编号：GDZPS6685

    Book Description

    On 8 March 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China. The ships, some nearly five hundred feet long, were under the command of Emperor Zhu Di's loyal eunuch admirals. Their mission was 'to proceed all the way to the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas' and unite the world in Confucian harmony. Their journey would last for over two years and take them around the globe. But by the time the fleet returned home, Zhu Di had lost control and China was beginning its long, self-imposed isolation from the world it had so recently embraced. And so these great ships rotted at their moorings and the records of their extraordinary journey were destroyed. And with them, the knowledge that the Chinese had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan, reached America seventy years before Columbus, and Australia three hundred and fifty years before Cook. . . The result of over fifteen years research, 1421: THE YEAR CHINA DISCOVERED THE WORLD is Gavin Menzies' enthralling account of the voyage of the emperor's fleet, the remarkable discoveries he made and the incontrovertible evidence to support them: ancient maps, precise navigational knowledge, astronomy and the surviving accounts of Chinese explorers and the later European navigators as well as the artefacts the fleet left in its wake - from sunken junks to the ornate votive offerings left by the Chinese sailors wherever they landed, giving thanks to Shao Lin, goddess of the sea. Already hailed as a classic, this is the story of an extraordinary journey of discovery that not only radically alters our understanding of world exploration but also rewrites history itself.

    Amazon.co.uk Review

    If you're going to make a stir, you might as well do it in style. And Gavin Menzies has caused one, big time. In 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, this retired Royal Navy submarine commander, who only visited China for the first time on his 25th wedding anniversary, claims that the Chinese navigator Zheng He discovered America some 71 years before Columbus. And not content with this, he goes on to suggest that Zheng He learnt how to calculate longitude several centuries before John Harrison supposedly nailed the problem. Unsurprisingly, this has not gone down too well in some areas and the book has been the target of some scepticism.

    Although Menzies has unearthed a few unknown primary sources, the bulk of his thesis depends on amalgamating several disparate areas of research into a grand unified theory. So he combines what we do know--principally that the Chinese built huge sailing ships with nine masts and that Asiatic chickens were discovered in South America--into what he considers compelling evidence. Menzies has also turned up some maps from the pre-Columbus era that appear to show the Americas, along with a few shipwrecks and Ming artefacts from along his supposed route.

    It all makes for a gripping read, even if the sum doesn't quite add up to the whole. For all the detail, Menzies is some way off providing proof. None of the supposed 28,000 colonists has left any documentary evidence because all records, boats and shipyards associated with his voyage were burnt by imperial order in 1433. This surely begs the question--if we know so much of Zheng He's voyages around the Indian Ocean, how come we know nothing of his trips further east? Nor, conveniently for Menzies, did any of the colonists return home in triumph. They either died en route or skulked home to obscurity after they were disowned by the emperor.

    So you either accept Menzies as an act of faith or brush him aside with scepticism. Either way, you'll have a lot of fun in the process as the book is never less than provocative. And even the sceptics will find themselves hoping Menzies has got it right, because there's something intrinsically uplifting about the notion of an amateur historian getting one over the professionals.

    --John Crace

    About Author

    Gavin Menzies was born in 1937 and lived in China for two years before the Second World War. He joined the Royal Navy in 1953 and served in submarines from 1959 to 1970. As a junior officer he sailed the world in the wake of Columbus, Dias, Cabral and Vasco da Gama. When in command of HMS Rorqual (1968-1970), he sailed the routes pioneered by Magellan and Captain Cook. Since leaving the Royal Navy, he has returned to China and the Far East many times, and in the course of researching 1421 he has visited 120 countries, over 900 museums and libraries and every major sea port of the late Middle Ages.

Gavin Menzies is married with two daughters and lives in North London.

目录

LIST OF MAPS AND DIAGRAMS

LIST OF PLATES

CHINESE NOMENCLATURE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

Ⅰ Imperial China

THE EMPEROR'S GRAND PLAN

A THUNDERBOLT STRIKES

THE FLEETS SET SAIL

Ⅱ The Guiding Stars

ROUNDING THE CAPE

THE NEW WORLD

Ⅲ The Voyage of Hong Bao

VOYAGE TO ANTARCTICA AND AUSTRALIA

Ⅳ The Voyage of Zhou Man

AUSTRALIA

THE BARRIER REEF AND THE SPICE ISLANDS

THE FIRST COLONY IN THE AMERICAS

CLONIES IN CENTRAL AMERICA

Ⅴ The Voyage of Zhou Wen

SATAN'S ISL AND

THE TREASURE FLEET RUNS AGROUND

SETTLEMENT IN NORTH AMERICA

EXPEDITIN TO THE NORTH POLE

Ⅵ The Voyage of Yang Qing

SOLVING THE RIDDLE

Ⅶ Portugal Inherits the Crown

WHERE THE EARTH END

COLONIZING THE NEW WORLD

ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

EPILOGUE:THE CHINESE LEGACY

POSTSCRIPT

APPENIECES

CHINESE CIRCUMANAVIGATION OF THE WORLD 1421-3:Synopsis of Evidence

THE DETERMINATION OF LONGITUDE

NOTES

INDEX

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