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1421: The Year China Discovered...
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 2215075" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>One account from the 5th century which uses a word latter identified consistantly with Japan? You've pinned down the 5th century lengeth specified by the li? There has been an actual artifact discovered that I'm not aware of? Supposing we fix the lenght of a li by the known distance between China and Japan, won't that number leave our travellers short of British Columbia - much less Mexico? If we assume that they underestimated distance because of the effects of the Pacific current, why are 'funsang' pundits eager to try to conflate Fusang with Mexico merely because the account doesn't seem to fit well with the custums of NE american tribes? What about the extra 20,000 li involved in this assumption? And were is the matriarchal culture that is a scarce 150 miles east from Fusang? The return journey to China undertaken according to the account 40 years latter could not have taken the same northern path (because of the currents and prevailing winds) and would have required an even more sea worthy vessel to make the south pacific journey via the open pacific and the Phillipians. Few wooden ships can survive 40 years, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that a Junk could have been manufactured anywhere in the America's. Moreover, why wasn't the longer return journey described in the account?</p><p></p><p>It's possible that the Chinese could have visited North America. I certainly don't know of any solid evidence for it, and because of that ultimately it is irrelevant. So little historical information remains that it doesn't matter whether it happened. It had no real impact on the course of history. Columbus indisputably wasn't the first person to 'discover' America, but he did indisputably change the world.</p><p></p><p>Personally, I'm of the opinion that turning the history of Eastern Civilization in to a petty contest with Western Civilization of who did what first is somewhat patronizing and denigrating, but if we go to far down that path we are going to get into politics. Suffice to say that I think the history of the non-European parts of the world is interesting and worthy of study without relying on rather dubious accounts, and I'd dare say most Chinese historians would agree with this position.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 2215075, member: 4937"] One account from the 5th century which uses a word latter identified consistantly with Japan? You've pinned down the 5th century lengeth specified by the li? There has been an actual artifact discovered that I'm not aware of? Supposing we fix the lenght of a li by the known distance between China and Japan, won't that number leave our travellers short of British Columbia - much less Mexico? If we assume that they underestimated distance because of the effects of the Pacific current, why are 'funsang' pundits eager to try to conflate Fusang with Mexico merely because the account doesn't seem to fit well with the custums of NE american tribes? What about the extra 20,000 li involved in this assumption? And were is the matriarchal culture that is a scarce 150 miles east from Fusang? The return journey to China undertaken according to the account 40 years latter could not have taken the same northern path (because of the currents and prevailing winds) and would have required an even more sea worthy vessel to make the south pacific journey via the open pacific and the Phillipians. Few wooden ships can survive 40 years, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that a Junk could have been manufactured anywhere in the America's. Moreover, why wasn't the longer return journey described in the account? It's possible that the Chinese could have visited North America. I certainly don't know of any solid evidence for it, and because of that ultimately it is irrelevant. So little historical information remains that it doesn't matter whether it happened. It had no real impact on the course of history. Columbus indisputably wasn't the first person to 'discover' America, but he did indisputably change the world. Personally, I'm of the opinion that turning the history of Eastern Civilization in to a petty contest with Western Civilization of who did what first is somewhat patronizing and denigrating, but if we go to far down that path we are going to get into politics. Suffice to say that I think the history of the non-European parts of the world is interesting and worthy of study without relying on rather dubious accounts, and I'd dare say most Chinese historians would agree with this position. [/QUOTE]
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