Map of Zheng He's voyages
Perhaps no Chinese historical figure causes more eye-rolling among historians than the super-naval-bad-ass-7-foot-tall-could-have-discovered-America-but-didn’t-even-if-I’m-a-eunuch-Columbus-still-couldn’t-carry-my-jock admiral Zheng He.* He’s someone that students often ask about, and I’ve written a few posts over the years on the different Zheng He controversies which bubble to the surface of the popular press from time to time.
Like a lot of other historical figures, Zheng He’s story and image are often appropriated as stand-ins for the controversy du jour, whether it’s China in Africa, or China’s rise as a regional naval power capable of projecting force into the waters of Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean…coincidentally, Zheng He’s old sailing ground. This past week, a team of Chinese archaeologists have been searching off the coast of Kenya for a shipwreck that some believe was a part of Zheng He’s Ming-era armada.
But what was Zheng He’s mission?
In China, Zheng He is usually depicted as an explorer and diplomat, as in this People’s Daily editorial from 2005 marking the 600th anniversary of Zheng He’s departure:
Zheng He led the ancient world history and the friendly exchanges among different nations, setting a shining example of the history of the exchanges of
If the British takeover of Hong Kong was the moral equivalent of three guys kicking in the back door and at gunpoint turning your suburban home into a crack house, then the Portuguese in Macau were more like a couple of shady dudes who wanted to rent out your old tool shed, hoped you’d forget they were there, and when you reminded them that it was time to pay up and that you’d strongly prefer they NOT set up a craps game on your property or pimp out your children they decided to stiff you on the rent and declare squatters’ rights in your backyard.
On the evening of December 19, 1999, the flag of Portugal was lowered for the final time in Macau and at midnight on December 20, the tiny former colony officially became a part of the People’s Republic of China…more or less.
I say more or less because, unlike its glitzy neighbor Hong Kong, the nature of Macau’s sovereignty and even its status as a “colony” has frequently been open to debate and interpretation.
The Portuguese first showed up in the early 16th century, using the waters around the peninsula and islands as an anchorage and
The Onion is running a feature on “The Top Ten Stories of the last 4.5 Billion Years” with important and noteworthy sections entitled “Industrial Revolution Provides Millions of Out-of-Work Children with Jobs” and “Conquerors you may have missed.” Naturally, you can’t have such a comprehensive historical rundown without including China, right?
Either Ming Or Yuan Dynasty Seizes Control Of Mainland China
In one of the most important events in all of Asian history, either the Ming dynasty or the Yuan dynasty seized control of mainland China during the eighth, 12th, or maybe even the third century. “The rise of one of these two dynasties, at the turn of whatever time it was, ushered in a bold new age of either unity, feudal infighting, or perhaps both,” said historian Robert Grossman, who has devoted his career to parsing out China’s incredibly rich and convoluted history. “Not since the days of the Shang dynasty—unless I happen to be thinking of the Qin dynasty—had China undergone such radical change.” According to Grossman, either the Ming or the Yuan dynasty is a perfect example of why the other failed to work.
See also “Thomas Edison invents marketing other people’s ideas” and
Today is the birthday of Zhu Yunwen, the second emperor of the Ming dynasty, born December 5, 1377. The first son of the first son of the Ming dynastic founder Zhu Yuanzhang (Ming Taizu/The Hongwu Emperor), Zhu Yunwen took the throne following the death of his grandfather in 1398. Not that everybody was happy about the arrangement. Zhu Yuanzhang had decreed that imperial succession would automatically fall to the first son of the emperor or, as in the case of Zhu Yunwen, if the first son was no longer living then the crown would pass to the first son of the first son.
As might be expected, ancestral injunctions notwithstanding, Zhu Yunwen’s ascension to the throne as the Jianwen Emperor at the tender age of 21 was going to cause some grumbling in the ranks, particularly from Zhu Yuanzhang’s fourth son, Zhu Di (1360-1424). Zhu Di was a capable general and had been charged with commanding the Ming northern defenses around Beijing and generally keeping an eye on those pesky Mongols. (Apparently, Zhu Yuanzhang didn’t get the memo from CCP propaganda HQ that the Mongols and the Ming were really part of one united family – either that, or he
From the SFist blog:
It was called the Princess Taiping and its mission was to complete a round trip journey from Taiwan to prove that Chinese sailors may have reached North America before Columbus. Well, sadly (but also comically), in the waters just off Taiwan, the Princess Taiping was struck by a freighter and sunk just 30 miles from the end of its 14,000 mile journey.
None of the 11-man crew was injured and the other ship barely registered the collision as anything more than an offshore speed bump…No word on whether the freighter was being skippered by one of Gavin Menzie’s many dedicated detractors. Conspiracy theories abound.
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