1421 Starfleet Voyage Test 2 Flashcards
Zheng He and the Min Treasure Voyages (1405-1433)
(LONG: Year China discovered America, Author’s claims. Year voyages began and ended in, Where did Zheng reach on his 6th voyage?)
1421: the Year China Discovered America is a rewriting of history in grand scale.
the author claims that four of Zheng He’s fleets traveled to all parts of the world but Europe.
He claims that he won’t be wrong in his findings because he is capable of reading and interpreting
extraordinary maps and charts that professional historians can’t.
His personal experience in tracking the places the fleets went can validate his theory and findings.
Zheng He’s voyages of exploration began in 1405 and
culminated in early 1421
As Yongle emperor’s favorite eunuch, Zheng He was ordered to take Ming’s huge armadas to the unknown world beyond China
On the sixth voyage (1421-22), Zheng He’s ships reached Antarctica, the Arctic, North and South America, Pacific, Australia
Menzies claims that Chinese mariners:
explored the islands of Cape Verde, the Azores, the
Bahamas, and the Falklands
established colonies in Australia, New Zealand, British
Columbia, California, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Rhode Island
introduced horses to the Americas, rice to California,
chickens to South America, coffee to Puerto Rico, South American sloths to Australia, sea otters to New Zealand, and maize to the Philippines.
toured the temples and palaces of the Maya center of
Palenque in Mexico
hunted walruses and smelted copper in Greenland
mined for lead and saltpeter in northern Australia
established trading posts for diamonds along the Amazon and its tributaries
Robert Finlay (Critiques Menzies claims)
the 1421-1423 voyages Menzies describes could not have taken place
Conti played no role in transmitting knowledge of Chinese exploration to European cartographers
all Menzies’s evidence for the presence of the Chinese
fleets abroad is baseless
There were no “missing years” for the Ming fleets
It was odd that Zheng He’s captains completed a voyage of some 17,000 miles in mainly unknown seas in seven months, while Zheng He took the same amount of time to journey about 3,500 miles from Sumatra to Nanjing.
His undocumented estimate of 4.8 knots for the global cruises of the Ming fleets is simply impossible.
Niccolo da Conti’s transmission of Chinese geographical knowledge to European cartographers has little plausibility.
It is highly unlikely that the Chinese junks (or any ships at any time) carried specially carved stones for ballast.
Zheng He’s Voyage Dates (1st to 6th) and who was the Emperor
Yongle Emperor’s Zhu Di
1st: 1405-07
2nd: 1407-09
3rd: 1409-11
4th: 1413-15
5th: 1417-19
6th: 1421-22
Zheng He’s Voyage Dates (7th) and who was the Emperor
Xuande emperor (r. 1425-1435)
7th: 1431-33, voyage resumed during Xuande emperor’s reign
With Xuande’s death, Ming rulership turned into complete xenophobia
All voyages of treasure fleets were halted
Overseas trade and travel were banned
Violators were tried as piratesand executed
1st voyage stats (~# of ships, men, destination)
1st voyage: 317 ships, 27,800 men, Champa, Java, Straits of Malacca, Cochin, Calicut on southwest coast of India
2nd voyage stats (~# of ships, men, destination)
2nd voyage: 68 ships, 27,000 men, Calicut for inauguration of new king
3rd voyage stats (~# of ships, men, destination)
3rd voyage: 48 ships, 30,000 troops, visited same places as previous voyages, but assed Ceylon (SriLanka)
4th voyage stats (~# of ships, men, destination)
4th voyage: 63 ships, 28,000 troops, main destination was Hormus on the Persian Gulf
5th voyage stats (~# of ships, men, destination)
5th voyage: trip for heads of state to to return to their homes after visit to the royal court
6th voyage stats (~# of ships, men, destination)
6th voyage: 41 ships to return heads of state to their homeland, Persian Gulf, Red Sea, east coast of Africa
7th voyage stats (~# of ships, men, destination)
Return trip date when?
7th voyage: 100 ships, 27,550 men, ports in South China Sea and Indian Ocean, Aden and
Hormuz.
An auxiliary voyage to Jidda (red Sea) near the cities of Mecca and Medina.
It was on the return trip in 1433 that Zheng He died and was buried at sea, although his official grave still stands in Nanjing, China.
Reasons voyages were halted
Reasons:
■ Costs
– another Mongolian campaign
– war with Annam (northern Vietnam)
– Moved capital from Nanjing to Beijing
■ Internal disasters
– Famines in Shantong and Hunan
– Epidemics in Fujian
– Flooding along Yellow River
■ Political regime change
– Traditional Confucian court advisers gained power over pro- expansionists eunich factions
Ship building technology
Advanced ship-building technique in China enabled Chinese marine engineers to design strong ships that could survive the fiercest storms on the open ocean
Knowledge and capacity of distilling and desalinating sea-water helped voyagers to avoid dehydration
Under Zheng He, fleets were placed under the command of Grand Eunuch Hong Bao, Eunuch Zhou Man, and Admiral Zhou Wen
Chinese fleets numbered nearly two hundred ships—the largest armada the world had ever known
CHINESE-KENYAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT (this section blows… I’d advise doing a read through of the slides to get a bit more)
Zheng He went to this place, first Chinese dude in East Africa from 5th voyage, vaguely similarities from stuff found there links to Chinese ie: porcelain to klins
August 25th, 2010 chinese cultural coin “Yongle Tongbao” relics found, these are coins from Yongle Emperor’s reign
Giraffe’s presented to China in ~1416/1414. China regarded it as “Qilin” a sacred and auspicious animal known as Chinese Unicorn
