Admiral Zheng He’s Voyages to the “West Oceans”
Eighty years before Vasco da Gama’s arrival in West India, a formidable Chinese navy ruled the China Sea and Indian Ocean, from Southeast Asia to the Persian Gulf and East Africa. Between the period from 1405 to 1433, China’s Ming dynasty launched seven voyages led by Admiral Zheng He to explore these vast regions, known […]
Zheng He (1371–1433): China’s Masterful Mariner and Diplomat
Ever since Gavin Menzies, a British retired naval officer, published the fictional story 1421: The Year China Discovered America, fleet admiral and diplomat Zheng He (1371–1433) has enjoyed a sort of revival as the Chinese explorer who might have circumnavigated the Earth before the age of Western exploration. I don’t know whether this is true […]