How Not to (Re)Write World History:

Gavin Menzies Discovery

ROBERT

and the Chinese of America

FINLAY

1421: The Year China Discovered America (2002), Gavin Menzies on a to rewrite world He maintains scale. that In aspires history grand to four Chinese at and least fleets, comprising twenty-five thirty ships 7,000 persons each, visited every part of the world except Europe between 1421 and 1423. Trained by Zheng He, the famous eunuch admiral, Chinese captains carried out the orders of Zhu Di (r. 1402 third the settle new territories, 1424), Ming emperor, to map coastlines, to Menzies, and establish a global maritime empire. According proof of the passage of the Ming fleets to the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, is overwhelming and Polynesia and indisputable. His "index of sup evidence" includes thousands of items from the porting (pp. 429-462) fields of archaeology, and anthropology; his astronomy, cartography, and bibliography footnotes include publications in Chinese, French, and Hebrew. Italian, German, Arabic, Spanish, claims that Chinese mariners the islands of Cape explored the the and the Verde, Azores, Bahamas, Falklands; they established in Australia, colonies New British Columbia, Zealand, California, Puerto Rico, and Rhode Mexico, Island; they introduced horses to the to South America, rice to California, chickens coffee to Americas, sea otters to New Puerto Rico, South American sloths to Australia, to the Philippines. and maize seamen In addition, Chinese Zealand, toured the temples and palaces of the Maya center of Palenque in hunted walruses and smelted copper in Greenland, mined for Mexico, in northern Australia, lead and saltpeter and established trading posts for diamonds and its tributaries. along the Amazon Portuguese, Menzies

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a veritable as Menzies that he has collected believes Inasmuch some about mountain of evidence, he is not disheartened by skepticism assertions. As he told People Magazine of his astonishing (24 February list, "[t]here's not 2003) after 1421 hit the New York Times bestseller one chance that I'm wrong!" He regards his inves in a hundred million a as an website yet (www.1421.tv) ongoing project: provides tigation more in the forthcoming will appear further revelations a is assisting him team of researchers and edition, currently paperback for added documents and in combing medieval Portuguese Spanish be will he informs the contentions. his of reader, 1421, published proof a PBS series is in production, and tele in more than sixteen countries, evidence, vision

rights have been sold around the world. who ignore evi historians of professional is contemptuous Menzies it in the Americas, influence dence of Chinese "presumably because the accepted wisdom on which not a few careers have been contradicts that information that he has uncovered based" (p. 232). He explains even though it was right of China, has eluded many eminent historians I knew how to interpret the extraordi their eyes, "only because that reveal the course and the extent of the voy and charts nary maps fleets between Chinese the of 1421 and 1423" (pp. n-12). ages great he has in the British Royal Navy, commander A former submarine and Ferdinand in of the sailed wake Columbus, Magellan, Christopher who that those hence he mariners, navigated recognizes James Cook, in hand, were themselves merely with copies of Chinese maps sailing before in the backwash of Zheng He's fleets (pp. 9, 12). Menzies intends his work for the general reader, and his style is vig orous, clear, and informal. Most strikingly, he makes his own search for for recounting framework fleets the narrative of the Ming evidence and triumphs as he He describes his frustrations their achievements. sometimes "an elusive trail of evidence," travels everywhere following to narrative never his He also defeated but brings (p. 83). discouraged of own the fleets in visited his life by recounting by experiences places rum toddies and roast lobster on Guade Zheng He, including savoring braving the dangers of the Great Barrier Reef of Aus loupe beaches, into the South Atlantic. the Cape of Good Hope tralia, and rounding is that the author's of these frequent vignettes The underlying message are validated conclusions experi by the unique personal astonishing account of ence he brings to his research as well as by his transparent for This approach makes how he struggled toward those conclusions. attract who oth a lively, engaging work that surely will many readers enter tome on Chinese maritime erwise would never open a 500-page prise and European exploration.

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by 1421 is that there are big bucks in good news conveyed an advance of ?500,000 received world history: Menzies ($825,000) runs to 100,000 cop initial printing from his British publisher, whose ies. The bad news is that reaping such largesse evidently requires pro as 1421. Menzies flouts the basic rules of ducing a book as outrageous the schol both historical study and elementary logic. He misrepresents arship of others, and he frequently fails to cite those from whom he bor as seen in rows.1 He misconstrues Chinese imperial policy, especially discussion of Western the expeditions of Zheng He, and his extensive reads like a parody of scholarship. His allegations cartography regard di Conti the only figure in 1421 who links (c. 1385-1469), ing Nicol? fic the Ming voyages with European events, are the stuff of historical of sources. The tion, the product of an obstinate misrepresentation of the technology of Zheng He's ships impels author's misunderstanding to depict voyages no captain would attempt and no mariner could excursion the Arctic and circle survive, including a 4,000-mile along more of Pacific after the sailed than circumnavigation having already toWest Africa, from China South America, 42,000 miles Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines 199-209, 311).2 (pp. as an innocent himself abroad, Portraying forthrightly seeking him

(Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cul Judith A. Carney example, although in the Americas 2000]) [Cambridge, Mass: regards rice as part of the Columbian were the principal in bringing and argues that sub-Sanaran Africans rice agents Exchange to the Americas cites her in support of the notion cultivation after 1492, Menzies that introduced the grain to the New World Zheng He's mariners (pp. 206, 506, n. 4). He also a quotation from a Chinese novel discussed appropriates by J. J. L. Duyvendak ("Desultory tivation notes on the Hsi-Yang Chi," T'oung Pao 42 [1954]: 26-35) to declare that Persian pottery given to Zheng He actually was "eggshell-thin" porcelain made by the Maya of Mexico (pp. continues in the paperback this practice edition 162, 214). Menzies (2002) of his book. He credits the present writer with providing him with evidence that da Gama reported a Chi nese "fleet of 800 sail" in India at the time of Zheng He (pp. 512, 547, 552). This assertion is based on a publication?not makes no such claim about correctly cited by Menzies?that a da Gama fleet, or an armada of 800 ships. See Robert Finlay, "The Trea report, a Chinese in the Age of Discovery," Maritime of Zheng He: Chinese Terrae sure-Ships Imperialism 1-12. The Journal for the History of Discoveries 23 (1991); Incognitae: 2 There is no space here to discuss how Menzies's characterization of Zheng He's ves sels as lumbering, broad-beamed tubs equipped with sails?and therefore square-rigged to sail before the wind" "constrained (pp. 64, 65, 96, 109, 161, 163, 181, 209, 240)?is integral to his claim that he can track the global course of the voyages by focusing on pre makes Chinese (see p. 83). As Needham clear, however, vailing winds and currents ships a balanced device that allows a ship to make head employed lug-sail, a highly aerodynamic to 34o for a modern in way at 45o to windward (Science and Civilisation (compared yacht) see also Christian "Chinese China, vol. 4, pt. 3, pp. 594-599); J. Buys and Sheli O. Smith, Batten Lug Sails," The Mariners 66 (1980): Mirror its relevance to his 233-246. Despite did not consult any of the literature that has corrected argument, Menzies earlier, apparently exaggerated estimates of the dimensions of Zheng He's vessels. See especially Richard A.

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or suppressed, Men truths the academic establishment has disregarded zies in fact is less an "unlettered Ishmael" than a Captain Ahab, gripped to bend everything to his purposes. His White Whale is by a mania Eurocentric which celebrates Columbus and thief (a historiography, and Vasco da Gama fraud, pp. 382-383) (a terrorist, p. 406) without the deeds of the Chinese. More gener epic realizing they merely aped an in echo of laments Menzies, ally, unacknowledged Joseph Needham, "mistress of the world," with Confucian that China did not become benevolence and Buddhist Instead, the uniting humankind. harmony on Chinese and barbaric West, cruel, secretly capitalizing fraudulently around the globe (pp. 405-406).3 achievements, imposed its dominion no doubt The wounded of Eurocentricism leviathan deserves it. Exami another harpoon, but 1421 is too leaky a vessel to deliver nation of the book's central claims reveals they are uniformly without substance: first, that the 1421-1423 describes could voyages Menzies no not have taken place; second, that Conti in transmit role played to European cartographers; of Chinese and ting knowledge exploration Menzies's all evidence for the of the that fleets Chinese third, presence abroad is baseless. on what Menzies terms "the missing 1421 concentrates years" of the sixth voyage of Zheng He, that is, the two and a half years between March the fleets of Zheng He 1423, during which 1421 and October not in the well is Menzies roamed the interested globe. supposedly and he much-studied of known, voyages ignores the exten Zheng He, sive literature on them.4 He dispenses with six of the seven expeditions

U.K.: and the Social History 2000), pp. 193-198; Gould, Archaeology of the Ship (Cambridge, in the Ming Navy," "The Liao and the Displacement of Ships Andr? Wegener Sleeswyk, 82 (1996): The Mariner's Mirror Barker, "The Size of the 'Treasure Ships' 3-13; Richard Donald H. Keith The Mariners' Mirror and Other Chinese Vessels," 75 (1989): 273-275; The Chinese and Christian seagoing J. Buys, "New light on Medieval ship construction," 10 (1981): and Underwater International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 119-32. Exploration 3 On the same theme civi view of the achievements of Chinese shaping Needham's see Robert in particular, the in general and the fleets of Zheng He lization Finlay, "China, in China," Journal of in Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation and World West, History a number 11 (2000): cites Needham of times, he Menzies While World History 265-303. on contrasts between China and Europe as of matters, fails to do so on a number including in the voyages of Zheng He and those of Europeans reflected (pp. 33, 40), the scientific motives Asians trade from for the Ming voyages wresting illegitimately (p. 40), and Europeans inChina, vol. Science and Civilisation (p. 376). On these topics, see Joseph Needham, U.K.: 522, 4, pt. 3: Civil Engineering and Nautics 1971), pp. 389, 499, 514-517, (Cambridge, 533-534 4 Menzies work on the voyages: the outstanding did not consult Zheng He xia xiyang sources on Zheng He's voyages], and Zheng ed. Zheng Hesheng yangzi liao huibian [Collected is compiled in these volumes from of the material Much Yijun, 2 vols. (Jinan, 1980-1983).

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He singles out the 1405 and 1433) in one page (pp. 54-55). (between it was the only one in which Zheng He returned sixth voyage because to carry out to China eunuch-captains early, leaving his subordinate to their kingdoms. tribute envoys This cir their mission of returning a window to imagine that the cumstance of opportunity offers Menzies to seek new lands in the Atlantic and armada left the Indian Ocean in sailed about 40,000 miles Pacific. Since he claims that the mariners their world-girdling Odysseys, two and a half years is just barely enough time for them to journey such a vast distance while also charting coasts, alien peoples, and founding colonies. ore, meeting mining In addition, Menzies feels free to speculate about "missing years" because of a presumed dearth of sources. He casually dismisses the prin on Zheng He's voyages, Ma Huan's Ying-Yai cipal source of information that [The overall survey of the ocean's shores], by declaring Sheng-Lan its author, an official translator on the staff of Zheng He in 1421, "left coast in south the treasure fleets at Calicut" (a port on the Malabar western India), hence he did not take part in the global exploration in any for his assertion, which, (p. 87). Menzies provides no evidence the nature of Ma's account. The author sailed on three case, mistakes of the Ming and his book is a protoethnographic survey expeditions, of the places visited by the fleets over several decades, not "diaries" (p. in a specific voyage.5 He incorporated infor 229) of his participation on countries mation he did not visit, and he apparently continued to his book until it was published revisions about thirty years making Menzies after the last expedition. does not address the awkward ques tion of why Ma, a stickler for detail and an aficionado of novelties, never mentions to the Amer excursion of his comrades the wondrous icas and Australia. 1421, Menzies Throughout places great emphasis on imperial offi in 1477 destroying many of the documents the Ming regarding a to a in manner order renewal the In of prevent expeditions project. of speaking, the author sails the ships of Zheng He through that sup cials

the Ming shi [History of the Ming refers to the Ming shi as a source that dynasty]. Menzies from that massive work. Nor does he proves his contentions (p. 438), but he cites nothing cite any of the essays in two major collections: [Selected essays Zhenghe yanjiu zilao xuanbian on Zheng He], ed. Research Association of Chinese Navigational History 1985); (Beijing: and Zhenghe xia xiyang lunwenji [Essays on Zheng He's voyages], ed. Research Association of Chinese like to thank Professor Navigational History 1985). I would (Beijing: Jin Jiang in dealing with Chinese-language of Vassar College for her assistance materials. 5 See Ma The Overall Shores [1433], Huan, Ying-yai Sheng-lan: Survey of the Oceans edited by J.V. G. Mills and translated by Feng Ch'eng-chun U.K.: (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 34-44.

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on the void. There are plentiful surviving documents posed evidentiary were no that prove there however, expeditions, "missing years." The sources indicate that an imperial order for the sixth voyage was issued inMarch the flotilla did not leave China until the turn 1421, although of the year. It reached Sumatra around July 1422, after many stops in to Nanjing Southeast Asia; Zheng He returned home by September to sail on to thirty-six ports in Ceylon, 1422, leaving his subordinates Africa. (both Bengal and the Malabar coast), the Persian Gulf, and East The last of the squadrons returned to China on 8 October 1423, in the expected their journey of some 11,000 miles having completed after departing Sumatra.6 Thus time, about one year and three months there are no "missing years" for the Ming fleets, no time for even a por tion of the extraordinary in 1421. exploits narrated account at face value, however, Even it is far taking Menzies's inNovember fetched. The author asserts that Zheng He arrived home India

in the Indian their errands 1421 and that his captains completed in July of the same year, a mere Ocean three months after departing on at Sofala Sumatra. After (across from Mozambique rendezvousing in the East African doubled the of Good coast), they Cape Hope to in and north them headed Verde the Islands, August Cape reaching a month late September; landfall off the Orinoco later, they made in Brazil, and by November River Cape Horn they were approaching in the South Atlantic In other words, 113-116). (pp. 83, 99-100, a voyage of some Menzies proposes that Zheng He's captains completed seas in seven months, in mainly unknown 17,000 miles including dozens of stops in the Indian Ocean, while Zheng He took the same amount of time to journey about 3,500 miles from Sumatra to Nanjing. then, Zheng He sailed sluggishly but his captains By this account, claims that the average made rapid progress. Menzies spectacularly over seven in the Indian He's their of vessels voyages speed Zheng has no Ocean was 4.8 knots (or 132 miles per day) (p. 100). Menzies since an average speed can be calculated basis for this estimate only for for which a detailed itinerary survives. Nat expedition, on the time of year and differed considerably, depending urally, speeds In the seventh voyage, distances covered the passage being traversed. to a low of 37.5 varied from a high of 106 miles per day (3.8 knots) miles per day (1.4 knots), with an average of 69 miles per day (or 2.5 the 1431-1433

see Zheng He xia xiyang yangzi liao huibian, 2: 926-30; Har? dates for the voyages, in India-China Relations (New Delhi: 1993), pp. 37-44. prasad Ray, Trade and Diplomacy in the maritime fundamental essay, "The true dates of the Chinese expeditions Duyvendak's is cited by Menzies 34 (1938): 341-412, (p. 82), but he century," T'oungPao early fifteenth of the sixth voyage. ignores it in his reconstruction

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estimate that his undocumented assumes, however, knots).7 Menzies of 4.8 knots for the Indian Ocean voyages holds as well for the global cruises of the Ming fleets.8 His calculation helps him narrowly fit the agenda of the fleets into the alleged "missing years": having doubled the to time the junks actually were away from China (from fifteen months an them average thirty), he also hurries the ships along by granting in the than what achieved 52 percent higher they generally winds of the southern seas. On its own terms, steady, familiar monsoon scenario is highly into account the then, Menzies's implausible. Taking it is of the sixth expedition, evidence for the timetable surviving speed in transmitting evidence for the role of Conti Chinese to European is even flimsier cartographers geographical knowledge than his argument for "missing years." A native of Venice, Conti lived to Europe in Asia for some thirty-five years, and when he returned IV (r. 1431 around 1441, he sought absolution from Pope Eugenius to Islam. As instructed by the pope, Conti 1447) for having converted told the story of his travels to the humanist (1380 Poggio Bracciolini it into who his De Varietate Fortunae, completed 1459), incorporated in 1448. His account was widely the best read, for Conti provided source of information on the East, especially India and Southeast Asia, since Marco Polo's Travels (c. 1298).9 that Europe had received impossible. Menzies's

distances traveled by Zheng He's junks, see Zhou Juseng, Zheng He measuring cov [The routes of Zheng He's voyages] hanglugao (Tapei: 1959), pp. 97-101. On distances see Ma Huan, Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan, ered during the seventh voyage, pp. 26?27, 308, n. 14. comes up Based upon a debatable of Chinese nautical Needham watches, interpretation with an average speed between 6 knots (166 miles per day) and 10 knots (276 miles per day), on the seventh voyage and implausible estimates far higher than any speed achieved in their own right (Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 4, pt. 3, p. 564, n. e). 8 This assertions. Thus Menzies leads to some unlikely that one Ming proposes squad a round-trip in only four months, Pacific voyage of 16,000 miles ron, at 4.8 knots, made time spent establishing coast of America colonies including along the western (p. 199). From 1565 to 1815, however, to Acapulco the average duration of a voyage from Manila by with four months for that leg of the round-trip Spanish galleons was close to six months, (William Lytle Schurtz, The Manila Galleon journey alone being regarded as a rapid crossing [New York: 1939], p. 263). 9 See "The Travels ... as related of Nicol? Conti in his work by Poggio Bracciolini entitled Historia de varietate fortunae, Lib. IV," in India in the Fifteenth Century, ed. and trans. see the biographical R. H. Major note in Pero Tafur, (London: 1857), pp. 3-39. On Conti, e viajes de un hidalgo espa?ol, ed. Marcos Andan?as Jim?nez de la Espada (reprint, Barcelona: On reception of Conti's 1982), pp. 412-415. story, see Waldemar Sensburg, "Poggio Brac in ihrer Bedeutung ciolini und Nicolo de' Conti f?r di Geografie des Rennaisse-Zeitalters," der K. K. Geographischen in Wien 49 (1906): 261. Polo's and Conti's Mitteilungen Gesellschaft accounts were published as in a 1502 Lisbon of Asia sometimes edition together, (Henry Vignaud, n. 4). Toscanelli and Columbus: The Letter and Chart ofToscanelli [London: 1902], p. 24,

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toMenzies's is essential Conti since he represents the sole argument vehicle by which Chinese reached the West. geographical knowledge to interpreting European maps in the light of Much of 1421 is devoted as that knowledge, and without Conti "the crucial link" in the chain of evidence, the central thesis of the book collapses (p. 93). To establish of Conti, Menzies the relevance splices into one quo tation a passage from Poggio and another from Pero Tafur (c. 1410-c. at Mt. Sinai (Egypt) in 1437, when 1484), a Spaniard who met Conti was planning to return home the Venetian (p. 85).10 Poggio refers to large Indian ships, with five sails, many masts, and hull compartments. Since only Chinese the latter, it is generally assumed ships possessed that Conti know vessels, evidently without actually described Chinese ing their origins.11 Tafur writes of ships "like very large houses" [como casas muy grandes], with ten or more sails and large cisterns of water inside, that delivered cargo to Mecca.12 Neither Poggio nor Tafur refer to Calicut in connection with the large ships, to Chinese vessels visit a chronicler ing India, or to the fleet of Zheng He; neither provides date for Conti's takes for granted that Still, Menzies stay in Calicut. in 1421 when Conti was in Calicut the Ming armada anchored there, and since both Conti and Ma Huan describe similar scenes in Calicut, surmises that Conti must have met the Chinese in Menzies chronicler that port (p. 86). sce creates an incredible Based on these presumptions, Menzies nario: he declares that Conti boarded Zheng He's junks for their voy New Zea Islands, Brazil, Patagonia, Australia, ages to the Cape Verde and Mexico. after the fleet returned Moreover, land, North America, to Southeast to in late 1423, Conti Asia and China dashed home in 1424 he was "debriefed" by the Infante Dom Pedro where Venice, the of Portugal (d. 1449), older brother of Prince Henry (1394-1460), and where Conti handed over copies of Chinese so-called "Navigator,"

10Menzies itself and it does not appear in his bibliogra does not cite Tafur's account A History from Richard Hall's Empires of theMonsoon: He takes his quotations of the phy. does not conflate Indian Ocean and Its Invaders (New York, 1996, p. 124), which, however, the two statements. 11 in China, vol. 4, Science and Civilisation p. 66; Needham, Mills, Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan, und Nicolo de' Conti," pp. 304-307) pt. 3, p. 452, note b. Sensburg ("Poggio Bracciolini some knowledge of he displays that Conti did not actually visit China, although speculates customs. Chinese 12 "The Travels e viajes de un hidalgo espa?ol, of Nicol? Conti," p. 27; Tafur, Andan?as trans, and ed. Malcom Letts 108. See also Pero Tafur, Travels and Adventures, 1435-1439, p. in Poggio and Tafur, see Joan-Paul information of Conti's (New York: 1926). For comparison in the Renaissance: South India through European Eyes, Travel and Ethnology 1250 Rubies, 1625 (Cambridge, U.K.: 2000), pp. 118-123.

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435)-13 Those (pp. 351-354, produced during the great voyage asserts, formed the basis for all subsequent charts, Menzies European inter alia, the maps that showed lands across the Atlantic, including, the Pizzigano map (1424), the (disputed) Vinland map (1420-1440?), Cantino and the Waldseem?ller maps (1507, planisphere (1502), to Prince Henry Conti's information 1513). Furthermore, prompted to in Puerto settlers Rico where 1431, (Menzies sug secretly dispatch of a previous Chinese colony gests) they perhaps found evidence (p. charts also explain Columbus's ambi copies of Ming 359). European tion to voyage across the Ocean conviction that he Sea, Magellan's could sail around South America, and Cook's of alleged "discovery"
Australia.

is silent about the di Conti" though "The Travels of Nicol? of the Venetian?one wonders he global journey why kept that thrill news from claims the document ing Poggio?Menzies repeatedly Conti that "sailed with the Chinese fleet from India to Aus proves tralia and China."14 Thus with no more warrant than a passing men Even tion by Poggio and Tafur of large ships in the Indian Ocean, Menzies a scenario concocts tours the world on Zheng He's in which Conti that information transforms junks, collecting European cartography overseas and inspires European In a book bloated with expansion. assertions arguments, Menzies's extravagant regarding Poggio's well text stand out for their obdurate distortion known of evidence. Menzies's claims regarding the fleet's "missing years" and Conti's global cruise clearly cannot be sustained. The author's proof for the of the Ming In his presence argosy in new lands also lacks substance. ne first two chapters the his for claims (pp. 19-75), laYs groundwork its departure from Nanjing. describing Zheng He's fleet before it the lacks the foun any documentation, portrait Although provides dation for virtually all the evidence Menzies later cites for Chinese His depiction, then, does not represent mere scene setting exploration. aimed at engaging the reader?a rhetorical tactic that perhaps does not call for footnotes?but read back into the narrative itself. assumptions In effect, the author stocks the ships on their exodus from China with when

13 to Menzies, because Conti was a religious in 1424, he traveled According renegade some two decades and did not reveal his identity until his interview incognito by Poggio later (p. 352). Not only is there no evidence for this, it is clear from Tafur's account that Conti was in Egypt as late as 1437 (Andan?as e viajes de un hidalgo espa?ol, p. 99). 14 char Menzies, pp. 435, 93, 114, 192, 353-354, 369, 389. In his appendix, Menzies account acterizes Poggio's as follows: in 'The Travels" of Conti "Describes Chinese fleet to Australia Indian Ocean and his passage and China" passing through (p. 448).

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the very items that will confirm that the mariners reached their far destinations.15 flung survives of the garb worn by Zheng He's Thus while no evidence as wearing Menzies describes them robes because sailors, long white and the New World legends and folklore from Australia speak of vis sources are silent on the pres its from white-robed aliens.16 Although ence of women assumes in the fleet, Menzies that many prostitutes were aboard because the colonies founded during the voy supposedly mates In like fashion, he infers for the men.17 ages required Chinese were that many chickens loaded on the junks (as coops of Asiatic the presence p. 42) because presents for foreign dignitaries," in the New World is a central part of his proof of the natives fleets.18 Since Central American used passage of the Ming Menzies chicken entrails for divination, presumes they were "indoc in the practice trinated" colonists of Zheng He by the fowl-bearing (pp. 225, 420). is no evidence There for masons and stone carvers in Zheng He's believes flotilla, but Menzies they were aboard because no one else stone markers could have carved the numerous left behind supposedly Islands and other landing spots, and by the fleets in the Cape Verde "observation they must have built the "pyramids" and astronomical of chickens platforms" found just about everywhere else.19 The latter, Menzies "valuable

to deal with all the items in the fleet mentioned be tedious by Menzies, red tunics, pantaloons, includes mirrors, roses, jade, seeds, citrus fruits, coconuts, items omitted from the savants, and Buddhist mining engineers, Hindu religious figures. The as those that are narrative have the same status inMenzies's discussion, however, following because evidence included; that is, the author assumes they were aboard the fleet inNanjing the fleets ventured. for them supposedly has been found in areas overseas where he believes is a different Porcelain case, for it certainly was carried on Zheng He's ships, and Menzies which also consideration makes much ofthat (pp. 73, 195, 203, 208, 227, 275, 451, 453); but trade in in places such as that its appearance and of such long standing the ceramic was so extensive cannot be used as evidence for the presence of Zheng He's East Africa and the Philippines inWorld of Porcelain fleets. See Robert History," Finlay, "The Pilgrim Art: The Culture Journal ofWorld History g (1998): 158-165. 141-187, especially 16 445. Menzies, pp. 163-164, 285, 322, 414-415, 167, 177, 190, 207, 276-277, 17 the recruited from Canton 281, 285, 296. Supposedly brothels, Menzies, pp. 67-69, as "beautiful women are described and who were well-educated, concubines" talented, to their act" (p. 67). Oddly, the author devotes more discussion regarded sex as "a sanctified of Zheng He. than he does to the other six expeditions sexual activity presumed 18 232, 378, 395, 403. 162, 209, 223-224, Menzies, pp. 123, 124-126, 19On and the like, see Menzies, "observational pp. 103, 105-106, platforms" presumed 401, 437, 440, 453-455. 191, 270, 324-325, 163, 172, 173, 175, 185-186, in China before departure with Zheng He were carved associated actually in Ceylon in 1411 (see Needham, Science and Civilisation with one erected Pt- 3> P- 523) Inscribed steles of the fleet, as inChina, vol. 4,

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astronomers, claims, were needed by Chinese passengers indispensable in the fleet since they had to carry out the (undocumented) imperial to detect "guiding stars" in order to "correctly locate the new command territories" Teak was not used in building (pp. 28-29). Zheng He's consulted Menzies make clear, fleets, as sources supposedly yet he by as in marine excavations of teak the appearance regards any marking It is highly unlikely of the Ming vessels.20 that the Chinese at stones for bal carried carved any time) junks (or any ships specially as he Menzies describes how the mari last, imagines, yet elaborately ners built a slipway to refloat grounded at in Bimini the Bahamas, junks is "tongued the evidence for which and grooved" rocks rectangular presence found ships underwater there?ballast, the author declares, from the Ming (pp. 63, 265-277).21 included some horses used by Zheng He's armada almost certainly the admiral and other high commanders. Menzies claims, however, that thousands of horses were transported, many being used to stock the at Americas and to explore the interior of Australia. At sea for months a time, the mariners nourished the horses with mashed boiled, allegedly rice and with water distilled from seawater, "using paraffin wax or seal states that there is no blubber for fuel" (p. 67). Although Needham evidence that the Chinese knew how to desalinate seawater, Menzies asserts that a ship wrecked off the Oregon coast is reported to have car ried paraffin wax, hence he regards the rumor as implicit verification of his contentions about both desalination and hordes of junk-journey ing steeds.22

cites Li Zhaoxiang's chuan chang zhi [Record of the shipbuilding Longquan on the subject of Zheng He's ships. Both yards on the Dragon River] (1553) and Needham discuss the woods used in constructing the junks?cedar, and elm? chestnut, fir, camphor, and do not mention teak. See Longquan chuan chang zhi, 5:7; Needham, Science and Civili sation in China, vol. 4, pt. 3, pp. 411, 414. On see teak as evidence of Zheng He's vessels, 201, 227, 309, 459. Menzies, pp. 154, 172-173, 21Menzies states that the large stones were carved in Nanjing to lock together as bal last so the ships would not be damaged in a heavy storm (p. 273). There is no evidence that ever employed the Chinese this labor-intensive loose and flexible mate Rather, technique. rials, such as rock salt, cowrie shells, metal ingots, porcelain, gravel, sand, and timber typ ically were used as ballast, for they could be loaded and removed relatively easily, and they could be sold at the end of a voyage when the bilge was cleaned. 22 see Joseph for desalination in China, Menzies, pp. 201, 183,310. On lack of evidence inChina, vol. 5, Chemistry Science and Civilisation and Chemical Technology, Needham, pt. 4, and Invention: Apparatus, Theories and Gifts U.K.: 1980), (Cambridge, to inflate Chinese adds achievements, however, Needham immediately . . . ." was done during the great voyages of Cheng Ho [desalination] Menzies of wax and blub may have taken this hint from Needham, adding to it his notion ber fuel. If the fleet described included only 1,000 horses, however, then at least by Menzies Spagyrical Discovery p. 61. Always eager that "very possibly

20Menzies

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The seamen, prostitutes, and eunuchs were kept in fresh fish at sea . . ." in "trained otters, by pairs to herd shoals into the nets working in any creatures, alas, remain unheralded (p. 39). These marvelous but since some wild ones "have been seen swimming in the document, Island" (New Zealand), Menzies infers that their for fjords of South bears must have jumped Zheng He's ships there (pp. 173, 185). Chinese an animal the Ming flotilla because shar-peis must have sailed with a in in the Mexican the discovered painting resembling dog appears nineteenth audacious (pp. 42, 223). One shar-pei, Menzies in from the the Falklands and mated with proposes, junks an indigenous a to now-extinct birth animal called a war fox, giving on rah?DNA author the will be the website results, promises, posted century absconded

(P- 135) Menzies also goes beyond his portrait of Zheng He's armada inNan to from its global adventures. He sug jing point to evidence deriving a that the Chinese few American South sloths gests (or giant captured in Patagonia. arises from the author's This deduction mylodons) notion that a "dog-headed man" depicted on the Piri Reis map of 1513 ?which, of course, Menzies regards as based upon a copy of a Chinese an animal in fact a mylodon, from Conti's collection?is map (he zoo (pp. He's that desired for the assumes) captains Zheng emperor's He further supposes that one of the sloths aroused itself 118-119). a stone to in incarceration Australia because Chinese escape enough looks something like the Patagon (he thinks) carving near Brisbane ian beast (p. 185). to keep track of how many It is impossible assump self-confirming tions are at work in such citations of alleged evidence. Piling supposi never considers a question tion upon supposition, Menzies that he does not beg: every argument in 1421 springs from the fallacy of petitio prin is actually a feedback cipii. The author's "trail of evidence" loop that and con and between makes no distinction premise proof, conjecture firmation, Thus junks as supplied with all the where he contends, he also will that sailed prove they paraphernalia routes reconstructs the of the voyages maps, by treating European of those very based on Conti's cache, as the by-product supposedly Since the leads to some curious conclusions. voyages. This inevitably the bizarre guess and proven describes just as Menzies fact.

five gallons of drinking water and two gallons horse (see Menzies, p. 183). The total comes a lot of seal blubber. day. That's

rice would be needed for boiling to 7,000 gallons of desalinated

daily for every seawater every

Finlay: Gavin Menzies

and the Chinese

Discovery

of America

241

sea passage of 1507 seems to show an open Waldseem?ller map and Eurasia from the Barents Sea to the between Circle the Arctic concludes Bering Straits, a distance of more than 4,000 miles, Menzies that the route was surveyed by a Ming fleet taking a shortcut home of Greenland, after its exploration boldly going where no eunuch had gone voyage
place.

before

(p. 311). The to observe except

does not discuss this epic author, however, it took that the Waldseem?ller map proves

since Menzies believes that the Chinese first navigated Similarly, is proof of that around South America and that the Piri Reis map he declares that the map does not show a landlocked achievement, an extension with eastward of the Americas Atlantic, linking up with the peninsula of Southeast Asia, but, rather, "what appears to be ice to Antartica" the of America South connecting tip (p. 116). Rivaling his mistreatment of Poggio's "Travels," Menzies makes this claim even own contra Piri his of the Reis chart though reproductions patently dict it (pp. 117, 122, and color illustration). Not only that, Piri Reis states the contrary, for he noted on his map that Spanish himself and Portuguese explorers "have found out that coasts encircle this sea [that which has thus taken the form of a lake . . . ."23 Men is, the Atlantic], to inform his readers of this evidence. zies does not think it necessary this reckless manner of dealing with is evidence Unfortunately, it all its extraordinary claims: the voyages typical of 1421, vitiating describes never took place, Chinese information never reached Prince and Columbus, and there is no evidence of the Ming fleets in Henry lands. The fundamental of the book? newly discovered assumption that Zhu Di dispatched the Ming fleets because he had a "grand plan," a vision of charting the world and creating a maritime empire spanning a shred the oceans (pp. 19-43)?is simply asserted by Menzies without own of proof. It represents the author's back grandiosity projected onto the emperor, providing commensu the latter with an ambition rate with the global events that Menzies presumes 1421 uniquely has an account that provides "to overturn evidence the long revealed,

23 in Svat Soucek, Piri Reis and Turkish Mapmaking The Khalili Quoted after Columbus: Portolan Atlas (London: 1996), p. 60; see also Kitabi-I Bahriye Pin Reis, ed. Ertugrul Zek?i Okte and translated (Istanbul: 1:107. In fact, the continental by Robert Bragner 1988), on the Piri Reis map represents extension an interesting, of South America Gama post-da contention is a land-locked that the Indian Ocean sea, with the south update of Ptolemy's ernmost end of Africa to connect with Southeast Asia curving eastward (see W. G. L. Ran of Ptolemy's in Renaissance dies, "The Recovery Geography Italy and Its Impact in Spain in the Period of the Discoveries," and Portugal and Nautical Science Geography, Cartography in the Renaissance: The Impact of the Great Discoveries U.K.: [Aldershot, 2000], n.p.).

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It world" accepted history of the Western (p. 400). that textbooks on that history need not be rewritten. 1421 is inexorably circular, its evidence spurious, its its citations its borrowings unacknowledged, slipshod,
preposterous.

is clear, however, The reasoning of research derisory, and its assertions

itmay have some pedagogical value in world history courses. to from the book selections and undergrad Assigning high-schoolers serve as an outstanding uates, itmight example of how not to (re)write some light relief to a to provide Instructors world history. seeking to vie sometimes students subject also could encourage heavy-going one or most in nominating the with another amusing passage peculiar Still, in the book. A Ming mariners beads the size of into be stitched be the notion that the top contender surely would to the Americas of tiny glass "millions transported as a sex aid," intended to those used by the Chinese the skin around the head of the penis to increase the of Indeed, if the eunuch-captains pleasure of one's spouse (p. 227).24 to He's tried indoctrinate the encountered fleets Zheng they peoples it is little wonder in this exotic practice, that all the fabled Chinese in the New World colonies 1421 and 1492. floundered and faded in the years between

Menzies

on Malay men tin beads inside the skin of the penis, Ma Huan inserting the tin beads as "Chinese-made describes glass beads" (pp. 72-73). inexplicably trade in glass beads, which were certainly not used by the Chi There was an ancient Asian as a "sex aid." See Peter Francis Jr., Asia's Maritime Bead Trade: 300 B.C. nese, or anyone, to the Present 2002). (Honolulu: Citing

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