The Greatest Admiral You've Never Heard of
The voyages of Zheng He and his giant Chinese treasure
fleet
A
hundred years before Columbus and his fellow Europeans began making
their way to the New World, fleets of giant Chinese junks commanded
by the eunuch admiral Zheng He and filled with the finest porcelains,
lacquerware, and silk ventured to the edge of the world's "four
corners." During the brief period from 1405 to 1433, seven
epic expeditions brought China's "treasure ships" across
the China Seas, the Indian Ocean, from Taiwan to the spice islands
of Indonesia and the Malabar coast of India, on to the rich ports
of the Persian Gulf and down the African coast, China's "El
Dorado," and perhaps even to Australia, 300 years before Captain
Cook was credited with its discovery. In his book 1421: The Year
the Chinese Discovered America explorer/historian Gavin Menzies'
exhaustive research provides evidence that they reached and traveled
extensively within North and South America.
Admiral Zheng
He's gigantic fleet was comprised of over 300 ships, some measuring
as much as 400 feet long and 160 feet wide, with upwards of nine
masts and twelve sails, and combined crews sometimes numbering over
28,000 men. But they did not risk the uncharted seas to conquer
and loot. Their mission was peaceful trade and discovery. (5:46)
