Ming Chinese ships reached East Africa, and may have crossed the Cape of Good Hope. Although, to be fair, the later Ming were generally isolationist, and discouraged overseas trade.
Could you point me towards some reading about the Cape of Good Hope bit? I was gifted the ridiculous Menzies 1421 book by my dad a few years back and it has made very suspicious of basically everything about Zheng He
Still, Good Hope or not, the treasure voyages definitely were impressive feats of seafaring. I would also suggest that they actually reinforce justOnePersistentKbinPlease’s idea, as China was undoubtably one of the most powerful regions on Earth for most of history and only really fell behind Europe after it started drawing back on sea power
Ming Chinese ships reached East Africa, and may have crossed the Cape of Good Hope. Although, to be fair, the later Ming were generally isolationist, and discouraged overseas trade.
Could you point me towards some reading about the Cape of Good Hope bit? I was gifted the ridiculous Menzies 1421 book by my dad a few years back and it has made very suspicious of basically everything about Zheng He
Still, Good Hope or not, the treasure voyages definitely were impressive feats of seafaring. I would also suggest that they actually reinforce justOnePersistentKbinPlease’s idea, as China was undoubtably one of the most powerful regions on Earth for most of history and only really fell behind Europe after it started drawing back on sea power