Gavin Menzies is quite sure they
did. He’s the author of 1421, The Year China Discovered America
(Harper, Perennial). I’m not quite so
sure they did, but I have nothing to base my opinion on except the kind of
hunch a sailor gets when he reads an unproven hypothesis involving boats and
navigation.
In his book Menzies offers a little
hard evidence and a wealth of circumstantial evidence. Perhaps too much
circumstantial evidence. It almost seems as though he seeks to convince us by
smothering us with a mountain of possibilities and conjecture.
He maintains that a enormous armada
sailed from China in 1421 to circle the globe. At the center were “the great
leviathan flagships, surrounded by a host of merchant junks.” Surrounding them were squadrons of warships.
By the time they reached India, the fleet consisted of more than 800 vessels.
He says.
The flagships themselves numbered
more than 100 huge junks, each about 480 feet in length and 180 feet in beam.
“Great sails of red silk, light but immensely strong, were furled on each
ship’s nine masts,” Menzies declares.
Whoa! Let’s pause there for a
bit. Silk sails? Enough for 900 masts on 100 480-foot
junks. How many silkworms does it take
to spin that much silk? And why
silk? Why not canvas made from flax like
everybody else? Did the Chinese have that much money to burn?
And now, before our amazement makes
us forget, isn’t 480 feet rather large for a wooden boat? Did the Europeans ever build a wooden boat
that big? The Great Republic was 335
feet long and 33 feet wide. Caligula’s giant barge was about 341 feet long and
had a beam of 66 feet.
And what about the alleged beam of
the alleged Chinese junks? I have a hard
time even imagining one with a beam of 180 feet, especially a flat-bottomed
boat with a transom bow.
Apparently each of these enormous
junks was built in separate water-tight sections, 16 of them in all, each one
bolted to the next with what Menzies says are brass fastenings. I find it hard to believe they’d use brass,
which has practically no place at all on a sea-going vessel except maybe for
the ship’s bell. Iron was a lot cheaper,
stronger, and readily available.
In one place, the author explains
that these junks were hopelessly inefficient at getting to windward. (That’s easy to believe.) So they had to plan their routes by running
downwind with the prevailing winds.
And yet he claims: “Reinforced bows
enabled the vessel to smash through the waves . . .” Ahem. What waves do you have to smash through when
you’re hightailing it downwind all the time?
And it gets weirder:
“ . . . at either side of the bow
were channels leading to internal compartments. As the square bow pitched in
heavy seas, water was funnelled in; as the bow surfaced above the waves, the
water drained out, modifying the pitching motion . . . in a storm,
semi-submersible sea anchors could also be thrown overboard to reduce rolling.
Even in the roughest weather and sea conditions, pitching and rolling were
greatly reduced by these ingenious modifications.”
I’m sorry. I don’t buy it. This is
too much for me to swallow. What size sea anchor would you need for a 480-foot
junk? How many men would it take to
deploy it? And, how would it stop
rolling? If Menzies is thinking of giant
flopper-stoppers, even if they were feasible you wouldn’t be able to use them
at sea.
I’m not alone in voicing doubts
about the veracity of Menzies’ claims of course. Some minds far greater than
mine have beaten me to the draw in that respect. But the great unwashed public,
the hoi polloi who don’t care about the beam of an alleged junk, are falling
over themselves to shove money into the author’s hands. New York Times bestseller. Ka-ching! I guess that’s all that really matters.
Today’s
Thought
In
reporting with some accuracy, at times we have to go much further than the
strictly factual. Facts are part of the perceived whole.— Alastair Reid, WSJ, 18 June 84
Tailpiece
The woman who thinks no man is good
enough for her may be right. But she may also be left.
(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday,
Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)
4 comments:
Isn't this book about ten years old? Are people still "falling over themselves to shove money into the author’s hands"? Or is it b-a-a-ack?
Anyway, I read it when it first came out, and was no more convinced than you are (the boat construction details were by no means the least convincing parts).
But I also remember it as a very entertaining read. Add some stock characters and some sex and you've got yourself a mini-series.
Bill:
Yes, it's old, but it keeps coming out in new forms. There are now 13different forms and editions; and a sticker on the front of the 2008 edition says "Major New Findings." It has just never stopped selling.
John V.
I read this about 7 years ago. Sure there are certainly things that don't ring true to the modern western ear. But then I see these silly Discovery channel shows that say the Mongols couldn't possibly do some things on horse back, because modern riders can't. Humm.....
Well, I'm not master wood boat builder but could it be that ancient Eastern peoples could have built larger than western? I'm a skeptic but lack of evidence is not proof, e.g. the Black Swan.
Never read the book but I've heard the theory. Like you I find it unconvincing.
On the other hand The theory that Norse visited the "New World" prior to Columbus was considered nonsense until L'Anse aux Meadows. Now there is a theory that the Basques were fishing and whaling on the East Coast as much as 100 years before Cabot (1497) but that, like all good fishermen, found a good spot and kept it secret.
As for the people "falling over themselves to shove money into the author's hands" to prove the Chineese connection? They clearly have too much money so can't possibly be boat owners.
Cheers,
Don P
Post a Comment