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1421 - The year China discovered the World
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Written by Wei-Jing Zhu
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This story is in the news again in Epoch Times June 2006. Be sure to check out the promo film available at www.1421.tv.
April 2005
Recently a friend pointed out this interesting book and PBS program,
with information at www.1421.tv and a few paragraph about the book
that you may find interesting: (the Amazon readers reviews show an
extreme polarity of opinions, so you will have to decide its merit
yourself.)
1421 The Year China Discovered the World
Gavin Menzies
Published by Bantam Press, London
"...On the 8th of March, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever
seen sailed from its base in China. The ships, huge junks nearly five
hundred feet long and built from the finest teak, were under the
command of Emperor Zhu Di's loyal eunuch admirals. 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 journey would last over two years and circle
the globe.
When they returned Zhu Di lost control and China was beginning its
long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently
embraced. The great ships rotted at their moorings and the records of
their journeys were destroyed. Lost was the knowledge that Chinese
ships had reached America seventy years before Columbus and
circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. They had also
discovered Antarctica, reached Australia three hundred and fifty years
before Cook and solved the problem of longitude three hundred years
before the Europeans..."
June 2006
The article from Epoch Times writes with a rather compelling style, definitely worth reading.
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