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submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Rowan Gavin Paton Menzies (14 August 1937 – 12 April 2020)[1][2][3] was a British submarine lieutenant-commander who authored books claiming that the Chinese sailed to America before Columbus. Historians have rejected Menzies' theories and assertions[4][5][6][7][8]: 367–372 and have categorised his work as pseudohistory.[9][10][11]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Menzies

[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 months ago (2 children)

The Haida and other native groups of coastal BC have no record of Zheng He's voyage.

And because his ships weren't capable of handling the open ocean, the only way he'd be able to do such a trip is by hugging the coast, so they'd have absolutely seen them.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago

Mansa Muhammad's travel is also considered to never have reached the Americas, if it even happened in the first place

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I'd never heard about this "Zheng He in America" thing before, so I just did a little reading about it. One thing I read said he supposedly sailed around Africa and to the east coast of America, which is even more implausible.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

They did sail to Africa. They picked up giraffes and shit and brought them back to China. They intervened in local conflicts like "both of you lose! China wins! Give tribute."

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Sure, I'm not saying I doubted that part. The part that apparently doesn't have real evidence and thus seems implausible is the notion that they continued all the way around the Cape of Good Hope and across the Atlantic.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

They didnt have to sail to Africa per say. By the time of those trips, there had been a reliable trade network for more than 1500 years stretching from Africa up through the Middle East into India.

I don't doubt that it'd be possible to harbour hop those boats down to Africa, but they only needed to go as far as India/Persia to connect.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

They did sail to Africa. It's well documented in primary and secondary sources. They made a map with Africa on it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Kun_map

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Yes, but there is still doubt:

It has also been suggested by J.J.L. Duyvendak and Paul Pelliot that the map may have been partly based on Arab nautical charts.[10]