Ming Chinese in America before Pontevedra's finest?

Discussion in 'All Things Boats & Boating' started by Pericles, Dec 13, 2014.

  1. Pericles
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    Pericles Senior Member

  2. Leo Lazauskas
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    Leo Lazauskas Senior Member

    Gavin Menzies did a terrific job in popularizing the voyages of Zhang He
    around the Indian Ocean.
    Unfortunately, he then resorted to complete bs, made up a whole lot of
    evidence, and resorted to outright lies. That was a thoroughly despicable
    performance and he has been rightly condemned as a charlatan for that
    aspect of his book.
     
  3. Pericles
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    Pericles Senior Member

    The more we think we know.............

    Leo,

    The Schurmann family are setting out to follow the routes that Gavin Menzies has postulated for the Zheng He fleets. That's a huge "Put your money where your mouth is" financial commitment. The palace eunuchs had nearly all the records of those voyages systematically destroyed during the reigns of the Hongxi & Xuande emperors. Chinese envoys sailed into the Indian Ocean from the late 2nd century BC, and reportedly reached India & even Ethiopia.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_exploration

    I read GM's first book in 2003 & have kept up with the later developments. I keep an open mind, because as Richard Feynman said, "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts".

    http://io9.com/does-this-map-prove-that-china-discovered-america-befor-1442911790

    About 5 years ago anthropologists categorically stated that Homo sapiens sapiens & Neanderthals did not interbreed. 30 months ago my youngest son & I had our DNA analysed for our amusement. 3% of his genes are Neanderthal & 2.4% of mine are, but that is only because our ancestry is European. His mother's line was traced back to a Danish woman migrant to Northumberland circa 900 AD. She lived in the Danelaw & as we have sons, that direct maternal descent over 1,100 years will be terminated.

    Experts were convinced that comets are composed of loose collections of ice, dust & small rocky particles & could have brought water to Earth.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(spacecraft)

    Nice theory, but on 10th December 2014 came the announcement that the composition of water vapour from comet 67P, as determined by the Rosetta spacecraft, is substantially different from that found on Earth. That is, the ratio of deuterium to hydrogen in the water from the comet was determined to be three times that found for terrestrial water. This makes it very unlikely that water found on Earth came from comets such as comet 67P according to the scientists.

    https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2014/12/12/16789/

    There there is the Xmas story. On foot it's 163 kms from Nazareth to Bethlehem in Judea & would take about 34 hours nonstop. It's 13.8 kms from Nazareth to Bethlehem in the Galilee & can be walked in fewer than 3 hours. Who would put their almost full term wife on a donkey? Only an ***?

    http://www.religioustolerance.org/xmaswwjb.htm

    The following is a list of QI facts there were given in good faith but have now since been proved to have been wrong:

    - In Series I, it was said that nobody knows how to tell the age of a lobster. Now Canadian scientists have discovered that you can tell the age, by dissecting their eye stalks and counting the rings.
    - In Series G, it was claimed that giraffes may have evolved their long necks to fight each other, but zoologists no longer believe in this hypothesis.
    - In Series A, the millipede with the most legs had 710, but now a longer one with 750 legs has been discovered.

    http://www.comedy.co.uk/guide/tv/qi/episodes/11/7/

    The passage of time makes liars of us all.:(

    Perry
     
  4. Leo Lazauskas
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    Leo Lazauskas Senior Member

    I read it when it came out and, as I said, I was impressed that he popularized
    a great Chinese achievement. He has though been caught out lying and
    making up evidence. There are some very embarrassing interviews with him
    in which he is very evasive and refuses to answer questions. Why would he
    do that if he had hard evidence?

    I don't doubt the huge financial commitment, but it won't prove anything,
    just as the Kon-Tiki expedition didn't prove much.
    What is required is hard evidence and artifacts of Chinese origin, like they
    have found in East Africa. Menzies has none and none have been found by others.
    I'm sure that the Chinese would love to find evidence too, but even the
    vast majority of their historians and archaeologists think that Menzies is a sham.

    Your other examples, while entertaining "what-abouts" of how science works
    have nothing to do with the actual topic of the Chinese expedition reaching America.
    If you want to engage in "what-aboutery", how about the fact that Menzies
    has been declared a vexatious litigator, an honour usually reserved for
    nutters?

    Keep an open mind, by all means, but don't let your brain fall out! :)
     
  5. Leo Lazauskas
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    Leo Lazauskas Senior Member

    I love this exchange from a 2006 show about Menzies' work...

    QUENTIN MCDERMOTT: There is one final, bizarre twist to this story.
    One abiding mystery is why, if Zheng He's mariners encircled the
    globe, they never popped up in Europe? But now Gavin Menzies has
    provided us with the answer. He says they did visit Europe and
    brought with them a set of underclothes for Henry V. Imagine the
    scene. A massive 400ft junk navigating its way up the Thames
    behind me, watched, opened-mouthed from the banks by hundreds of
    the king's subjects. You would have thought, wouldn't you, that
    someone, somewhere, would have recorded this astonishing event?

    There aren't any records of the fleet coming and meeting Henry V.

    GAVIN MENZIES, AUTHOR: No, not yet, no, I accept that...yeah.

    http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1702333.htm
     
  6. philSweet
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    philSweet Senior Member

    from wiki -
     
  7. Pericles
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    Pericles Senior Member

    Undergarment??? They knowest not wot fits in the king's nether regions.

    Leo

    Where did the Dauphin get his Real Tennis balls from, with which he insulted Henry V, according to W. Shakespeare? The Chinese of course. :p

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuZI9zgY4wM

    First Ambassador

    Thus, then, in few.
    Your highness, lately sending into France,
    Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right
    Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.
    In answer of which claim, the prince our master
    Says that you savour too much of your youth,
    And bids you be advised there's nought in France
    That can be with a nimble galliard won;
    You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
    He therefore sends you, metier for your spirit,
    This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,
    Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim
    Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.

    KING HENRY V

    What treasure, uncle?

    EXETER

    Tennis-balls, my liege.

    KING HENRY V

    We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
    His present and your pains we thank you for:
    When we have march'd our rackets to these balls,
    We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set
    Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
    Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
    That all the courts of France will be disturb'd
    With chaces. And we understand him well,
    How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,
    Not measuring what use we made of them.
    We never valued this poor seat of England;
    And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
    To barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common
    That men are merriest when they are from home.
    But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,
    Be like a king and show my sail of greatness
    When I do rouse me in my throne of France:
    For that I have laid by my majesty
    And plodded like a man for working-days,
    But I will rise there with so full a glory
    That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
    Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
    And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
    Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones; and his soul
    Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
    That shall fly with them: for many a thousand widows
    Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands;
    Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;
    And some are yet ungotten and unborn
    That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn.
    But this lies all within the will of God,
    To whom I do appeal; and in whose name
    Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on,
    To venge me as I may and to put forth
    My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.
    So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin
    His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
    When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.
    Convey them with safe conduct. Fare you well.

    Exeunt Ambassadors
     
  8. Leo Lazauskas
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    Leo Lazauskas Senior Member

    Though this be madness, yet there is method in it. - Hamlet.

    You have to admit, Menzies certainly is methodical :p


    QUENTIN MCDERMOTT:
    He said, didn't he, in his first edition that the equator was further north in
    Ming times?

    CAPT PHIL RIVERS, MASTER MARINER: Yes. Well, of course, I mean, this is
    nonsense. He's got an equator that wobbles about like a hula hoop.

    GAVIN MENZIES, AUTHOR: I think that was badly written, actually, I accept
    that - badly written by me.
     
  9. Pericles
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    Pericles Senior Member

    In 1972 the late Dr. Hendon M. Harris, Jr. made a discovery. Whilst searching for Chinese collectibles he came across an ancient Asian map book containing a world map showing a land mass labelled "Fu Sang" to the east of China, land that we today call America. Harris, a third generation missionary, was born in Kaifeng, China to American parents. He learned both Chinese and English at a very early age. He was familiar with the Chinese classics which down through the centuries discussed Fu Sang in detail. Most Chinese today believe that Fu Sang was just myth, but was it? Harris' introductions to the maps, Chinese classics, and the similarities of American Indians to Chinese give new insights to this topic.

    http://www.asiaticfathers.com/

    http://www.ancientamerican.com/aa/index.php/about-ancient-american

    Six years ago, A replica Ming Dynasty junk sailed from Keelung, Taiwan to San Francisco. It was rammed by the Champion Express, a 650-foot Liberian-flagged Norwegian chemical tanker, near the Su Ao Harbor in northeastern Taiwan, 20–30 miles from the end of its voyage back in Keelung.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Taiping_(sailing_vessel)

    At the time of the sinking, a similar replica of a Ming Dynasty vessel was under construction in Tainan.

    http://myweb.ncku.edu.tw/~chenjh/mypaper/ISBSA12.pdf

    This replica named "Taiwan Cheng Kung" set sail from Anping Harbour on Saturday 4th December 2010 and travelled to the estuary of Luermen Creek in Taiwan.

    http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2010/12/05/2003490164

    http://english.cntv.cn/program/cultureexpress/20101207/104030.shtml
     
  10. Leo Lazauskas
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    Leo Lazauskas Senior Member

    It seems worth investigating if there is some documentary evidence.
    However, it has absolutely nothing to do with Gavin Menzies and his
    claim that the Ming Chinese made it to America via Africa, and dropping in to
    London to present Henry V with a pair of undies. :)
     
  11. Guillermo
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    Guillermo Ingeniero Naval

    Cristobal Colón

    I know very little about the Chinese's world exploring achivements other than they went all the way along India to the East coast of Africa.

    But I know a little bit more about Cristóbal Colón (written like that, not Christopher Columbus, Cristoforo Colombo, Christophorus Columbus or whatever), as I am the secretary of the Association "Cristóbal Colón Gallego, Celso García de la Riega" https://cristobalcolongallego.wordpress.com/

    Most likely Cristóbal Colón was born in San Salvador de Poio, a tiny village at the other bank of the river Lérez in Pontevedra, where I live. There are several clues to that:

    1.- Colón always wrote his own family name precisely like that, "Colón"
    2.- he wrote in spanish with lots of Galician words, not Italian ones,
    3.- he gave Galician south coast's names to hundreds of geographic accidents in the caribbean islands he discovered (being the very first one precisely the island of San Salvador),
    4.- in the cathedral close to my home there is a XV century bas-relief in stone naming Juan de Colón, the same name that appeared at the basement of the crossroads at the entrance of the Colón Museum (said to be his birth place),
    5.- the descendants of Colón documentarily owned properties in San Salvador de Poio, etc, etc.

    There are several hipothesis about his origin (France, Portugal, Galicia, Balearics, Italy...) but the less consistent is the Italian hipothesis. So,as Perry says we can all be fooled for a long time about this kind of histories.

    Cheers.
     

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  12. Leo Lazauskas
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    Leo Lazauskas Senior Member

    We definitely can. :)
    Hypotheses about Columbus deserve to be examined because they have
    some historical grounding that can be used as a starting point.
    The problem with Menzies is that he lies and makes up nonsense in order to sell books.
    He is now in the same category of weirdos who believe in the hollow-Earth
    theory and that Reptoids live under Antarctica.
     

  13. Rurudyne
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    Rurudyne Senior Member

    Heh ... everyone knows it's really Crabpeople!
     
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