1421 & 1434 Columbus discovered America?

[DragoonGuard]

I'd rather read the reviews by accredited historians grounded in the historical method with free access to the best databases and with other peer accepted historians on in their cellphone phonebook.

Those people, the professionals with access to the best resources say the guy is a quack. His maps have been revealed as forgeries and his claims are for the most part unsupported by anything but other unsupported work.

The best data bases contain everything that Menzies has put together.

Its just that the Academics (as usual) will never diverge from historical dogma.


You must be one of these people who think the bible is factual in some way.

You are, aren't you.

[DragoonGuard]

What I am trying to tell you is that Zheng Hi's contact with the new world was absolutely minimal and certainly would not have explored the interior of the Americas which is the only way the map could have been made, ie having explored it in person.

He never brought home Aztec or Mayan gold but he did bring home African gold. And if he did visit the interior, he would have spread plague much like the Spaniards did centuries later.

Most certainly, his ships were full of rats, themselves were germ carriers. So, even if Zheng He did not visit the interior, his rats would have done the deed all the same.

Contact between the Old World and the New World was a disaster for the people of the New World. The best example that Zheng He did not visit the new world is that no one blames him for the die off when the Spaniards came.

'most certainly his ships were full of rats' ?

Their junks were full of plants/herbs/dogs (food)/ Rats? doubt it, they were that good at kiting out a vessel for long voyages. They grew their own herbs aboard ship.
Thats why their men never suffered from the likes of scurvy, or any other type of vitamin deficiency, - These people were hundreds of years ahead of anybody else on the planet at this time.

These guys did not go deep in to where they landed, - They were too busy mapping the globe. Their objective was to make contact with every/any/all kindoms on the planet, and oblige them to trade with China.

[Tarek Morgen]

right now there is only one person that defends a certain books against all common sense, and said person is not zraver..

There have been several rational arguments against the claim that China discovered America, you failed to disprove a single one of them and instead attack those who dare to disagree...so tell me..why did you open this thread? Clearly not to discuss the book, since you are apparrantly unable to do so in any serious manner..

edit: when they did not go too deep..how did they get details from the INTERIOR?

And how could they draw a map in the year 1418 that included a continent that they, as you claim, discovered 1421???

[Officer of Engineers]

Their junks were full of plants/herbs/dogs (food)/ Rats? doubt it,

It was not intentional. Rats have a way of finding holes to hide in on ships.

These guys did not go deep in to where they landed, - They were too busy mapping the globe. Their objective was to make contact with every/any/all kindoms on the planet, and oblige them to trade with China.

Zheng Hi fought wars. And if there is one thing that he was obliged to bring home was silver and gold - to pay for the fleet.

[zraver]

The best data bases contain everything that Menzies has put together.

If it did he would not be using forgeries.

Its just that the Academics (as usual) will never diverge from historical dogma.

Really, you don't know much about the revisionist school. Not the type of revision of your guy, but the school that is seeking out and recording the history of the other side which produces a more complete view than the Euro-centric versions of the past.

You must be one of these people who think the bible is factual in some way.

You are, aren't you.

In fact much of the bible has been proven as a factual retelling of the actual times involved dealing with multiple ancient empires, their breadth and manner and other things of historical significance. As history the bible is very accurate in some areas.

[Parihaka]

What I am trying to tell you is that Zheng Hi's contact with the new world was absolutely minimal and certainly would not have explored the interior of the Americas which is the only way the map could have been made, ie having explored it in person.

He never brought home Aztec or Mayan gold but he did bring home African gold. And if he did visit the interior, he would have spread plague much like the Spaniards did centuries later.

Most certainly, his ships were full of rats, themselves were germ carriers. So, even if Zheng He did not visit the interior, his rats would have done the deed all the same.

Contact between the Old World and the New World was a disaster for the people of the New World. The best example that Zheng He did not visit the new world is that no one blames him for the die off when the Spaniards came.

Ah science. Game, set, match.

[Triple C]

Gavin Menzies is a hack and a known forger of evidences and documents. His last great archeological discovery was Chinese stone anchors he collected in the sea beds near California which he claims to have originated from Ming China. Of course, a more historically minded scholar would point out that in the nineteenth century California was teeming with Chinese emigrants, many of them subsequently took to the seas. Coincidentally, the anchors he found was of the nineteenth-century style. He also discovered a Chinese map that he used to buttress his thesis, which turned out to be something drawn by the Jesuits during Qing Dynasty. Ouch!

No one has successfully found any document or inscription in China that celebrates the discovery of a new continent. What the Confucian literati destroyed during the purge of the eunuchs were state archives and plenty of histories from other sources remain to refute Menzie's claims. Zheng He left in his ancestral shrine a stone monument commemorating his adventures at sea, with a long inscription of what his deeds and what he had seen, yet none of the exotic lands described in the inscription matched America.

Menzies's experience with submarines bears no relevance to his knowledge of seafaring in wooden ships by wind. An obvious problem with his theory is that Chinese junks sail by monsoon, their exclusive use of the square sail limiting them to sail only with not against the wind. There is no monsoon wind powerful enough to move ships in the western hemisphere. To reach America without contradicting the timetable of Zheng He's expedition, the junk fleet must complete a super humanly speedy journey westwards around the contours of Africa under gales lethal to ships without keels. If Zheng He pushed through, his fleet would have suffered crippling losses and there would be both documentary evidence and shipwrecks. Menzies had failed to found any.

And by the way... I read the book. And it took me two years to forget that rubbish. It's one of the only books I have voluntarily thrown away.

[DragoonGuard]

Why does everybody want to trash Menzies?

Its not like China is going to lay claim to anywhere is it?

Might be a crap thread, but its got entertainment value........Sorry for bringing back the memory of it BTW.

[Steezy]

The Vikings went to North America long before all of this. They just didn't really leave their mark or make a big deal about it, the same goes to any other group of people that went to the Americas before Columbus. The reason history credits it to Columbus and the Portugese/Spanish is because they're the one's that actually started to do something with their discovery.

[DragoonGuard]

Its the far East,Austrailia, Newzeland, and what was all charted in the pacific by the Chinese that is most interesting.

[astralis]

dragoon,

as someone whom has read the book and has an academic/working background in china, i ask you, why do you put so much faith in a book that's the equivalent to the Da Vinci Code?

[DragoonGuard]

Faith? - Just an open mind. I suppose not being American also makes me less bias too. (given the subject)

[astralis]

dragoon,

I suppose not being American also makes me less bias too. (given the subject)

how so? i'm taiwanese-american with a background in chinese studies/history, and it's clear just by looking at the footnotes how sketchy his evidence is.

you mention how academics ignore the book from historical "dogma" alone-- one thing you should know about the academic community is that there's not really a "dogma". the academic community, especially on something so subjective as a social science, is riven by factions and personalities, particularly as everyone seeks the next hot interpretation that means a research grant or a fellowship chair. that means there is an enormous pressure for academics to refine and improve old ideas, or better yet, overturn them.

that no serious academic group has coalensced around menzies' thoughts, which are controversial to say the least, shows how weak his arguments are.

[diablo49]

You 'read up on this' Where? the two bollocks URL's you just pasted?

LMAO!

no need to be so defensive ;). I merely did a cursory search on the book as it was a quite surprising theory to me. I read about the gist of it, read the criticisms, and agreed with the criticisms and left it at that. If those criticisms I read are not valid, than why is his work considered unreliable at best by the scientific community? It is up to him to prove his theory, and he has yet to do so. That he is now bringing up a seperate theory on China being the catalyst for the beginning of the Rennaissance or something by visiting the pope without getting the community to accept his first theory of China sailing to America first does not bode well for him in my book.


You surely understand these days that just saying "internet website lol", calling them crap, and dismissing them does not automatically mean the information on them is without merit. Perhaps you could explain why I should rather read the author than the multiple criticisms of his book(s) to determine how valid he is?

[DragoonGuard]

'Gist'?