Gavin Menzies has spent 15 years tracing the astonishing voyages of the Chinese fleet.
They has also discovered Antarctica, reached Australia 350 years before Cook and solved the problem of longitude 300 years before the Europeans. Lost was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America 70 years before Columbus and circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. The great ships rotted at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed. When they returned Zhu Di had fallen from power and China was beginning its long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently embraced. Their journey would last over two years and circle the entire globe.
Their mission was "to proceed all the way to the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas" and unite the whole world in Confucian harmony. The ships, 500 foot long junks made from the finest teak and mahogany, were led by Emperor Zhu Di's loyal eunuch admirals. "On 8 February 1421 the largest fleet the world had ever seen sailed from its base in China. 1421 : the year China discovered the world / Gavin Menzies Book Bib ID
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