Zheng He shows Columbus the way to the New World.

 

In 1430 Emperor Zhu Zhanji, Zhudi’s grandson allowed Zheng He one last great voyage during which he could visit Mecca.

 

Reports of Zheng He’s fleet reaching the Red Sea come from Ibn Tagri Birdi the celebrated Egyptian historian in his history of Egypt ‘An Nujun, Az–Zahira, Fi Muluk, Misr Wal Kakira’ who provides this description for 1432 –

 

‘A report came from Mecca, the honoured, that a number of junks had come from China to the sea ports of India and the two of them had anchored in the port of Aden, but their goods, chinaware, silk musk and the like were not disposed of there because of the disorders of the state of Yemen .…. The Sultan wrote to let them come to Jeddah and to show them honour’

 

Ma Huan, the Muslim historian who sailed with Zheng He’s fleet takes up the story –

 

‘The native name of the part of this country is Yang Ta (Jeddah) which is controlled by a great chief. Travelling westward from Yang Ta for one day one arrives at the town where the King lives which is called Mo-ka (Mecca)’

 

‘The country believes in The Mohammedan doctrine. The sage (Mahomet) has already spread his doctrine in his country and ‘til now the people of this country follow meticulously the precepts of that doctrine. Not daring to depart even so little from it in their actions. The men of this country are of a stalwart build and of a brown and glossy colour. The men wear a turban and a long robe, and have leather sandals on their feet. The women all wear a veil, so no-body can see their faces. They speak Arabic…’

 

‘Travelling further for a journey of more than half a day one arrives at The Heavenly Hall Mosque. The native name of that heavenly hall is K’ai-a-po (Kaaba). It is surrounded on the outside by a wall which has 466 arches. On either side of these arches, pillars are built of white jade stone and altogether there are 467 of these, that is to say; 99 in front, 101 at the back, 132 at the left hand side and 135 on the right hand side… Incense is never lacking. There is a curtain made of black silk; two black lions guard the gate of that which is hidden by the curtain.’

 

Every year on the twelfth of the tenth month (Dhu’l Hijja) all the non-Chinese Mohammedans, even those who have to travel one or two years, come to worship in this hall. They all cut a piece of the silk curtain as a souvenir, before they go. When it has finally been completely cut off, the king places it by a curtain that has been completely woven before hand for this purpose and this is done year after year.’ (Translation Professor J. J. L. Duyvendak, Amsterdam 1933).

 

So Zheng He had followed his grandfather and father and fulfilled his life long ambition – the pilgrimage to Mecca. Amongst his other achievements he could call himself a ‘Haji’ and die a true Muslim.

 

Not only was Zheng He a true and devout Muslim but he followed the true precepts of that great religion by showing exemplary tolerance to believers of other faiths – Buddhists, Hindus, Tamils, Jews and Christians peopled his fleets. Chinese converse with Christians had been a long tradition instituted by Kublai Khan. In 1260 Nicolo and Mateo Polo had left Constantinople and reached Kublai Khan’s court. Kublai Khan decided to send them back to the Pope as his ambassadors accompanied by an officer of his own court. They returned in 1269 but found there was no Pope, for Clement IV had died in 1268 and no election had taken place. There was a long interregnum, and so the Polo’s tired of waiting returned to the East again in1271 taking their nephew Marco with them. They arrived back in Kublai Khan’s court in 1275.

 

A weeks sailing from Jeddah to the north would have brought Zheng He’s fleet to the Red Sea Nile Canal which they had transited in 1408 and 1410, as recounted in the Ming Shih. Once in the Mediterranean they had an easy sail north to Italy, a route used for the past 1500 years by Chinese ships bring silk to Rome.

 

Paolo Toscanelli (1397 – 1482) the famous Italian Scientist and cartographer takes up the story in his letter of June 24^th 1474 to Canon Martins, friend of the King of Portugal.

 

‘Paul the Physician (i.e. Toscanelli) to Fernán Martins, Canon at Lisbon, greeting. It was pleasant to me to understand that your health was good, and that you are in favour and intimacy with the most generous and magnificent prince, your King [Alfonso V, a nephew of prince Henry the Navigator, in 1474 King of Portugal]

 

I have already spoken with you respecting a shorter way to the places of spices than which you take by Guinea [i.e. around Africa] by means of maritime navigation…. I know this can be shown from the spherical shape of the earth, yet to make the comprehension of it easier and to facilitate the work, I have determined to show you that way by means of a sailing chart. I, therefore send to his Majesty a chart made by my own hands on which are delineated your coasts and islands, whence you must begin to make your journey always westward, and the places at which you should arrive, and how far from the pole or the equinoctial line you should keep and through how much space and over how many miles you should arrive at those fertile places full of all sorts of spices and jewels. You must not be surprised if I call those places where the spices are ‘west' when they usually call them ‘east’ because to those always sailing west those parts are found by navigation in the southern Hemisphere (‘Per Subterraneas Navigationes’). But if by land in the Northern Hemisphere (‘Per Superiora Itinera’) they will always be found to the east.’ [The route to China across Asia]

 

Toscanelli then continues describing the riches of the mariners who reach China by sailing westwards.

 

‘For there, the number of seafarers with merchandise is so great that in all the rest of the world there are not as many as in one most noble port called Zaiton. For they affirm that a hundred ships with pepper discharge their cargoes in that port in a single year, besides other ships bringing other spices. That country [China] is very populous and very rich with a multitude of provinces and kingdoms and with cities without number, under one Prince who is called ‘Great Khan’ which name signifies Rex Regnum in Latin…..

 

‘This country is worth seeking by the Latin’s not only because great wealth may be obtained from it, gold and silver, all sorts of gems and spices, which never reach us; but also on account of it’s learned men, philosophers and expert astrologers, and by what skill and art so powerful and magnificent a province is governed, as well as how their wars are conducted.

 

When Toscanelli wrote this letter in 1474, Europeans had not reached southern Africa and it was 18 years before Columbus would set sail for the Americas. So how did Toscanelli know that China and the East could be reached not only eastwards around Africa but westwards in the Southern hemisphere? He gives the answer twice – in his letter to Canon Martins and in a second letter a few days later to Christopher Columbus.

 

The letter to Cannon Martins of June 24^th 1474

 

‘His [The Great Khan’s] ancestors desired intercourse with Christians now 200 years ago [viz 1274] they sent to the Pope and asked for several persons learned in the faith, that they might be enlightened, but those who were sent [the Polo’s described earlier] being impeded in their journey, went back. Also in the time of Eugenius [Pope Eugenius IV – Pope 1431-1447] one of them came to Eugenius, who affirmed their great kindness towards Christians, and I had a long conversation with him on many subjects…’

 

Toscanelli amplifies this a short while later in his letter to Christopher Columbus

 

‘Paul, the Physician, to Christopher Colombo greeting. I received your letters with the things you sent me, and with them I received great satisfaction. I perceive your magnificent and grand desire to navigate from parts of the East to the West [i.e. to sail westwards to China] in the way that was set forth in the letter that I sent you [a copy of the letter to Canon Martins] and which will be demonstrated better on a round sphere. It pleases me much that I should be well understood; for the voyage is not only possible it is true, and certain to be honourable and to yield incalculable profit, and very great fame among all Christians. But you cannot know this perfectly save through experience and practice, as I have had in the form of most copious and good and true information from distinguished men of great learning who have come here in the court of Rome from the said parts [viz China and the East] and from others being Merchants, who have had business for a long time in those parts, men of high authority. Thus when that voyage shall be made it will be to powerful kingdoms and cities and most noble provinces, very rich in all manner of things in great abundance and very necessary to us, such as all sorts of spices in great quantity and jewels in greatest abundance.’

 

In these two letters Toscanelli tells Canon Martins and Christopher Columbus that the earth is a sphere, that China and the east can be reached by sailing westwards from Spain in the Southern Hemisphere and that Toscanelli has obtained this information from men of great learning who came to Rome from the east one in the time of Eugenius IV.

 

We know Columbus used the globe and the Charts of the world which Toscanelli provided him with. Toscanelli’s letter had told Columbus how to reach Antilla [Puerto Rico]. Columbus log entry for Wednesday October 4^th 1492 describing how to reach Antillia from his current position –

 

‘I should steer west – south – west to go there… and in the spheres which I have seen and in the drawings of Mappae Mundi it is in this region.’

 

The map and spheres Toscanelli sent to Columbus have been lost. However we know that by then Albertin di Virga had published an accurate world map of the Eastern Hemisphere and that Zheng He’s fleets had reached and charted the Western Hemisphere. China could indeed be reached by sailing westwards in the southern Hemisphere. Magellan acknowledged that before he set sail he had seen in the King of Portugal’s library a map showing the route from the Atlantic to the Pacific (at 52º 40’ S) and then across the Pacific.

 

I submit the natural and indeed inescapable conclusion is that the envoy who reached Eugenius IV and Toscanelli was sent by Zheng He in his swansong voyage of 1430-32 and that Toscanelli received his maps from him – maps which Columbus subsequently used to reach the New World.