Is this move by China the most retarded political move in recorded history? What the fuck were they thinking?

People (including myself until I read this article today) had the impression that all ships are made of equal size. It just somehow seems counterintuitive that not all nations would make ships as big as they could get.

Those ships never existed.

Wrong

Chinese ships were extremely ocean-worthy. The reason the fleet stuck to the coast was because is as stated by

>Also what is this obsession with size of ships and always pointing out how small Columbus' ship was.
because plebs don't really have a frame of reference for ship sizes other than meme historical figures, so writers have to go 'hey remember that columbus guy you heard about in 4th grade?'

Is there any other source besides the Ming Chronicle which states how big these ships were?

Chinese length estimates tend to be sketchy.

Yeah, don't mean to be that guy, but Indian sources claim that they had flying saucers, are we supposed to believe that too? Until I see more evidence of this I'm calling it bs.

At who saying what is your comment directed?

I didn't actually read that jpg lol!

I was referring to the Chinese ships like the ones in the OP. I'd like to see evidence of that.

>jpg
png whatever.

Well that JPG is like part of my argument in saying that Chinese length estimates tend to be sketchy since no European ship would reach 300 feet in length until the 19th century.

Don't think of nations as single entities looking out for themselves. Think of them as groups of elites doing everything in their power to stay in power over the masses.

Not just that. I think their point was "whoah, if Columbus sailed to America in a 19m boat, imagine what the mighty Chinese could've done with their 120m motherships!"

Which shows a huge lack of understanding on the topic.

And even if that wasn't what they meant, they didn't specify, so a large proportion of their readers will still get the wrong impression.

Size can become a hindrance, especially if you're building stuff out of wood. Then its structural integrity will be endangered if you go overboard with size.

That out of the way, the Europeans built some big ass ships too when they were centralized and more or less unified, as during the Roman era. Pic related.

>Chinese ships were extremely ocean-worthy
Nice fucking source.

You're a dumb nigger. Go read up on Ming ship-building techniques.

Well since Europeans weren't building those kinds of ships those days, in order for the Chinese to copy their design and manufacture cheap replicas, I say it's bs.

You can't blame the Chinese emperor for not thinking couple centuries ahead of the curve.

No one but the very wisest can predict such outcomes.

The article's cover picture is literally one of those ships.

>The chinese emperor forbids foreign trade to maintain absolute political influence
>prevents China from reaching industrial levels and becoming the strongest nation ever
>It will still take until 2050 for China to take its place as the rightful global hegemon

That emperor halted the inevitable Chinese dominion for literally 500 years.

I've read a book that argued this was the start of the decline of China. It mostly compared China with Europe at the time as Europe started opening up when China was becoming increasingly isolationist. So this actually made China lose out on the commerce and colonization which would have arguably prevented it from stagnating.

Because the Ming dynasty had problems with Timur and the Steppeniggers shitting up the Silk Road all over again so that they had to promote a new avenue for Chinese goods: the Spice route.

Chinese ships have been running around the Spice Route for some time now but it was secondary compared to the Silk Road traffic. Ergo this basically makes it the first time China debuted in the sea trade. So a statement had to be made to the coastal states of the Spice route.

And it worked. Coupled with Spain circumnavigating the world and Spanish colonies setting up shop in Latin America and sending their silver to buy Chinkshit via the Philippines, the shift of China to sea trade led to the decline of the Silk Road.

>The chinese emperor forbids foreign trade to maintain absolute political influence
But they didn't.

Fucking Macau was founded during the Ming Dynasty and Ming cunts traded regularly with the Spanish in the Philippines. Potatoes and nuts came to China at that time in the 1500s.

Made it to Iceland circa 1420 according to Christopher Columbus. This is why he brought Jews with him in 1492.

The Zheng He fleets were a way to assert China's dominance in the world through military interaction and economic strength. Zheng He actually kidnapped a Sri Lankan king, showing the threatening manner of the "explorations," and of course, the fleets were a major force in the Indian Ocean trade routes.

Wrong

The Silk Road was always a secondary trade route for China. It might have been the greatest trade route for the Europeans but the greatest trade route in Asia and still is to this day is the East Indian sea route.

>Always
Breh it was fucking important during the Han to Yuan Dynasties.

DOesnt matter if it was or wasnt, the shittening of the silk road led to an increase of sea trade in Chinkdom.

Chinese didn't really need the ocean trade routes, for them the most lucrative trade was overland to the West. Xinjiang literally means New Frontier.

Didn't know the Mongols were still a thing in the late 1400s

I'd like to read more, anyone care to point me to anything the mongols were up to at the time?

Tessarakonteres was bigger and it could ram ships

Xinjiang was only occupied to preempt the rise of yet another Mongol-led Empire called the Dzungar Khanate. Not due to trade.

However, the Qing can afford to limit Sea Trade largely because between them, Russia, and Safavid Persia, the Nomadic hordes were finally tamed.

Wasnt really the case under the Ming.

That said, the Qing did sea trade as well largely because the best paying customers in the 18th Century was Spain, Netherlands, and France. Not so much their fellow Asians by that point.

No, that picture is a model.

There is no evidence whatsoever these ridiculous 120m long ships ever existed.

>le easy mode mediterranean

tl;dr:
>1360s - Yuan Dynasty collapses. Mongolia split between the Chaghatais in the West and the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty in the East.
>1390s: Yongle finishes off the Yuan during his invasion of Inner Mongolia. Inner Mongolia becomes part of China.
>1400s: Yuan remnants in Eastern Mongolia get to be unified under a confederacy known as the Four Oirats. Moment of glory came when in they retook Inner Mongolia and in 1449, they captured the Zhengtong Emperor who stupidly went on campaign on the advise of a shitty eunuch. Esen- their Khan at the time- demanded a hugeassload of Cash from the Chinks, but they hated Zhengtong and replaced a new Emperor instead and strengthened the defences North. Esen loses face among the Oirats for this and was deposed.
>1500s, Mandukhai unifies Mongoldom under the 4 Oirat confederacy. However after several repelled attempts to invade China, the unreliability of the Mongols in Inner Mongolia, and increasing Jurchen power, Oirats begin to decline