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Literary Review
“1421 - The Year China Discovered America” by Gavin Menzies
Reviewed by Joni Pun

Front cover of 1421 The Year China Discovered America

The author of this engaging book was a seaman in the British Royal Navy from 1959 until 1970, when he gained a great knowledge of sea currents, prevailing winds, stars and map reading. Menzies claims to have visited 120 countries and more than 900 museums and libraries to research “1421.” In his acknowledgements, he singles out three of these sites as having wonderful collections - the British Museum, the Shanaxi Historical Museum and Lima's Museum of History…interesting!

The historical background in this book takes us to the Ming Dynasty in China. In 1368 Zhu Yuanzhang defeated the Mongol emperor and ended the reign of that people who had ruled China since the great Kubla Khan. He proclaimed himself the first Ming emperor. His son, Zhu Di was ordered to destroy the remaining Mongol stronghold. When it was conquered, all the male defenders were butchered and the male children who had not yet reached puberty were emasculated, to be kept as servants and retainers in the Imperial Army. Legions of these eunuchs went on to be faithful servants of the Chinese (go figure!). It was the custom, not only in China, but throughout Arabian lands to also have eunuchs guard the harems, and in China these men were given powerful positions.

When the emperor died, however, the reign passed to his grandson, who sided with the mandarins (learned scholars) and distrusted the eunuchs, stripping them of most of their powers. When Zhu Di, along with his faithful eunuch, Zheng He, decided to wage battle against the emperor for the throne, the eunuchs welcomed him. He became Emperor of all China in the year 1402. One of his first decisions was to greatly expand the shipyards and to make Zheng He the commander-in-chief of one of the largest fleets ever built. Zhu Di then decided to move the capital to Beijing and to construct a royal palace, the likes of which had never been seen. It was intended “to dazzle his people and intimidate his enemies.” In 1421, Zhu Di brought all the rulers of the known world by ship to the inauguration in Beijing.

After a lavish banquet and more celebration, Zhu Di dispatched the Grand Eunuch Zheng He with a fleet of some 800 ships, accompanied by ships of many other nations to return the dignitaries to their homes and then to continue on, in 5 groups, to travel to “the end of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas and bring them into the Chinese tribute system, and to prospect for minerals, search for useful plants, take astronomical observations, make accurate maps, and determine a way to navigate in the southern hemisphere.”

China did not have a policy of waging war to conquer other lands. Instead, it conquered them by trade, offering goods, and putting other nations in debt to them. (Why does this sound familiar?) “Those rulers who accepted the emperor's overlordship were rewarded with titles, protection and trade missions.”

A few months after the launching, however, disaster struck Beijing. Lightning hit part of the Forbidden City, burning much of it and killing over 1500 people. The emperor was disgraced and died a short while later. His son succeeded him and sided again with the mandarins, setting up a xenophobic government that was to seal off China from the rest of the world for centuries. When the ships returned after 2 to 3 years, they were dismantled and their accounts burned as were many books that told tales of foreign lands.

Space does not permit even a small list of the evidence that the author presents to show that these fleets mapped the whole world, but he does mention large memorial stones that are found in many of the sites around the world, trees that had Chinese figurines buried within their roots, Chinese DNA found in many peoples - people in two far-off parts of a land might share Chinese DNA and be more similar than people who lived close by. His theory is that charts and maps made by the Chinese were later copied by Europeans, and that explorers such as Vasco de Gama, Columbus, Magellan, and Cook thus knew what they would find, citing writings of all of them that would seem to suggest exactly that. Columbus and others are said to have written that they found Chinese people in some of the areas they visited.

Peru is mentioned quite often. Here, there were Asiatic chickens when the Spanish arrived, and he cites lots of linguistic evidence and the DNA of the Incas and even of the mummy “Juanita” as having Chinese DNA. And alleged descendents of the Chinese are said to have been found by early explorers of the United States. Many plants, such as maize which originated in the Americas, were taken to other places. Magellan found it in the Philippines and it had to be planted as it cannot grow from seed dropped by migrating birds.

There are many people who have written articles debunking Dr. Menzies' work on a variety of grounds - map interpretation, sea currents, even lack of linguistic evidence. Surely there must be errors, but if even only one-tenth of all the references he cites are true, this would still make up an enormous body of evidence in support of his theories. A very absorbing book indeed!