What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
When the people along the Indian Ocean coast in the fourteenth century saw the ship as tall as a hill, they must have marveled that such a huge ship must have come again as a messenger from Eastern China. So how big is Zheng He's ship?
▲ Zheng He treasure ship
According to the "History of Ming", the largest of the five kinds of ships that Zheng He went to the West was the treasure ship, which was developed in the configuration of the ancient building ship, and now the most reliable record is only such a sentence in the tomb of Hong Bao in Nanjing that can directly reflect the size of the treasure ship:
"Yongle Era, the deputy envoy of the Inner Carrier Warehouse, was given the former name." As a deputy envoy, commanding a sergeant, riding on the great blessing and the number of five thousand material giants, and holding the edict to make the Western countries care for the distant people."
How big is a ship of this size? It is about 45 meters long and 12 meters wide. It is equivalent to a medium-sized treasure ship in Zheng He's fleet. So how big is the biggest treasure ship? It is about 151.18 meters long and 61.6 meters wide, and a ship can accommodate more than 1,000 people.
Columbus' fleet, on the other hand, consisted of only 3 ships: Santa Maria 130 tons, Pinta 90 tons, and Ninha 60 tons. 87 sailors. Far inferior to Zheng He's fleet, the displacement of Zheng He's treasure ship is greater than the displacement of all the ships in Columbus combined! So why did Columbus discover the New World?
▲Comparison of the model of the treasure ship and santa Maria
To say this, Europe is really lucky. Before the discovery of the New World in the fourteenth century, even if some people in Europe dared to say that the earth was round, no one dared to say that there was an incomparably vast continent across Europe, the Americas. The point is that the Americas are still very backward, and the capital accumulation in Europe in the early stages is almost a pile of Indian flesh and blood.
▲ Humble Indians
Columbus was looking for a route west to China and India for the king of Spain, so why sail west? Because the route to the east of Portugal's Gama has been explored, if Columbus sails eastward, it is a violation of the interests of the Portuguese, so Columbus chose to sail west, mistakenly hit and found the New World, as for Columbus himself to death, he still thinks that what he found is definitely China and India (I really hope that he is china, then our ancestors will not beat him to death!). ）。
Zheng He's voyage to the West was different from Columbus's, and his purpose was to go to the Old World and establish tributary relations or conduct normal trade with various countries in the Old World. Therefore, Zheng He's route also basically sailed along the coastline of the Asian continent, and most of the countries encountered were recorded in the history of the Tang and Song dynasties. Moreover, no country dared to provoke the power of the Daming fleet everywhere he passed, and there was no need for Zheng He to look east for a route.
▲ Zheng He and Columbus sailing route map
If Zheng He really sailed eastward, then it would be no problem for Zheng He's fleet to reach the Aleutian Islands on the west coast of the Americas along Sakhalin Island and the Bering Strait.
▲The route of the Taiping Princess
Therefore, Zheng He's direct purpose in going to the West and Columbus arriving in the Americas is the same, that is, to find each other. Unfortunately, history always likes to joke, but Columbus discovered the American continent and began five hundred years of bloody European colonial history.