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(Some Guy)   What interesting events in history are unknown to many? #3 is The Voyages of the Chinese Treasure Fleets. Article asks: What would have happened if the voyages had continued and the Fleet had discovered Europe? Fascinating alternate history. Discuss   (askmeanithing.com) divider line
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    More: Interesting, Mongol Empire, Kublai Khan, Ming dynasty, Zheng He, Mongols, Japan, China, Sri Lanka  
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278 clicks; posted to Discussion » on 07 Feb 2023 at 9:05 AM (6 weeks ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



31 Comments     (+0 »)
View Voting Results: Smartest and Funniest
 
Harlee [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-02-07 8:11:30 AM  
The voyages were from 1405 to 1433 AD. 1430 was, I think, somewhat before the wide use of firearms in Europe.
 
cherryl taggart [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-02-07 8:45:55 AM  
Years ago, National Geographic magazine had an article about these voyages.  What I found stunning was the size of the vessels.  They had a graphic of the Columbus ships compared to the Chinese ships.  It was ridiculous how tiny the mighty European ships were.  While the graphic might have exaggerated it, seeing anything comparable rolling up to any European port would have shocked the landlubbers.
 
vudukungfu [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 9:02:03 AM  
China is capable of eating the planet
 
Rapmaster2000 [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 9:11:56 AM  
When the US was founded, divorce was rare but marriages on average only lasted 7 years because one of the partners died.
 
sinko swimo
2023-02-07 9:52:25 AM  
before there was calendars and language aliens from another planet brought the first prototype of mankind to Earth. most people still don't realize we are organic naturally reproducing limited life super computers. and cats & dogs are tiny dinosaurs that live in our homes and give us much needed affection.
 
FlashHarry [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 9:56:08 AM  

Harlee: The voyages were from 1405 to 1433 AD. 1430 was, I think, somewhat before the wide use of firearms in Europe.


WHY DIDN'T BIDEN SHOOT THEM DOWN THO
 
Marcus Aurelius [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-02-07 10:00:05 AM  
The Wall Street Putsch of 1933, where the people running the country planned to install Smedley Butler as dictator for life.  Fortunately they underestimated the man.
 
Kurohone
2023-02-07 10:01:48 AM  
Kinda hard to discover something they already knew was there.  There were indirect connections between the Romans and the Chinese dating back to the Early Empire, if not earlier, and the Chinese had direct contact with the Greco-Bactrian Kingdoms even before that.

A more interesting question, IMO, would be what if the Mongol's hadn't gained control of the Silk Road?  Without that taste of cheap silk and spices provided in that 100 years or so, would the European powers have had as much incentive to find a new cheap route once it was closed again?
 
Rapmaster2000 [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 10:03:34 AM  

sinko swimo: before there was calendars and language aliens from another planet brought the first prototype of mankind to Earth. most people still don't realize we are organic naturally reproducing limited life super computers. and cats & dogs are tiny dinosaurs that live in our homes and give us much needed affection.


Fark user imageView Full Size
 
Rev.K [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-02-07 10:04:16 AM  
Simon Winchester can explain it better than I.

Go read some Simon Winchester.

Seriously, he is amazing. Pick any of his books, you will learn a lot.
 
FlashHarry [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 10:09:37 AM  

Harlee: The voyages were from 1405 to 1433 AD. 1430 was, I think, somewhat before the wide use of firearms in Europe.


I believe the matchlock was just coming into use but not widely deployed.
 
Mr Kat [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 10:12:23 AM  
It may be I just didn't pay attention in school, but later I was amazed that the British East India Company arguably more or less actually conquered India.  To a modern mind, the fact that a corporation had an army and conquered vast swaths of a continent is fascinating.  Honorable mention:   Jardine Matheson https://www.jardines.com/en started off as an opium smuggler operation in China.
 
FlashHarry [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 10:28:39 AM  

Mr Kat: To a modern mind, the fact that a corporation had an army and conquered vast swaths of a continent is fascinating.


past is prologue. we'll see corporate armies again, I would imagine.
 
bigdanc
2023-02-07 10:58:50 AM  

Kurohone: Kinda hard to discover something they already knew was there.  There were indirect connections between the Romans and the Chinese dating back to the Early Empire, if not earlier, and the Chinese had direct contact with the Greco-Bactrian Kingdoms even before that.

A more interesting question, IMO, would be what if the Mongol's hadn't gained control of the Silk Road?  Without that taste of cheap silk and spices provided in that 100 years or so, would the European powers have had as much incentive to find a new cheap route once it was closed again?


Similar vein, what if the Roman Empire didn't fall in 1453 and scholars who fled to the west never made it (does the renaissance happen in the same way?)
 
SPARC Pile [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-02-07 11:15:07 AM  

bigdanc: Kurohone: Kinda hard to discover something they already knew was there.  There were indirect connections between the Romans and the Chinese dating back to the Early Empire, if not earlier, and the Chinese had direct contact with the Greco-Bactrian Kingdoms even before that.

A more interesting question, IMO, would be what if the Mongol's hadn't gained control of the Silk Road?  Without that taste of cheap silk and spices provided in that 100 years or so, would the European powers have had as much incentive to find a new cheap route once it was closed again?

Similar vein, what if the Roman Empire didn't fall in 1453 and scholars who fled to the west never made it (does the renaissance happen in the same way?)


What would have happened if the Fourth Crusade had not been diverted to attack  Constantinople in 1204 and gutted the city?
 
BeadHack
2023-02-07 11:33:01 AM  

Rev.K: Simon Winchester can explain it better than I.

Go read some Simon Winchester.

Seriously, he is amazing. Pick any of his books, you will learn a lot.


Hope you're right - I looked him up. Ordered his audio book on geology.
 
Rev.K [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-02-07 11:33:47 AM  

BeadHack: Hope you're right - I looked him up. Ordered his audio book on geology.


I've read several of his books and I have enjoyed every single one.

I hope it's good!

Which book is it?
 
Rent Party
2023-02-07 12:04:16 PM  
Kim Stanley-Robinson's "Years of Rice and Salt" covers this in great detail.  It's basically "What would happen if the 14th century plagues that took out 20% of western Europe actually took out 99% of Europe's population, essentially giving you a world without white people in it.

Chinese treasure fleet features prominently in it.  It's a great book.

upload.wikimedia.orgView Full Size
 
Russell_Secord
2023-02-07 12:08:23 PM  
Another interesting alternate history: suppose the Chinese had "discovered" the Americas and started trading with the inhabitants? What if the conquistadors had found the natives as well armed as they were?
 
nartreb
2023-02-07 12:28:34 PM  

Russell_Secord: Another interesting alternate history: suppose the Chinese had "discovered" the Americas and started trading with the inhabitants? What if the conquistadors had found the natives as well armed as they were?


Armament wasn't the issue.  Muskets and sabers and pikes are good weapons, but bows and spears and clubs work too, and the natives had numbers on their side. Plenty of natives had more than enough wherewithal to wipe out the Europeans in a straight fight.  King Phillips' War, for example, was a pretty close thing, and that was a pretty small and almost totally-disorganized coalition of small war bands (though they already had muskets.  In fact, the natives might have been better-armed and better-trained than the European settlers, who were mostly farmers without military experience).    The full might of the Iroquois Confederacy, given proper motivation, would have sent either the English or the French back into the ocean without much doubt.
Europeans succeeded in part through good intelligence and a mix of diplomacy (marrying a chief's daughter) or treachery (e.g., inviting the native leaders to a parley and then massacring them on the spot), but most of all their early footholds were kept safe by arriving on the heels of a wave of disease that massively destabilized native societies.  
Mention should be made of the Cherokee, who tried Christianizing, learning to write, and generally becoming good citizens on the European model.  It did them no good.
We tend to think of Western tribes like the Sioux or the Apache, which both waged lengthy military campaigns against the US Cavalry.  By then, though, the numbers were not in the natives' favor.
 
Rent Party
2023-02-07 1:09:18 PM  

Russell_Secord: Another interesting alternate history: suppose the Chinese had "discovered" the Americas and started trading with the inhabitants? What if the conquistadors had found the natives as well armed as they were?


Rent Party: Kim Stanley-Robinson's "Years of Rice and Salt" covers this in great detail.  It's basically "What would happen if the 14th century plagues that took out 20% of western Europe actually took out 99% of Europe's population, essentially giving you a world without white people in it.

Chinese treasure fleet features prominently in it.  It's a great book.

[upload.wikimedia.org image 220x345]


Spoiler.  Chinese discover the west coast of North America and infect the natives with their diseases.
 
bigdanc
2023-02-07 1:34:28 PM  

SPARC Pile: bigdanc: Kurohone: Kinda hard to discover something they already knew was there.  There were indirect connections between the Romans and the Chinese dating back to the Early Empire, if not earlier, and the Chinese had direct contact with the Greco-Bactrian Kingdoms even before that.

A more interesting question, IMO, would be what if the Mongol's hadn't gained control of the Silk Road?  Without that taste of cheap silk and spices provided in that 100 years or so, would the European powers have had as much incentive to find a new cheap route once it was closed again?

Similar vein, what if the Roman Empire didn't fall in 1453 and scholars who fled to the west never made it (does the renaissance happen in the same way?)

What would have happened if the Fourth Crusade had not been diverted to attack  Constantinople in 1204 and gutted the city?


Oh I'm gonna have to look that up!
 
gaslight [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-02-07 1:44:47 PM  
The Flashman papers are real. The truth has been hushed up.
 
FlashHarry [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 1:51:43 PM  

gaslight: The Flashman papers are real. The truth has been hushed up.


Can confirm.
 
deadsanta
2023-02-07 1:57:04 PM  

gaslight: The Flashman papers are real. The truth has been hushed up.


Ick, I tried reading those on a lark after I found a set of several 60s paperbacks; That was the rapiest series ever written that wasn't a pulp porn novel.
 
Metaluna Mutant
2023-02-07 3:58:54 PM  

Rent Party: Russell_Secord: Another interesting alternate history: suppose the Chinese had "discovered" the Americas and started trading with the inhabitants? What if the conquistadors had found the natives as well armed as they were?

Rent Party: Kim Stanley-Robinson's "Years of Rice and Salt" covers this in great detail.  It's basically "What would happen if the 14th century plagues that took out 20% of western Europe actually took out 99% of Europe's population, essentially giving you a world without white people in it.

Chinese treasure fleet features prominently in it.  It's a great book.

[upload.wikimedia.org image 220x345]

Spoiler.  Chinese discover the west coast of North America and infect the natives with their diseases.


This. Theres just no way American natives, isolated from the rest of the worlds diseases for 20k+ years & having no livestock to spread mutating zoonotic diseases it's still a 90% disease death rate over a century plus. There was no livestock in the Americas until 1492 and that means none of the common diseases that livestock (still) spread and mutate throughout the rest of Europe and Asia, etc.

The price the america continents paid for isolation with Asia/Europe etc was that when contact and those diseases finally came, there was millennia deaths catching up. There's just no way the americas avoids it.  It's very depressing no matter the scenario for "what if" history.
 
Russell_Secord
2023-02-07 4:14:28 PM  

FlashHarry: gaslight: The Flashman papers are real. The truth has been hushed up.

Can confirm.


Name checks out.
 
SPARC Pile [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2023-02-07 4:34:09 PM  

bigdanc: SPARC Pile: bigdanc: Kurohone: Kinda hard to discover something they already knew was there.  There were indirect connections between the Romans and the Chinese dating back to the Early Empire, if not earlier, and the Chinese had direct contact with the Greco-Bactrian Kingdoms even before that.

A more interesting question, IMO, would be what if the Mongol's hadn't gained control of the Silk Road?  Without that taste of cheap silk and spices provided in that 100 years or so, would the European powers have had as much incentive to find a new cheap route once it was closed again?

Similar vein, what if the Roman Empire didn't fall in 1453 and scholars who fled to the west never made it (does the renaissance happen in the same way?)

What would have happened if the Fourth Crusade had not been diverted to attack  Constantinople in 1204 and gutted the city?

Oh I'm gonna have to look that up!

There is a podcast called the The History of Byzantium done by Robin Pierson. It is now talking about the sack of 1204. It's an unofficial sequel to Mike Duncan's History of Rome podcast.

https://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/

It's a good series and in the same vein as History of Rome.
https://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/
 
FlashHarry [TotalFark]
2023-02-07 4:41:31 PM  

deadsanta: Ick, I tried reading those on a lark after I found a set of several 60s paperbacks; That was the rapiest series ever written that wasn't a pulp porn novel.


I mean, you're not wrong. But the point is, the main character is a total ass. A rapist, liar, thief, coward and drug fiend. And he still ends up smelling like roses every time. Sort of like a victorian George W. Bush.
 
Kar98
2023-02-07 6:21:26 PM  

Harlee: The voyages were from 1405 to 1433 AD. 1430 was, I think, somewhat before the wide use of firearms in Europe.


Funny you should say that...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_firearm#Europe
 
Swampmaster
2023-02-07 8:08:31 PM  

FlashHarry: Mr Kat: To a modern mind, the fact that a corporation had an army and conquered vast swaths of a continent is fascinating.

past is prologue. we'll see corporate armies again, I would imagine.


Watch a Canadian Sci-Fi movie called Screamers!  You dirty NEB!

/Brrrreeee ( revving up the blade noises!)
 
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