoes, tomatoes and papayas that are indigenous to Central America have been present in Easter Island in Oceania and candy potatoes have been additionally present in Hawaii. The Maya had constructed stone cities like Palenque in Chiapas in-built c. AD 325- 925 which was crammed with treasures for which the Chinese language exchanged silks and ceramics.
Metals have been mined in the identical method as in China and mirrors have been vital in each cultures.
However the strongest indicators of Chinese language affect was in Uruapan the place the method of making ready lacquer which is obtained from a tree in China (or Ch’I-Ch’l in Chinese language) are similar in Mexico and China. There are additionally related strategies to acquire different dyes equivalent to madder purple, indigo blue, scarlet and shellfish purple in addition to Vermilion dyes obtained from bugs scraped off oak bushes, lac (lactic acid) from Asia and royal (tyrian) purple from marine snails.
Linguistic proof of Chinese language visits to South America are a crusing ship is chamban in Colombia, sampan in China; a raft, balsa in South America and palso in China and a log raft, jangada in Brazil and ziangada in Tamil. Villagers in a mountain village in Peru communicate Chinese language.
DNA proof exhibits that the peoples in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela and Peru share Chinese language DNA. So deep is the Chinese language affect on continent that it may very well be known as ‘Chinese language America’.
XI. THE VOYAGE OF ZHOU WEN
A. The Caribbean
Zhou Wen sailed north to the Cape Verde Islands the place the currents converged to take them in the direction of the Dominica Passage.
The fleet sailed northwards to Guadeloupe, an island reportedly inhabited by Carib cannibals who amongst different issues used human skulls as consuming vessels and different physique elements as meals. On a contemporary map of the realm this island was Satanazes-Devil Island and as regards the opposite islands proven for the primary time on the Pizzigano chart Saya was recognized as Les Saintes, Antilia matched Puerto Rico and Ymana positioned immediately above the volcanoes of La Souffriere, La Citerne and L’Echelle.
The wind then drove the fleet due north alongside the coast of Cuba in the direction of Grand Bahama in The Bahamas.
B.Bimini Street
In 1968 an underwater rock formation was discovered off the coast of North Bimini within the Bahamas. It lies on the ocean ground, a few thousand yards from the shore and comprised a whole bunch of flat rocks, eight to 10 toes sq. organized in common patterns, known as Bimini Street. It was man-made with two parallel strains of stones operating south-west in the direction of the ocean. The western part begins at an angle of 160 levels to the seaside and curves spherical to run on to the shore.
Gavin Menzies thinks Bimini Street is a submerged dry dock created by the Chinese language and since sea ranges have been about six toes decrease six centuries in the past, this dock may have been on the shore of Bimini.
Because the fleet sailed in the direction of Bimini many ships ran aground and have been tied alongside seaworthy ones to maintain them afloat. The strict would have needed to be circled to face the seaside earlier than being hauled to shore.
The Chinese language had engineers aboard and over six centuries’ expertise of laying stonework beneath water and the stones used are present in Yangtze in China and will have been lower and sized in Nanjing the place the treasure ships have been constructed.
4 junks had sunk off North Bimini and 5 deserted and the remainder repaired. Among the surviving sailors needed to be left behind and when meals provides ran out they’d have needed to arrange settlements in Cuba and alongside the east coast of Florida. (7)
This clarification is in step with experiences from successive explorers on seeing males in ‘white tunics which reached to their knees’ alongside the route the Chinese language had adopted.
C. Settlement in North America
There’s an abundance of proof of the presence of the Chinese language on the North American mainland.
The junks have been carried by the Gulf Stream to Cape Hatteras in North Carolina the place they divided into two squadrons. One squadron went to the Cape Verde Islands through the Azores and the opposite went north circumnavigated Greenland and again down its’ east coast.
In 1524 Venetian explorer Giovanni de Verrazzano stopped within the Narragansett Bay close to Rhode Island and described the native individuals as sporting lengthy clothes and jewelry with lengthy black hair which inserts the outline of Chinese language concubines. He additionally described seeing on the entrance to the bay a pure rock which seems to be the rock on which stands the Spherical Tower within the park in Newport, Rhode Island. (8) The tower should have been to mark a Chinese language settlement or been a lighthouse to mark the bay.
Six separate accounts of the primary Europeans to achieve New England described civilized white or bronze-skinned ladies dwelling in Newport who wore jap garments and combed their hair in buns like Chinese language ladies.
Menzies found twelve curious stones erected by the Chinese language in a small are in jap Massachusetts just like those the Chinese language had left behind in Africa and Asia.
The outcomes of current exams on the Moskoke individuals in south-east United States present Chinese language DNA.
New England may now be renamed ‘New China’.
Within the Azores on the island known as The Raven (Corvo) there was a Chinese language statue of a person on a horse, his head is uncovered and he’s bald, his left-hand rests upon his horse and his right-hand factors in the direction of the west. This was little question a reproduction of Zhu Di. The statue is Chinese language as a result of the Azores seems on the Chinese language Kangnido chart which was produced earlier than the Portuguese found the islands.
C. Expedition to the North Pole
The Chinese language bought so far as Greenland and in 1448 Pope Nicholas V wrote to the bishops of Skalholt and Holar in Iceland about ‘barbarians’ (a time period that refers to individuals from the east) attacking the inhabitants of Greenland.
The existence of stone villages was proof of Chinese language colonies and on the Bache Peninsula of Ellesmere Island was a colony of about twenty-five homes and beacons in addition to proof of Chinese language mining of copper close to Devon Island.
Additional proof is the Vinland map (c.1424) depicting the coast of Greenland with exact accuracy and DNA evaluation proving that the Natives of Hvalsey, a
settlement in Greenland possess Chinese language DNA.
XII. THE VOYAGE OF YANG QING
Yang Qing had left Beijing a month earlier than the remainder of the armada and spent his entire voyage within the Indian Ocean the place his large achievement was studying to find out longitude.
The important thing to discovering longitude is to look at the identical occasion like a lunar eclipse at completely different places across the globe and fixing the precise time the occasion came about, then calculating the variations in longitude. The Chinese language had a sufficiently big fleet to deploy at completely different places to take readings. If the longitude of say Malacca is decided the fleet may use different remark posts across the Indian Ocean to take readings on the identical evening. In a lunar eclipse the earth is between the solar and the moon and the earth’s shadow obscures the moon. The Chinese language may forecast a lunar eclipse that happens about each six months.
Due to this achievement, the origin of world maps in addition to latitude and longitude may very well be decided together with the invention of the New World.
XIII. SUMMARY
The proof proves conclusively that the glory for locating the New World ought to go to Chinese language admirals Zheng He, Hong Bao, Zhou Man and Zhou Wen and their fleets 1421 – 1423 and to not the Europeans.
The proof consists of bodily entities like shipwrecks of Chinese language junks in America, Australia and India; carved stones of Africa and the stays of Chinese language individuals in South America; DNA, artifacts, scientific and circumstantial proof from the fifteenth century together with linguistic, ceremonial and religious.
Archaeological groups everywhere in the world are evacuating websites believed to comprise relics of Chinese language shipwrecks.
The information is enshrined in over a thousand books offering proof of pre-Columbian Chinese language journeys to the Americas and is summarized in a two-volume bibliography. (9)
The Chinese language offered Europeans with maps, navigational instruments and an astronomical calendar past something they produced on their very own. Their strategies of calculating latitude and longitude got to the Europeans in order that Columbus, Magellan and different explorers used them to achieve the New World.
The Chinese language colonized America and transplanted financial crops which have since fed and clothed the world.
Notes:
(1) 1421 The 12 months China Found America by Gavin Menzies p. 34 to 35.
(2) Emperor Zhu Di’s directions to Zheng He, paraphrased from the 2 stone steles of 1431.
(3) The General Survey of the Ocean Shores, revealed after Zheng He is voyage in 1433
(4) Carey McWilliams, Factories within the Area, College of California Press, Berkeley, 2000. P.68-80).
(5) Stephen Powers ‘Aborigines of California: An Indo-Chinese language Examine’ in Atlantic, Vol.33, 1874 and Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol.3, Division of Inside, Washington DC 1877).
(6) Human Biology (vol. 70) entitled ‘Polymorphic Alu Insertions and the Asian
Origin of Native American Populations’ by Professor Novick.
(7) 1421 The 12 months China Found America by Gavin Menzies p.310-316.
(8) Account of Verazzano’s voyage in his letter 8July 1524 to Francis quoted in D.B.Quinn (ed.) North American Discovery, Harper & Row 1971.
(9) J.L. Sorenson and M.H. Raish, pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas throughout the Oceans; An Annotated bibliography, Provo Analysis Press 1990).
Acknowledgement I’m enormously indebted to Gavin Menzies and his guide ‘1421 – The 12 months China found America’ – for the data contained on this article.
Victor A. Dixon
Creator and Social Scientist
Revised October 23, 2020
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Source by Victor A Dixon