Gavin Menzies - 1421: The Year China Discovered America

About the Book

On 8 March 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China. The ships, some nearly five hundred feet long, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Dis loyal eunuch admirals. Their orders were to proceed all the way to the end of the earth.

The voyage would last for two years and by the time the fleet returned, China was beginning its long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently embraced. And so the great ships were left to rot, and the records of their journey destroyed. And with them, the knowledge that the Chinese had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan, reached America seventy years before Columbus, and Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook.

The result of fifteen years research, 1421 is Gavin Menzies enthralling account of this remarkable journey, of his discoveries and persuasive evidence to support them: ancient maps, precise navigational knowledge, astronomy, surviving accounts of Chinese explorers and later European navigators as well as the traces the fleet left behind from sunken remains to votive offerings left by the Chinese sailors wherever they landed, giving thanks to Shao Lin, goddess of the sea.

Revised and updated with new material including evidence of an entire Chinese fleet wrecked on New Zealands South Island 1421 is a brilliant, epoch-making work of historical detection that radically alters our understanding of world exploration and rewrites history itself.

CONTENTS

This book is dedicated to my beloved wife Marcella, who has travelled with
me on the journeys related in this book and through life.

LIST OF MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

. Voyages of the Treasure Fleets, 14213

. East Asia, c.1421

. The voyage to Sofala

. The circulatory winds and currents in the South Atlantic Ocean

. i) The Kangnido map showing Africa

ii) The Kangnido map corrected for longitude

iii) Modern Africa

. The journey to the Cape Verde Islands

. The journey to Tierra del Fuego

. The Piri Reis map compared to modern Patagonia, showing the Straits of Magellan

. The Falkland Islands on the Piri Reis, compared to a modern map

. The journey to Antarctica

. Locating the Southern Cross

. Hong Baos journey to Australia

. Zhou Mans journey to Australia

. Evidence of the visit of the Chinese treasure fleet to Australia

. Auckland and Campbell Islands, as shown on the Jean Rotz map

. The journey around New Zealand

. The routes of Hong Bao and Zhou Man around Australia

. Hong Baos journey home and Zhou Mans journey through the Spice Islands

. The San Francisco Bay area, showing the winds blowing into the Sacramento River

. Evidence of the visit of the Chinese treasure fleet to the Americas

. Zhou Wens journey through the Caribbean

. Guadeloupe shown on the Pizzigano map, compared with a modern map

. Puerto Rico shown on the Pizzigano map, compared with a modern map

. The bays and inlets of Puerto Rico, depicted on the Pizzigano map

. The Cantino map showing the Caribbean and Florida, compared with a modern map

. Locations of unidentified wrecks on the route to Bimini

. The junks approach to Bimini and the Bimini Road

. Zhou Wens journey up the east coast of Florida

. The journey to Rhode Island

. The locations of standing stones in Massachusetts

. The voyage to the Azores and Cape Verde Islands

. The journey around Greenland

. Greenland shown on the Vinland map, compared to a modern map

. Chinese bases across the Pacific Ocean

Diagrams

. Solar eclipse

. Lunar eclipse

. The progression of a lunar eclipse across the Earths surface

LIST OF PICTURES

Ming Emperor Chng-tsu (Zhu Di), anonymous painting on silk, Ming period. National Palace Museum, Taipei.

The Gate of Heavenly Purity, the Forbidden City, Beijing, early 15th century. Werner Forman Archive; the Hall of Harvest Prayer, the Temple of Heaven, early 15th century. Getty Images/Image Bank; the Great Wall near Beijing. Getty Images/Telegraph Colour Library; general view of the Forbidden City from Coal Hill Park, Getty Images/Tony Stone.

Taoist ceramic shrine from Longquan, Zhejiang province, 1406. British Museum; quilin, the Spirit Way. Jane Taylor/Sonia Halliday Photographs; military dignitary, the Spirit Way, Ming tombs, near Beijing. Jane Taylor/Sonia Halliday Photographs; civil dignitary, the Spirit Way. Christine Pemberton/Hutchison Picture Library; kneeling elephant, the Spirit Way. Jane Taylor/Sonia Halliday Photographs.

Blue and white porcelain dish with melon decoration, Ming, Yongle (Zhu Di) period (140324), Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. British Museum; blue and white porcelain flask with lychee decoration, Ming, Yongle (Zhu Di) period (140324), Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. British Museum; jade recumbent dog, 14th or 15th century. Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; mallet-shaped lacquer vase, probably early 15th century. Christies Images; woven silk textile with climbing boys motif, 13th to 15th century. The Textile Gallery, London.

The Tribute Giraffe with Attendant by Shen Tu (13571434), ink and water-colour on silk. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Given by John T. Dorrance.

Fra Mauros map, 1459, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice. Foto Toso.

Kangnido map by Chuan Chin and Li Hui. 1402. Ryukoku University Library; the Cape of Good Hope on a stormy day. Nik Wheeler/Corbis.

Galle stele. Dominic Sansoni; straits of Malacca, Malaysia. Chris Caldicott; Chinese fishing nets at Cochin, Kerala, India. Ancient Art & Architecture Collection; coast of Zanzibar. Chris Caldicott; the fort at Kilwa, Tanzania. Werner Forman Archive; pillar tomb at Kunduchi, Tanzania. Werner Forman Archive.

The Piri Reis map, 1513. Topkapi Museum, Istanbul.

View of the South Orkney Islands, Antarctica. John Noble/Wilderness Photographic Library; a tabular iceberg, South Ocean, Antarctica. John Noble/Wilderness Photographic Library.

Fourteenth-century blue and white porcelain bowl with a phoenix and a quilin cavorting between lotus scrolls, recovered from the Pandanan wreck, Palawan, Philippines. Courtesy of the National Museum of the Philippines.

The Jean Rotz map, 1542. British Library, Department of Maps.

Lacquer chest by Dmaso Ayala Jimnez, 1997, from the collection of Fomento Cultural Banamex, A.C.; Rosa laevigata. Dr Koonlin Tan; bronze cannon; Chinese bronze mirror; coin of Zhu Di (140324); two Central American grinding stones. All recovered from the Pandanan wreck, Palawan, Philippines. Courtesy of the National Museum of the Philippines.

The Waldseemller map, 1507. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

The Pizzigano chart, 1424. James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Guadeloupe: La Souffrire, Basse Terre, and Les Saintes from the sea. Both courtesy Grard Lafleur.

The Vinland map. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven; diver above the Bimini Road. Lynne Sladky/Associated Press; underwater view of the Bimini Road. Wade Pemberton; pyramid, Gumar, Tenerife, Canary Islands. Courtesy Casa Chacona Museum.

Cantino world chart, 1502. Biblioteca Estense, Modena.

Sixteenth-century engraved view of Calicut. Ancient Art & Architecture Collection; detail of a 14th-century Catalan atlas, Bibliothque Nationale, Paris; Christopher Columbus by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (14831561), Museo Navale di Pegli, Genoa.