Thursday, June 23, 2005

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Zheng He

The number of his voyages vary depending on method of division, but he travelled at least seven times to "The Western Ocean" with his fleet. He brought back to China many trophies and envoys from more than thirty kingdoms -- including King Alagonakkara of Ceylon, who came to China to apologize to the Emperor.
There are speculations that some of Zheng He's ships may have travelled beyond the Cape of Good Hope. In particular, the Venetian monk and cartographer Fra Mauro describes in his 1457 Fra Mauro map the travels of a huge "junk from India" 2,000 miles into the Atlantic Ocean in 1420.

The Kangnido map (1402) predates Zheng He's voyages, and suggests that he had quite detailed geographical information on the totality of the Old World, from Europe and Africa in the west, to Korea and Japan in the east.

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