Cantr II Discussion Forum

Well, this is sorta cantr-related, but sorta not-cantr related.
You guys should read a very interesting book by Gavin Menzies, 1421, The Year China Discovered America. It sorta reminded me of the adventures some of my characters had, while sailing and exploring. Pretty cool. Its one of the reasons I'm back here again.
Anyways, the book is about how China was the first to discover America, before Columbus did.
I'm faintly amused at how the Chinese ships required crews of hundreds and thousands, and entire fleets to explore, while in Cantr it used to just take one or two people, a pile of food, and a longboat(before galleons came around).

China wasn't the first. The Vikings are widely regarded as the first to rediscover North America, several hundred years before China did. Not forgetting the Natives who didn't think it needed discovering in the firstplace.

I never heard of Chinese explorers in the Americas. Seems possible, but how would anyone know about it? The West Coast boys didn't exactly keep records, to my understanding.

How is the history figure it out? Or is it fiction? Sounds like a good book, in any case. Welcome back by the way.

This is exactly why we need to impument a need to have a project to sail a ship.

Antichrist_Online wrote:China wasn't the first. The Vikings are widely regarded as the first to rediscover North America, several hundred years before China did. Not forgetting the Natives who didn't think it needed discovering in the firstplace.

And no one really knows why the Vikings left America. If they would have stayed then the most probable language the americans would have spoken to day would be a version of the swedish/norwegian/danish/icelandic languages. And probably that language would have a dominant position in the world.

There are so many small things in the history that could have changed the world as we see it today.

* If the meteor that killed the dinosaurs never hit earth, would the humans have existed today? I think more likely that the dinosaurs would have evolve into smarter species. And become what the humans are today. The dominant species that are on the edge to start to colonize the universe.

* If Hitler never lost the wwII then the whole world would have been talking german. (Since we all know that he was kinda power crazy, he would definetly have gone for the whole cookie.)

* If Colombus never tried to explore a faster way to India in fear of the edge of the world. Mayby America would still have been "undiscovered"? (Atleast by the europeans.)

There are lots of "what if?" that could make the world today alot different. I've only named a very small part of all those...

What if I never joined football and never realized how strong and agile I am.

I watched a short thing on the news awhile back which talked about how the chinese had explored North America. They said something about how the micmac (sp?) aboriginals had different clothing from the other aboriginals around the area. They wore cone like hats much like the chinese did during their supposed time period of exploration and had customs which may have been influenced from the chinese. There are also disoveries of ruins in the maritimes which resemble chinese settlements. Why the chinese did not record this? Well I have 2 theories. The first being, they couldn't get back and got lost at sea. The second being, I think during the time the emperor was an arse and didn't want to record this. I know that during one dynasty, the emperor killed all the scholars and burned all history and knowledgable books.

Did the chinese really explore the Americas?
I don't know, no one is really sure, but it's possible. The vikings did, so why couldn't the chinese?

I heard the Chinese fleet during the Ming Dynasty , Zheng He (aka Hajji Mahmud) and his large fleet sailed up the East Coast of Africa so it may be possible to travel to Canada. If they did sail to Canada the Chinese officials the records of them may of been burned or destroyed by the Qing Dynasty.

The book is written by a former sailor, and he found out about it through looking at old maps.
A lot of records were destroyed in China upon the return of the ships because of a change in emperor and some disasters which caused them to take a sudden isolationist approach.
According to the book, a large fleet left China to explore the world and collect tribute from everybody. Almost everywhere they landed, masons left a large carved stone in whatever language was considered native to the area, describing the achievements of the fleet, etc. A lot of trade was conducted, including with fowl and plants, causing chinese chickens to be found throughout South America and maize to have been found in the Philippines.
After reaching a port in Calicut (I think) the fleet separated under various commanders and left to explore certain areas before returning to China.
They found the Cape of Good Hope, the Strait of Magellan, and many other places long, long before europeans did. They also came across Patagonia, and recorded a considerable amount of antartica. Mostly coastlines, but they did conduct trade often. I think they got to Central America, at least.
Also, there have been shipwrecks found in various places. The Chinese of the time had a peculiarly shaped 'junk' that was more flat and rectangular, from what I understand. A picture of it was found in an old european map, near the cape of good hope.

Oh, and although in China many documents and maps were burned, a lot of the guy's research was done through maps after that time, before european explorers 'found' the places. There were also documents from a european merchant who had been in Calicut during the time that the Chinese were there. A lot of the proof in the book is through how a few european maps copied things that european ships at the time had no way of knowing.

The Vikings may well have been the first European-based peoples to reach North America - It is well known they reached throughout much of Greenland, so it is certain they would have reached areas of Canada, and possibly down the Eastern Coast.

The reason they left Greenland was natural climate change. It was warm. It got very cold. They left.

Liljum wrote:

Antichrist_Online wrote:China wasn't the first. The Vikings are widely regarded as the first to rediscover North America, several hundred years before China did. Not forgetting the Natives who didn't think it needed discovering in the firstplace.

And no one really knows why the Vikings left America. If they would have stayed then the most probable language the americans would have spoken to day would be a version of the swedish/norwegian/danish/icelandic languages. And probably that language would have a dominant position in the world.

There are so many small things in the history that could have changed the world as we see it today.

* If the meteor that killed the dinosaurs never hit earth, would the humans have existed today? I think more likely that the dinosaurs would have evolve into smarter species. And become what the humans are today. The dominant species that are on the edge to start to colonize the universe.

* If Hitler never lost the wwII then the whole world would have been talking german. (Since we all know that he was kinda power crazy, he would definetly have gone for the whole cookie.)

* If Colombus never tried to explore a faster way to India in fear of the edge of the world. Mayby America would still have been "undiscovered"? (Atleast by the europeans.)

There are lots of "what if?" that could make the world today alot different. I've only named a very small part of all those...

The Viking didn't have much of a choice because of the small ice age that overcame the Northern Hemisphere in what is widely known as the Dark Ages just after the fall of the Roman Empire. If the ice age hadn't occurred we'd all probably be speaking some Skandanavian language right now but the Vikings had to abandoned their settlements in Iceland, Greenland, and Novia Scotia since the seas became impassable. Iceland was the only Viking settlement that survived and prospered and it is widley believed that the Vikings left behind in North America and Greenland simply either died off or went to live among the natives.

Schme, it is widely believed that Chinese explorers did discover the Americas but they thought it was too far to sail to and simply left it as a footnote and forgot about it. China has also always had the problem of never having a real stable government, leaders, or dynasties for too long as well as many enemies at their doorsteps so they really didn't have the leadership or unity at those times to actually make it worth their while to settle the Americas.