Epic voyage may prove Chinese beat Columbus. A Chinese admiral's epic voyage around the world may be recreated to promote the theory that China discovered America 71 years before Christopher Columbus.
Design experts are hoping to launch a full-size replica of one of the huge junks in which the eunuch Zheng He allegedly travelled with a crew of more than 100 during his two-year circumnavigation of the globe in 1421.
[...]
Backed by charts, ancient artefacts and anthropological research, he claims it was Zheng He who made the first circumnavigation of the world, upstaging the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan by a century.
[news.telegraph.co.uk]
The claim that Zheng He circumnavigated the world is a bit dubious, since his missions were primarily for trade with exploration playing a secondary part. The only English book I've found on Zheng He is When China Ruled the Seas, an excellent book which concluded that he got as far as the east coast of Africa. On the other hand, the Chinese government destroyed all the records they could find of the voyages and suppressed the knowledge for centuries, so who's to say he didn't make it around the world?
At any rate, I hope the effort to build a replica of one of his larger ships succeeds. Apparently each fleet had around a dozen enormous "treasure ships," accompanied by hundreds of warships and supply ships. According to the dimensions given in When China Ruled the Seas, the largest ships were about half the size of an American WWII aircraft carrier--and far larger than any other wooden ships, before or since.
10:48:17 AM 
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