Announcement

The Chinese Origin of The Age of Discovery* is now available as an ebook

For hundreds of years the Age of Discovery has enjoyed the status as one of the most spectacular chapters in European history. The miraculous achievements in discovering new lands—not just lands, but entire continents—led to the glorious flowering of European cultures and the ultimate domination of the world. Yet nobody, lay persons and scholars alike, seems to know what brought on such an unlikely explosion of brilliance. The records of the period, especially those concerning seafaring, are, to say the least, sketchy. What made Christopher Columbus desire to travel west by sea to Asia whereas everybody else was going east? And why did the Portuguese, the first to venture out of continental Europe, go east? Indeed, what prompted them to go at all? The pat answer provided, even in schools, is that the Ottoman Turks had monopolized the spice trade with the East, choking off the trade routes. Thus, the Portuguese decided to circumvent this obstacle and to try to find a new, direct sea route to the Spice Islands, which implies that they knew where those islands were. This theory, of course, is now discredited, hence the real reason, or reasons, remains unknown.

In any case, historian researcher Chao C. Chien has been looking into this period of history in search of answers. A close and detailed examination of extant European documents of the period offers up an unexpectedly logical explanation: the Chinese had documented the lands of the world and the Europeans had inherited the knowledge. European maps from the period, from late 14th c. to 16th c. showed the lands of the whole world before the European explorers had visited them; before they knew such lands existed. The lands included all the continents: Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas, and yes, Australia, and the poles. Islands such as Greenland and Iceland were also prominently and unmistakably depicted. Mapmakers were not supposed to be able to represent geography without data. The fact that they did without firsthand experience of survey indicates that they had copied the maps from a source that had. The conclusion is inevitable. The maps in question are not Chinese but European maps, and they are preserved in national archives and institutions.

Further examination of these same documents shows that the mapmakers not only copied their oceans and landmasses, they also copied the geographical characteristics of their sources; they had Chinese names on their maps where they should not be. For instance, Chinese place names were found on the American continents alongside native names, informing us that the European mapmakers had no real knowledge of what they were working on. Thus we find Cathay and Tibet neighbors to Mexico.

Not only are these names found in unlikely places Chinese names, they are unquestionably Mongol-Yuan Dynasty era nomenclature. For example, the name Manji, which appears on many of these antique European maps, is a name that the conquering Mongols bestowed on the Chinese, and it means “Barbarians.” Such signatures are easy give-away. The Europeans had obtained Chinese knowledge documented during the 13th to 14th c.

During the reign of the Chinese Ming Dynasty emperor Chengzu at the beginning of the 15th c. a series of naval expeditions were launched sending huge ships into the Indian Ocean and beyond. The mission was headed by a court eunuch named Zheng He. The proliferation of Chinese geographical knowledge on European documents did not begin until the early 15th c.; that is, the time of Admiral Zheng He’s epic voyages, and soon thereafter. Admiral Zheng He’s fleets sailed between 1405 and 1433, and new features of the world began appearing on European documents.

The Portuguese explorers and Christopher Columbus sailed some half a century later. Their having benefited from Chinese geographical knowledge is beyond doubt. Indeed, the antique maps show that the map sketches attributed to Christopher Columbus contain Chinese signature features.

Regardless, as time went on, as the Europeans began flexing their naval muscles and reaping successes, much of the earlier period of learning was forgotten. Legends and convenient story-telling filled the void. Christopher Columbus, who had fallen out of favor with Queen Isabella I of Castile and became persona non-grata within ten years of his now famous outing, was soon forgotten. The continent that he supposedly discovered was ostensibly named for another navigational virtual nobody named Amerigo Vespucci. Columbus was only resurrected some three hundred years later because Europeans needed a hero for their inexplicable exploits.

In recent years there has been a spate of theories on the Chinese having circumnavigated the world and visited America before the Europeans. Most have been pooh-poohed and debunked by academia as mere speculations. Entirely based on tangible and indisputable evidence, Chien’s work has stunned the academic community and will undoubtedly become the gold standard to be measured against when the history of the Age of Discovery is concerned. So far scholars have not refuted (and cannot refute) the evidence, the research, and conclusions arrived at in The Chinese Origin Of The Age Of Discovery. What we teach today in the classrooms about the history of European Age of Discovery and Christopher Columbus discovering the New World is patently false.

Chien’s complete research with evidence and analyses is contained in the book The Chinese Origin of the Age of Discovery, and it is now available as an ebook. No historian, history teacher, student, controversy enthusiast, or someone who simply enjoys a good read should miss it.

Historian Dr. Cyclone Covey wrote:

I am holding your manuscript in awe.

Dr. Hwa-Wei Lee, former Chief, Asian division, Library of congress, wrote in January, 2009:

I enjoyed reading your manuscript as a student and learner of this significant part of history. In fact, I did learn a great deal from your research and scholarship. Not only did you examine all relevant historical evidence from a wide range of sources with great care, but you also have made good use of this evidence to advance your arguments on the Chinese origin of the age of exploration. By reading your exhaustive analyses of the historical facts from Asian and European sources, I am convinced, too, that the Age of Exploration was hardly an exclusively European affair. To the contrary, the Age of Exploration was in fact the direct result of European acquisition of world geographical knowledge from the East. For reason of your very important historical findings, I strongly urge you to publish your book for wider distribution in order to get the necessary attention and, perhaps, constructive scholarly debates.

To purchase the The Chinese Origin of The Age of Discovery ebook please go to the Purchase page.

*An earlier version was published as a hardcopy book under the title The 1421 Heresy.