Did China circumnavigate the World in 1421?
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"Menzies concludes that only China had the time, money, manpower and leadership to send such expeditions. The book then sets out to prove that the Chinese visited these unknown lands. Menzies claims that from 1421 to 1423, during the Ming Dynasty of China, ships in the fleet of Emperor Zhu Di (朱棣) and Admiral Zheng He (鄭和) and commanded by the Chinese captains Zhou Wen (周聞), Zhou Man (周滿), Yang Qing (楊慶), and Hong Bao (洪保) traveled to many parts of the world that were unknown to Europeans at that time. Menzies produces what he calls "indisputable evidence" that the Chinese discovered Australia, New Zealand, the Americas, Antarctica, and the Northeast Passage; circumnavigated Greenland, made attempts to reach both the North and South Poles, and circumnavigated the world before Ferdinand Magellan. Menzies puts this forward as the "1421 hypothesis".
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..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 and last of all comes the biggest controversy. New Zealand historians have been the most apoplectic of all about my book. Anything that challenges Maori legend is to be resisted at all costs! Accepted New Zealand history has it that the foreign animals and plants found by the first Europeans were brought by the Maoris in their open canoes - that is, horses, pigs, dogs, rats and an array of plants from South America, North America, Asia and the Pacific. According to New Zealand historians, the Maoris traded all over the world.
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...and this hypothesis relates to possible circunnavegation by Chinese sailors ONLY after 1421 Zheng He voyages. The around the world hypothesis relates to different Chinese voyages under other Chinese fleet commanders, in particular the one in 1434.
Thanks Pixelsilva for the clarification between 1421 voyages and 1434. I'm currently listening to the 8 CD for 1434. I didn't realize that the Zheng He was not a part of the 1434 voyages.
Was the Mitochondria of Chinese DNA evidence in various part of North and South America conclusive that the Chinese were here before Columbus?
Its evident that Menzies account of probable 1434 voyages were under different Chinese fleet commanders, because Zheng He is only credited with the first (7) seven voyages that explored most of the Indian Ocean, Sumatra, Malaya, Burma, Ceylon (Sry Lanka), India, Ormuz (Arabic peninsula, Emirates, Yemen), Somalia, Kenya and Mozambique.
This happened between 1405 and 1433 the year when Zhen He died during his seven voyage. He was buried at sea and the fleet returned to China in July of that same year. That´s why Zheng He can not be attributed with circumnavigating the world. The circumnavigation explorers and the Menzies theory are framed between 1433, the year Zheng He died and 1435, the year the emperor Zhu Zhanji (Xuande) also died.
Its possible that exploration beyond the Indian Ocean may have happened for a while after the dead of the emperor on 1435, plus its worth noting that the Chinese successor, emperor Jung Tong was only seven years when took the throne, but was a mere puppet at the hands of the eunuchs until 1449 when the emperor was captured by the Mongols.
So, there lays a frame of time 1433 to 1435 and again between 1435 to 1449, some 15 years gap where Chinese around the globe exploration may have taken place.
link:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He