During the formative years of the Ming Dynasty the Chinese government dispatched hundreds of gigantic ships, some over 400 feet long, into the ocean. The enterprise was dubbed Zheng He’s Seven Voyages to the Western Ocean because the Ming fleets, led by the legendary Admiral Zheng He (pronounced in American English as Jung Huh, and alternately spelled Cheng Ho under the Wade-Giles system), went to sea altogether seven times. After twenty-seven years these maritime expeditions mysteriously and abruptly stopped. To date no scholar is entirely certain of the reasons behind the undertaking. Although practically unknown in the West, these events made indelible impressions on the Southeastern Asian cultures. Today Admiral Zheng He is looked upon as a god and is worshipped in temples not just in China, but throughout Southeast Asia. 2005 celebrated the 600th anniversary of the Ming Chinese inauguration of their monumental maritime excursions, and scholars have renewed their interest in the historical events. There are speculations and assertions that the Ming fleets actually went beyond the Indian Ocean and sailed to as far as America and, perhaps, beyond —all before Christopher Columbus embarked on his momentous voyages. However, researchers seem to be able to neither prove their hypotheses nor disprove them. In any case, it does seem odd that the Chinese, with their superior naval technology and imperial ambitions, would choose to confine their activities to local waters. Nevertheless, to prove that they did sail on to international waters one needs to be grounded in solid evidence because the suggestion challenges centuries of established historical orthodoxy. Historian/researcher Chao C. Chien, writing under the penname Anatole Andro, believes that if such evidence exists, it will have to be European evidence to make the case. By leaving the Indian Ocean the Chinese would be entering European territory, so to speak. If confirmation to this effect cannot be established, it will not only fail to prove that the Chinese had sailed outside their local waters, but to the contrary, it would be as good as proof that the Ming Chinese never went beyond their traditional sphere of interest, per historical status quo. For two and a half years Mr. Chien searched for such evidence, examining each piece of suspected artifact that came across his path and following up on every lead. Not only was he able to uncover such evidence, he found it to be widespread. Further, scholars had examined such evidence and have discarded, ignored, or obscured it. To top it off, Mr. Chien finds the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that not only had the Chinese circumnavigated the world, they reached its extremities perhaps even before the Ming. No doubt (as suggested by such evidence) Columbus and his fellow explorers sailed on Chinese navigational directions, and Renaissance European cartographers created their new maps of the world based on new geographical data of Chinese origin. To view a synopsis of the thesis click here. For the first time this evidence is documented in the bookThe 1421 Heresy and the approximately hour-long documentary DVD Pre-Columbian Chinese Exploration of the World, Evidence Presentation, which presents a comprehensive analysis of the evidence, from which Mr. Chien draws a logical but startling conclusion—besides confirming that the Chinese indeed circumnavigated the world and mapped it before the great European explorers. |