The Chinese Columbus

This morning, NPR ran a fascinating interview with author Gavin Menzies.

"I came to the astonishing conclusion that a huge Chinese fleet of 800 vessels had sailed from China in March 1421 and they'd circumnavigated the world and they had created settlements in North and South America, in Australia, New Zealand, across the Pacific and in the Indian Ocean."

He painted a rather vivid picture, based on existing historical records, of the Chinese admiral eunuch Zheng He, the bold commander of 800 ships -- the largest fleet ever assembled -- sent out from China by Emperor Zhu Di to explore and settle new lands.

Unfortunately, while they were out exploring the world, lightning storms destroyed buildings in Beijing, and Zhu Di (or at least his court) became convinced that he wasn’t meant to be emperor after all. The Mandarins took over, recalled the fleet, and burned all records from Zhu Di’s reign. Along the way, Zheng He's master chart - a detailed map of the world - found its way to Portugal, giving their explorers a good idea of what they were going to “discover” before they got there.

Menzies claims to have looked over a copy of this master chart, preserved in a Portuguese museum. He also points to concrete evidence for his astonishing claim, in the form of jade, porcelain and other materials unique to China found by European explorers in the New World.

Salon is not so excited by the whole thing.

"He has not, unfortunately, discovered anything new," said Levathes. "What he's done is to present it in a jumbled manner so you have no idea what's going on and what the time frames are." There was one aspect of Menzies' work that Levathes admitted to admiring, however: "His promotional machine is nothing less than extraordinary," she said.

As part of that “promotional machine," you do have to admire the pretty 1421 website, which includes samples from the book and a newsfeed for Chinese discoveries in the New World.

Neither Menzies site nor the Salon critique appear to mention some recent discoveries of the similarities between early Olmec writing & artifacts and the Shang Chinese alphabet & bronzework from the same period, thousands years before Zheng He set sail... or evidence of 3rd century visits by Buddhist monk Hui Shen (or Heoi Shin).

Actually, there seems to be a lot of widely accepted documentation of Chinese contacts with the New World before Columbus. People have been discussing the idea for ages.

As far as the scholars are concerned, the question isn't did the Chinese come to America. It's just how much of an impact did the Chinese have on the "New" World in the years (or even centuries) before Columbus ever left port?

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According to one of the links off the NPR page, Menzies wants to build one of Zheng He's flagships - and has the backing to do so.

Check out more on Zheng He and his big boats:

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UPDATE:
PBS has made a special based on Menzies' book, with a companion website here.

Posted by grant at January 08, 2003 12:30 PM