How true is this image?

That's a big boat.

China grows larger

Historical records.

The most bizarre memes about Chinese history like "records of Zheng He's voyages were destroyed" float around that are demonstrably false by actually reading Chinese records. Do people just take advantage of the fact no one outside China reads classical Chinese to just make random shit up?

If I pull that mast off, will you dive?

>Do people just take advantage of the fact no one outside China reads classical Chinese to just make random shit up?

Considering that China takes advantage of that fact and makes shit up, even with Taiwan actually has an easier time reading it, I'd say, absolutely.

*found by Chinese archaeologists

FTFY

For you.

Go to bed, Gavin Menzies

They built ships that big during the classical age too.

The main improvement in sailing, has been power.

It's true, but it lacks context. Columbus was out purely exploring, while Zheng He was bringing an entire military expedition along with him.

I also want to say that the waters Zheng He was sailing in were calmer and he could thus sail a larger ship through them like the massive oar powered ships of the classical Mediterranean, but I'm not certain so don't assume that's fact.

Fake and gay

Sounds like a landcraft carrier.

he is quite renowned in SEA
he is regarded as among first islamic preacher in my country

wtf i love china now.

Academically, Zheng He had a fleet that went as far from the Korean Peninsula as the East African Coast (likely Mozambique), but the ship size is extremely exaggerated. A ship that size would not be able to keep a shallow keel which would be necessary to traverse the Indian Ocean.

The size is actuate. But the Chinese was 200 years earlier. The reason that Columbus is more significant is that the Europeans followed up the discoveries made by colonizing. The Chinese on the other hand didn't settle anywhere else but taiwan. Although Zheng he discovered antarctica and mapped out east africa.

Poor little European. No need to feel insecure.

...

I build for China.

>A ship that size would not be able to keep a shallow keel which would be necessary to traverse the Indian Ocean.

> Columbus

Discovers the New World

> Zheng He

Zheng Who?

Morning glory.

Allow me to rephrase: The ocean itself would not be a problem, but there would be very little chance for resupply as there are no deep harbors like in China or Europe.

>implying china knew europe existed in 1200's

>inb4 others discovered it before Columbus
It only mattered when Colimbus did it

Zheng He? The fag from Dynasty Warriors?

holy fuck

its to 2:00am, I can't handle this

I'm not exactly sure what happened to be honest. I was lucky that I had a good teacher who taught us more than just American history.

Didn't the Chinese Emperor decide not to sail to the new world to become exclusionary?

That one is p. exagerrated.

The Treasure Ship was built as a grandspankin sailing trading expo & floating palace since that was what Zheng He's mission was: bedazzle the Spice Route into saying "Hello, China is back & greater than ever."

The only exploratory bit of it was Zheng He being told to see where the fuck Chinese ships go past Oman, and that turned out to be Eastern Africa.

Here is a more sensible sizing based off the dimensions of the largest Ming-period ship , the 御冠船 (Feng Zhou Chuan, literally: "Investiture Ship." A ship carrying Ming China's diplomats to bestow a Chinese title on a foreign ruler). Our only evidence for the size of the treasure ship really was a purported mast and the huge dockyards in which they were created.

>its a "lets invest everything into ship building and ignore agriculture until the population starts dropping" episode
>wait just kidding guys CHINA STRONK CHINA DONT NEED OUTSIDE INFLUENCE!!!!! CHINA NEVER MADE SHIP TO TRADE!?!

Yeah, that's about right. The Chinese took basically a handful of voyages of discovery, didn't discover anything more compelling than China and provided to write off the rest of the world as third-rate for the next few centuries.

Junks had many innovations lacking elsewhere like watertight hulls, a large number of masts, centerboards, leeboards and slats. However the Portuguese and Spanish caravels had carvel hulls which meant they could support taller heavier masts for a smaller area and weight.

A higher power to weight ratio and lower water resistance means more speed, voyages take less time and crews can travel greater distances before needing to stop for supplies. They gained further experience travelling along the Atlantic coast of Africa which had fewer stops for supplies than the east coast where Zheng He and Arabian traders traveled. All this made it possible for Columbus's voyage across the Atlantic.

>has a keel
Is this really accurate?

>and ignore agriculture until the population starts dropping"

Except that never happened.

Under the Emperor Renzong and Xuanzong's reign which the voyages occured, huge breakthroughs were made in agriculture, infrastructure and population growth.

>there are no deep harbors like in China or Europe.

Not all Chink Junks are flat-bottomed coastal craft like the modern surviving models.

One's we find sunk around SEA had keels. Shallow ones though.

They tore the ships apart to make canals to feed the population? I don't see where you're going with this.

Ocean going junk has

yes actually, his discovery was relevant while the best the Polynesians did was bring the chicken and sweet potato and the Vikings literally left after a while

You do know Zheng He's treasure fleet was almost a literal floating city? Besides the treasure ships there were.
>Equine ships (馬船, Mǎ Chuán), carrying horses and tribute goods and repair material for the fleet (eight-masted, about 103 m (338 ft) long and 42 m (138 ft) wide).
>Supply ships (粮船, Liáng Chuán), containing staple for the crew (seven-masted, about 78 m (256 ft) long and 35 m (115 ft) wide).
>Troop transports (兵船, Bīng Chuán), six-masted, about 67 m (220 ft) long and 25 m (82 ft) wide.
>Fuchuan warships (福船, Fú Chuán), five-masted, about 50 m (160 ft) long.
>Patrol boats (坐船, Zuò Chuán), eight-oared, about 37 m (121 ft) long.
>Water tankers (水船, Shuǐ Chuán), with 1 month's supply of fresh water.

Besides they spent much of the voyage close to the coast and in addition what fucking says. Southeast Fucking Asia alone has shitloads of natural harbors.

You are fully aware that the Dhow is world renowned for its shallow keel, correct? Are you shitposting, uninformed or just stupid?

How are these unchecked???

Junk rigs are also worse than other rigs at pretty much any point of sail except dead downwind and are much more vulnerable to adverse conditions. Square (larger vessels) and Bermuda (smaller vessels) rigs are vastly superior to junk rigs for blue-water passages, even with the additional effort required.

Also
>Unstayed masts

They're sources check out. What are you implying?

is this literally your first day on this website?

Is it yours?

see and

It does. Zheng He's ship was too big for ocean and would crack in the middle faced against bigger waves.

Was losing funding part of your plan?

Really makes you think. There are so any little details like this in sailing.

This junk made the voyage, though in the 19th century it was likely assisted by numerous other innovations.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keying_(ship)

This. It's most likely that the largest ships were just for prestige and to boast with or were used as party boats for the emperor, not really seagoing material. Zheng He likely used the smaller models.
Not to mention even these smaller ships would definitely be incapable of doing what Columbus did, they have to stick to the coast.

It doesn`t really count for much if the boat stays in dock.

jesus fucking christ man....

>implying no romans ever traded silk with chinese

If I take off the keel will it float?

There was an European diaspora in China in the 13th C.

Columbus' ships were very small even by european standards, so it's not too farfetched. Big ass ships were a thing in antiquity, the roman grain ships for example could be bigger than napoleonic ships of the line. Size is not really much of an indication of anything other than expected usage in naval engineering.

China knew Europe existed since the 200s BCs.
China knew of Western Europeans since the 700s or so.

They just saw all Europeans as Barbarians with the exception of Daqin (Rome) and Fulin (Byzantine Empire), with whom they communicated with at a regular basis.

To get from the indian ocean to land you have to pass through coastal seas who are renowned for being fucking full of sand banks, coral reefs, submerged cliffs, etc. like the Celebes. East asian shipbuilding is mostly flat bottomed for a reason user.

And yet even with all that Ching Chong didn't discover shit, while Columbus in his tiny ship discovered America.

Why do non-Westerners fail so hard all the time?

>build huge ships
>do nothing of any importance with them
>ignore outside world for centuries

They did discover things, they just decided nothing was as good as China.

Discoveries have always been relative to the discoverers.

So I suppose it's pretty fucking important for East Asians.

Besides it's already stated that discovery wasnt their fucking job.

>ignore outside world
>didnt do shit

Why do people bother posting about shit they clearly know nothing about? Do it on /r9k/ or /b/.

china wasn't 'ignoring the outside world', once precious metals were discovered in america china became one of the biggest markets for silver from western europe because it was vital to their economy

Why do people think a bigger ship means easier long distance travel?

It's slower, a lot less manoeuvrable, has way more crew, requires way more supplies, is a massive target, can't dock as easy, etc. It's great for trading or blowing people out the water not for exploring the world.

Lel no you don't nigga do you have any idea how big and varied the indian ocean is

hahahahaha nigga just go around the coast like nigga sail around it

its true, mediterran nations knew their shit, built highly efficient, high quality vessels, capable of circumnavigating the globe

chinese empire just went - look at my big fuckhuge mega hyper flag ship, look at it and kneel in worship, isnt it big

those things must have been logistic nightmares

The Chinese had no desire to do so.
The main impetus for the Europeans to go traveling around the world is to find a trade route to China without having to traverse Islamic territory, especially after the conquest of Constantinople.
Without the fall of the Byzantine Empire, Europeans would never have thought of exploring elsewhere.
The Chinese exploration fleet was simply a shock and awe campaign that eventually ended like a lot of previous other shit in other empires: elder statesmen/royal courtiers become afraid of the independence and military power vested in a general, they kick him out of power.
Besides, the Chinese already had enough resources in China. They didn't really have any need to trade with Backwater Europe at the time. They were fully self-sufficient to the point that the British Empire's only useful trading good was drugs, and that was in the 1800s.

This is the same reason the Viking discovery of the New World didn't affect much of world history. The Vikings didn't actually need it at the time, since Europe still had a load of land to take over.

Classical Europe also had mega-ships that traversed the Mediterranean. They basically functioned as stone carriers for buildings throughout the Roman Empire.

Giant shipbuilding technology to traverse the seas was not unknown to both the Chinese and the Romans. Both could create huge ships that moved impressive tonnage and have them sail through seas and oceans. It's just none of them ever thought of actually exploring further, since they had all they wanted in Eurasia pretty much.

This isn't some kind of fucking dickwaving contest. Human ingenuity was amazing even during the ancient times.

>The Chinese exploration fleet was simply a shock and awe campaign

this, they were built for shock value, it was something like a diplomatic mission that was supposed to scare everione in costal south/southeast asia into submitting to china for being the greatest ever in absolutely everithing

Those bigger ships were like command centers of a fleet. They weren't all what consisted of the fleet.

>dude, they just chose not to lmao
anthropology everyone

>Without the fall of the Byzantine Empire, Europeans would never have thought of exploring elsewhere.

I think the fall of the Byzantine empire was a factor, but it being there or not wouldn't remove the incentive for western Europeans to try and cut out the middle man. The Portuguese were exploring Africa to find routes to the Indies before Constantinople fell.

A force only moves as fast as its slowest unit

Because for most of history, the biggest ships were the fastest and most seaworthy. The trouble is that the average guy can't see the difference between a very broad and slow cargo ship and a sleek fast military vessel, they just see how long they both are.

I believe it as much i believe chinas """"historical"""" records that they discovered britain and florida
they are literally we wuz tier now

OP's picture isn't exaggerated at all, it shows the smaller estimate of the ship's size. See

>I believe theories written by Gavriel Menzies.
>This means China is wewuz.
China is apparently so great, foreigners do it's wewuzing for it.

It's probably true, but Zheng He sailed to East Africa at best. He was contained to mostly coastal waters. Christopher Columbus aimed to circumnavigate the globe and discovered an entirely new continent on accident after crossing an entire ocean.

Both were great explorers but Columbus' ships, though smaller, were quite obviously superior. They were built to survive trans-oceanic journeys, not merely muddle about near coastal waters.

when will shiplets learn

It only mattered if it changed the world.

[citation needed]

>were quite obviously superior.

Gonna need a source

I heard this guy got to the Americas before Columbus.

LAS ISLAS MALDIVAS SON ARGENTINAS

And? If you listen to all this bullshit, you could leave for to the States this exact moment and still be there ahead of him.

It's called America, after Amerigo Vespucci. Not Zhengguo, after Zheng He. That should be enough evidence for you.

It would be extremely fatal...

Thats not evidence, but circumstantial support.

The original poster already outlined one aspect which its superior to, the ability to navigate the oceans instead of coastal regions.

What other reasons does it have that make it superior.

>traveling along the coastlines in huge boats
vs.
>traveling across an entire ocean in small boats