Aaaaaand Gavin Menzies comes out with his next work of fiction in 3... 2... 1...

ALIENS!

Considering that there is a legitimate argument that Chinese sailors reached South America via the Cape of Good Hope, and possibly by the Pacific Rim to San Fransisco Bay, a belt buckle reaching Alaska isn't anything close to impossible.

GAT_00: Considering that there is a legitimate argument that Chinese sailors reached South America via the Cape of Good Hope, and possibly by the Pacific Rim to San Fransisco Bay

No, not really. Those arguments are made on simply awful analysis.

vygramul: GAT_00: Considering that there is a legitimate argument that Chinese sailors reached South America via the Cape of Good Hope, and possibly by the Pacific Rim to San Fransisco Bay

No, not really. Those arguments are made on simply awful analysis.

There's nothing conclusive there, I admit, but it isn't dismissible out of hand.

GAT_00: vygramul: GAT_00: Considering that there is a legitimate argument that Chinese sailors reached South America via the Cape of Good Hope, and possibly by the Pacific Rim to San Fransisco Bay

No, not really. Those arguments are made on simply awful analysis.

There's nothing conclusive there, I admit, but it isn't dismissible out of hand.

Not until I started reading the "evidence". 1421 was interesting, suspicious, and finally outright bullshiat about halfway through the book. This was solidified by a professional Chinese translator (that is, he's Chinese and translates into English) who said that the interpretations of the Chinese documents were always literal, the worst being the number "10000" which also just means "a lot".

To illustrate this, he gave me a gift of some reproduction Chinese currency from the era. It was about the size of a small cell-phone, and the Chinese characters on the side read, "Pure Gold, 10,000 ounces." Yet 1421 consistently used "10,000" to mean "10,000".

That's just the tip of the iceberg. There are some interesting anomalies, but nothing even remotely approaching a supportable theory that the Chinese traveled nearly so extensively.

vygramul: GAT_00: vygramul: GAT_00: Considering that there is a legitimate argument that Chinese sailors reached South America via the Cape of Good Hope, and possibly by the Pacific Rim to San Fransisco Bay

No, not really. Those arguments are made on simply awful analysis.

There's nothing conclusive there, I admit, but it isn't dismissible out of hand.

Not until I started reading the "evidence". 1421 was interesting, suspicious, and finally outright bullshiat about halfway through the book. This was solidified by a professional Chinese translator (that is, he's Chinese and translates into English) who said that the interpretations of the Chinese documents were always literal, the worst being the number "10000" which also just means "a lot".

To illustrate this, he gave me a gift of some reproduction Chinese currency from the era. It was about the size of a small cell-phone, and the Chinese characters on the side read, "Pure Gold, 10,000 ounces." Yet 1421 consistently used "10,000" to mean "10,000".

That's just the tip of the iceberg. There are some interesting anomalies, but nothing even remotely approaching a supportable theory that the Chinese traveled nearly so extensively.

I haven't read that actual book, it was evidence the book was created from or commentary made after. I didn't see anything like that at any rate.

It isn't like such travel was completely out of their range. They made it to Mogadishu. The hard part was past them.

You underestimate the difficulty of that trip. Especially since the hard part is getting around the Cape, not getting to the Horn.

vygramul: You underestimate the difficulty of that trip. Especially since the hard part is getting around the Cape, not getting to the Horn.

Exactly. It's one of the reasons why Europe was interested in a Western route. Anything had to be easier than that.

vygramul: You underestimate the difficulty of that trip. Especially since the hard part is getting around the Cape, not getting to the Horn.

You're also comparing the difficulty of passage in comparatively tiny ships to the Chinese Treasure Fleet. Yeah it's a bear even now, but those early caravels had a far harder time than the gigantic Chinese ships could have had.

belt buckles don't freak me out. the Antikythera mechanism on the other hand - that freaks me out.

There's a straight answer that I believe has Bering on this question

vygramul: To illustrate this, he gave me a gift of some reproduction Chinese currency from the era. It was about the size of a small cell-phone, and the Chinese characters on the side read, "Pure Gold, 10,000 ounces." Yet 1421 consistently used "10,000" to mean "10,000".

Are you sure? Chinese currency of the type I assume you are talking about (the sycee) are defined by weight, and I don't think there were any sycees with actual stamped denominations. And in any case, because the currency was fixed by weight and not by stamped denomination, I find it pretty unlikely that a sycee would have the inscription "Pure gold, 10,000 ounces" stamped on it.

And in any case, 10,000 Chinese ounces (or taels) is roughly equivalent to 1,102.5 pounds, which would hardly fit into something the size of a small cell-phone.

Then again, I'm no numismatist. My uncle's got a massive collection of Chinese currency and coinage dating back a thousand years or so, I should ask him. He would know.

vygramul: To illustrate this, he gave me a gift of some reproduction Chinese currency from the era. It was about the size of a small cell-phone, and the Chinese characters on the side read, "Pure Gold, 10,000 ounces." Yet 1421 consistently used "10,000" to mean "10,000".

Thought #2: Is it possible that he didn't give you reproduction currency and instead gave you a burnable sycee used for funeral purposes? Those things are regularly stamped with massive denominations because they're offerings for the dead. More or less the same thing as hell money.

ArkAngel: There's a straight answer that I believe has Bering on this question

GAT_00: vygramul: You underestimate the difficulty of that trip. Especially since the hard part is getting around the Cape, not getting to the Horn.

You're also comparing the difficulty of passage in comparatively tiny ships to the Chinese Treasure Fleet. Yeah it's a bear even now, but those early caravels had a far harder time than the gigantic Chinese ships could have had.

A few weeks ago I went to a lecture by Charles C. Mann, the journalist/historian who wrote 1491 about America pre-Columbus and just came out with the book 1493 about the Columbian exchange. During the lecture he mentioned the Chinese thing briefly but pointed out there really is no serious evidence they went much further- in practical terms there was nothing the rest of the world had that they wanted, hence no motivation for them to keep pouring so much money into the project. Sort of like how Americans couldn't justify going to the moon when there was nothing there at such an expense.

1493 really is an amazing book for anyone interested in stuff like this btw, and I quite recommend it. For example, did you know that there was a mountain of silver in South America that the Spanish mined, and that was the first thing Europe had that China also wanted? Or that over half the original colonists in Jamestown died within a year off the boat because some of the first settlers brought malaria over with them? Amazing stuff.

RexTalionis: vygramul: To illustrate this, he gave me a gift of some reproduction Chinese currency from the era. It was about the size of a small cell-phone, and the Chinese characters on the side read, "Pure Gold, 10,000 ounces." Yet 1421 consistently used "10,000" to mean "10,000".

Are you sure? Chinese currency of the type I assume you are talking about (the sycee) are defined by weight, and I don't think there were any sycees with actual stamped denominations. And in any case, because the currency was fixed by weight and not by stamped denomination, I find it pretty unlikely that a sycee would have the inscription "Pure gold, 10,000 ounces" stamped on it.

And in any case, 10,000 Chinese ounces (or taels) is roughly equivalent to 1,102.5 pounds, which would hardly fit into something the size of a small cell-phone.

Then again, I'm no numismatist. My uncle's got a massive collection of Chinese currency and coinage dating back a thousand years or so, I should ask him. He would know.

Um, that's the point. 10,000 doesn't actually mean 10,000. It also just means "a lot".

Shostie: vygramul: You underestimate the difficulty of that trip. Especially since the hard part is getting around the Cape, not getting to the Horn.

Exactly. It's one of the reasons why Europe was interested in a Western route. Anything had to be easier than that.

So when you said the Cinese fleet got to Mogadishu, and they had yet to get around the Cape, why did you say they had the hard part done?

GAT_00: vygramul: You underestimate the difficulty of that trip. Especially since the hard part is getting around the Cape, not getting to the Horn.

You're also comparing the difficulty of passage in comparatively tiny ships to the Chinese Treasure Fleet. Yeah it's a bear even now, but those early caravels had a far harder time than the gigantic Chinese ships could have had.

See the 10,000 error again. He's making mistakes about the ship sizes partly due to the notes that they could carry 10,000 pots. They were large, yes. But not as large as Menzies convinced himself they were.

A good debunking of the book was written by Robert Fnlay in the Journal of World History in 2004. This exerpt pretty much sums up the problem:

"Menzies flouts the basic rules of both historical study and elementary logic. He misrepresents the scholarship of others, and he frequently fails to cite those from whom he borrows.1 He misconstrues Chinese imperial policy, especially as seen in the expeditions of Zheng He, and his extensive discussion of Western cartography reads like a parody of scholarship. His allegations regarding Nicolò di Conti (c. 1385-1469), the only figure in 1421 who links the Ming voyages with European events, are the stuff of historical fiction, the product of an obstinate misrepresentation of sources. The author's misunderstanding of the technology of Zheng He's ships impels him to depict voyages no captain would attempt and no mariner could survive, including a 4,000-mile excursion along the Arctic circle and circumnavigation of the Pacific after having already sailed more than 42,000 miles from China to West Africa, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines (pp. 199-209, 311)"

When someone makes absurd claims based on truly bad analysis, it should bring everyhing they wrote into question, even stuff that isn't appallingly stupid on its face.

You know when I stopped reading? The photos in the middle of the book. I don't know if you recall, but there's a formation in the Caribbean that look remarkably like square blocks of stone. Before 1421 was published, it was proven to be a natural formation. Menzies was not deterred from CONCLUDING, not hypothesizing or saying it would have made good evidence, that the formation was PROOF of a Chinese settlement in the Caribbean.

The caption said so.

I closed the book, having finally given up on finding anything useful in it, and realizing that the stupid outweighed the entertainment of an alternate history even Turtledove would think is absurd.

BolloxReader: Back to theTFA, if anyone still cares about that... back in anthropology classes there were a couple of articles we read that talked about a trans-arctic society that united the Inuit in North America with their brethren and sistren in Asia and Europe in historical times. People (including some academics) are quick to underestimate what low-technology cultures are capable of.

The most impressive feats of navigation were conducted by Polynesian peoples. Sea-going canoes were hardly the most robust of vessels, yet they achieved navigational successes that are just staggering to contemplate.

vygramul: Um, that's the point. 10,000 doesn't actually mean 10,000. It also just means "a lot".

Well, my point is that the currency wasn't denominated by printed value, so it'd make no sense to put 10,000 on it anyway, since the value is denoted by weight. Secondly, I don't think there was anything like a sycee that would be valued at 10,000 taels. Even the largest imperial sycees wouldn't be that big.

I think you were shown something else - an exaggerated sycee used for offerings for the dead rather than an actual piece of currency.

GAT_00: vygramul: GAT_00: Considering that there is a legitimate argument that Chinese sailors reached South America via the Cape of Good Hope, and possibly by the Pacific Rim to San Fransisco Bay

No, not really. Those arguments are made on simply awful analysis.

There's nothing conclusive there, I admit, but it isn't dismissible out of hand.

You give the same weight to the Laffer Curve then, right?

vygramul: Um, that's the point. 10,000 doesn't actually mean 10,000. It also just means "a lot".

Anyone who's read somewhat literal translations of the I Ching or the Dao De Ching knows that. "The ten thousand things" gets mentioned everywhere.

theorellior: vygramul: Um, that's the point. 10,000 doesn't actually mean 10,000. It also just means "a lot".

Anyone who's read somewhat literal translations of the I Ching or the Dao De Ching knows that. "The ten thousand things" gets mentioned everywhere.

Well, count Menzies among those who didn't read the literal translations, or took "10,000 things" to be absolutely literal.

RexTalionis: vygramul: Um, that's the point. 10,000 doesn't actually mean 10,000. It also just means "a lot".

Well, my point is that the currency wasn't denominated by printed value, so it'd make no sense to put 10,000 on it anyway, since the value is denoted by weight. Secondly, I don't think there was anything like a sycee that would be valued at 10,000 taels. Even the largest imperial sycees wouldn't be that big.

I think you were shown something else - an exaggerated sycee used for offerings for the dead rather than an actual piece of currency.

It's almost beside the point. The "10,000" is meant to convey "a lot" - not literally 10,000.

vygramul: It's almost beside the point. The "10,000" is meant to convey "a lot" - not literally 10,000.

It's like when you say, "There were a million people at the party."

vygramul: It's almost beside the point. The "10,000" is meant to convey "a lot" - not literally 10,000.

I understand, I'm just objecting at the numismatic example you provided. The coinage example just doesn't make sense to me at all.

mmagdalene: theorellior: vygramul: It's almost beside the point. The "10,000" is meant to convey "a lot" - not literally 10,000.

It's like when you say, "There were a million people at the party."

Or "40 days and 40 nights"' or "Ali Baba and the 40,000 Thieves".

Isn't Menzies writing about the crime wave that shook the peninsula in medieval times?

And didn't he claim that we know for a fact it can rain 362 inches an hour because it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and it covered the earth?