When China Ruled the Seas

“Accompanying the large junks on their mission were nearly a hundred supply ships, water tankers, transports for cavalry horses, warships, and multi-oared patrol boats with crews numbering up to 28,000 sailors and soldiers. It was a unique armada in the history of China—and the world—not to be surpassed until the invasion fleets of World War I sailed the seas […] Half the world was in China’s grasp, and with such a formidable navy the other half was easily within reach, had China wanted it. China could have become the great colonial power, a hundred years before the great age of European exploration and expansion. But China did not.”

This presents one of the book’s main themes: the idea that China was poised to become the world’s great power in the 15th century. Long before Europe set forth on its own path of sea exploration or had sufficient military strength to conquer foreign lands, China was Asia’s great power and could have taken its domination further so inclined. The story of why it did not comprises the book’s central narrative. 

“While stressing the originality of early American cultures, most scholars are generally agreed that there appears to have been at least some Asian influence in the New World before the arrival of Columbus. How much influence and exactly when this influence occurred are the subjects of much debate, but one of the most likely moments of contact seems to be around 1000 B.C. and may have involved the displaced Shang and their Yi boatmen.”

For many people, Christopher Columbus or the Vikings represent the first contact in the New World by people outside the Americas. This is a reminder that Asian peoples likely arrived there first, even long before Europeans. The passage refers to the end of the Shang dynasty, when they were displaced by the Zhou. The Shang were driven southward, where they mixed with the Yi, China’s first seafaring people . From the Yi, the Shang gained knowledge of sailing and possibly took to the sea to avoid persecution by the Zhou. At about this time, sophisticated crafts very similar to those of the Shang appeared seemingly out of nowhere in two groups of American peoples, providing circumstantial evidence that the Shang introduced them.