CHAPTER 5

Mastery of the Oceans Before Columbus

Chinese seamanship is all the more remarkable when it is compared with the skills and shipbuilding capacities of other civilizations at similar periods in history. All evidence shows that China had the capacity to send massive fleets from Asia to the Americas at least from the time of Emperor Qin in 220 B.C.¹

Chinese ship development is lucidly described by Professor K. Gang Deng of the London School of Economics in his 1997 book, Chinese Maritime Activities and Socioeconomic Development, c. 2100 B.C.–1900 A.D.² As in the Mediterranean, the earliest known evidence of primitive ships was from early Neolithic times, around 6000 B.C. These were carved from logs—a heavy and inefficient method of transport on water, limited by the length of the tree and the ability to hollow out the wood with primitive flint tools. These basic vessels were described in The Book of Changes, one of the Confucian classics, as being in use by the time of Huangdi, the first king of China. This claim is supported by carbon-dating. Six primitive oars unearthed in 1973 at a Neolithic site were dated to be about eight thousand years old, meaning they were created approximately in the era of Huangdi.

Bronze saws made it possible to build boats from planks. This meant much longer boats, which were no longer limited by the height of a tree. Plank boats with crossbeams to hold the sides together are depicted on inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells (an early form of Chinese writing) dating back 4,500 to 5,000 years—that is, to 3000 B.C. That these Chinese boats could carry out limited coastal sea voyages is supported by the skeletons of oceangoing mammals, notably whales found at coastal Neolithic sites in China.

The first Chinese seagoing vessel was recorded in the Bamboo Strip Chronicles (Zhushu Jinian), written in the Warring States period. As Gang Deng writes, “It is also recorded that in the year when King Huang ascended the throne, a large fish that was caught from the sea in the coastal region of Shandong was used for the ceremony.”³ By the Warring States period, metal hoops had been used to strengthen the planks.

More records are available for the following Shang period (c. sixteenth–eleventh century B.C.): Prince Jizi was reported to have emigrated from China to Korea by a sea route (Zhang X). Later on in the Zhou period (eleventh century–771 B.C.) the Yi, Wu and Viet tribes living along the east coast of China (Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang Provinces) were reported to be good at building boats and sailing to sea for fishing and trade (Zhang X).

. . . During this period, human muscles were the sole source of energy for the propulsion of ships. Changes in technology seem to have been rather slow: primitive oars were already in use in 6000 B.C., but sail technology was yet to be invented at the very end of the rudimentary period. Archaeological discoveries show that the sail did not become functional before the Warring States period, from 475 to 221 B.C. (Zhang X).

We can thus summarize Chinese shipbuilding expertise before 221 B.C. thus: They had ships able to stay at sea and fish and trade—but without sails. In crude terms, Chinese ships could float with the Kuroshio (Black) Current, a north-flowing current in the Pacific Ocean that is analogous to the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean. Once entering the Black Current off the Asian continent, ships in the period of the Shang dynasty onward could ride along east toward the Americas, but probably could not return, as the westerly current from the Americas to China is too weak. So Chinese voyages to the Americas would be in desperation, to avoid some terrible event at home without the likelihood or consideration of returning—a one-way ticket.

Two other civilizations are well known for ships and sailing: the Egyptian and the Minoan. However, neither one had the same reach as China.

Egyptian drawings and paintings are the first to show seagoing ships—as early as 3000 B.C.—but Egypt never developed into a major maritime nation. This has puzzled me for years. I now think there were two reasons.

The first is that Egypt in the third and second millennia never really needed ships to sail the oceans of the world. Egypt had the Nile, not only a bringer of life-giving water and rich silt but also a majestic transit route linking Africa with the Mediterranean, joining forests of tropical wood with gold mines. Vast herds of animals lived off the Nile waters and the river was full of fish. All the food Egypt needed could be grown alongside the Nile or in the delta.

The Nile has two other attributes. Each year rain pours down on Africa, Lake Victoria fills up, and the Nile starts its annual cycle, once again carrying water, silt, and ships downstream to the delta. At the same time, almost all year round there is a gentle northerly breeze blowing from the Mediterranean into the heart of Africa.

To travel upstream, an Egyptian ship hoists a simple sail and glides along the placid water, where there is never any rain or waves. Once it has reached its destination the Egyptian ship puts away its simple sail, loads its cargo, and floats downstream with the current. Once again it is not bothered by squalls, waves, or other hazards of the ocean.

The second reason is that apparently Egypt has virtually no trees suitable for building substantial ships. The most common wood in Egypt is acacia, which is not suitable for boatbuilding. Trees are small, frequently gnarled, and full of knots. A typical Egyptian ship looked like a floating crossword puzzle, with lots of small planks of varying lengths, all cobbled together. A ship of this type has no real chance of coping with long ocean swells. There is no proper keel, and the boat, made of short planks, hogs and sags. Egyptians got around this on the Nile by using ropes to counter hogging and sagging but this is hopeless in a heavy sea. So until 3000 B.C., Egyptians in effect limited their maritime endeavors to the placid Nile or Red Sea, leaving the way open for the tough Minoans, with their big, flexible cedar trees, to achieve maritime supremacy.

(It must also be noted that a great deal of research has been carried out concerning the possibility of pre-Columbian voyages to the New World from sub-Saharan Africa. That material is beyond the scope of this book, but we have added links to this research on our website.⁴)

MINOAN SHIPPING AND COMMERCE

Minoan shipbuilders were becoming increasingly proficient at their work in the same epoch as the Egyptians. The ships shown on the Thera fresco and the Uluburun wreck are highly sophisticated. (Please read The Lost Empire of Atlantis, chapter 2, for more information.) By the fourteenth century B.C. their ships had sails that could be raised and lowered in a hurry and adjusted to tack into the wind. The hulls of the Thera and Uluburun ships were based on an extremely advanced design. Not only were the cedar planks held to the keel and each other by thongs of oak placed in chiseled rectangular holes in adjacent planks; the thongs were also positioned in such a way that they provided an inner oak frame at right angles to and inside the cedar planking—giving a very light, flexible, yet strong hull that would not hog or sag. This is a very expensive and time-consuming method of ship construction that relies on very sharp chisels and saws. The product undoubtedly gave the Minoans early oceangoing capacity, which, coupled with the sails, meant Minoan ships could certainly have reached the Americas and returned by 1450 B.C., a thousand years ahead of the Chinese, whose first sails came after 475–221 B.C.

But this is not the only advance Europeans had over the Chinese—they had sails long before 1450 B.C. The vases known as the “Frying Pans” dated 2800–2300 B.C. show oared ships with high prows and sterns but powered by oars, in some cases two men to an oar, with twenty oars a side. That means a crew of at least eighty men—these were big ships. Sometime between 2800 B.C. and 1450 B.C., Minoan ships had sails—but how far back?

D. Gray in Seewesen (cited by Avner Raban—please refer to bibliography) shows fourteen early Minoan and middle Minoan seals (that is, from the Prepalatial period, or 2800–2000 B.C.), each of which depicts a ship with mast and rigging. Masts and rigging denote sails. As Avner Raban wrote, “Oars appear only on some, but mast and rigging are never omitted. This difference may reflect a particularly Cretan development of sail power as an alternative to human propulsion. Such a change also implies a new emphasis on sea transportation and commerce in the function of the vessels.”

Minoan seals depicting ships with masts and rigging.

So it seems to me one can push back the date when Minoan ships had sails to 2800 B.C.—more than two millennia before the Chinese. We can also push back the dates when Minoan ships could have sailed the Atlantic to the Americas to 2800 B.C. This could explain why coca and nicotine were found with Egyptian mummies and how plants indigenous to the Americas were present in the Middle East in 2800 B.C.

The disastrous earthquake and volcanic eruption at Thera (also known as Santorini) in the Aegean Sea in 1450 B.C. now takes on another dimension. Minoan civilization vanished under a saturation of volcanic ash that buried towns in a sea of mud, blocked out the sun, and destroyed crops. Ports were submerged by a huge tsunami. Europeans no longer had dominance of the seas—the way was open for the Chinese to come from behind and overtake the Europeans in their mastery of the oceans. This the Chinese did in their usual methodical and cautious way.

Gang Deng makes it clear that, though not immediately after the Minoan collapse, over the period of several hundred years Chinese maritime prowess grew, as did the rate of development in creating more and more advanced ships, methods of propulsion, and the ability to navigate the seas.

. . . Some significant progress in ship design was made in the western Han dynasty (206 B.C.–24 A.D.). The “multideck ship” (Louchan, literally “turreted ship”) was developed during this period (Zheng G). Ballast was used to improve the stability of these tall ships; multiple watertight holds were developed to minimize the “free surface effect” and to improve both watertight integrity and the strength of the hull. . . .

. . . The multideck ship was seaworthy. For instance, it is recorded that during 138–108 B.C. Emperor Wu Di (140–88 B.C.) sent his fleet of Louchans across the sea to “East Viet” kingdom.

. . . It is also documented that during 41–42 A.D. the Eastern Han General Ma Yuan commanded a large fleet of multideck warships in his campaign against Cochin kingdom. . . .

. . . During 399–411 A.D. Sun En and Lu Xun led a large-scale rebellion whose base was established on islands off the east coast of China, with over 100,000 soldiers and a large fleet of Louchan (Sima Xin). . . .

. . . An early document shows that in the three kingdoms period (220 B.C.–80 A.D.) some oceangoing ships in Guangzhou were forty-six to fifty meters in deck length with the capacity to carry 600–700 passengers (Li F).

By now Chinese ships had sails. By the Qin dynasty (220 B.C.) a regular sea route between China and Japan was established. On one trip, several thousand Chinese emigrated, led by a Taoist priest, Xu. On this trip it is believed they started from the Shandong Peninsula, traveled along the Sino-Korean-Japanese coasts for 1,750 miles, and eventually settled near Wakayama, in southeast Japan. Since sail technology had been known by the Qin dynasty, it can be safely assumed they relied on wind power.

A written description of the use of sails, including the word for “fan,” appeared in the dictionary Shi Ming (The Origins of Words) in the Eastern Han dynasty. In a poem “A Song of Guancheng,” from 115 A.D., Ma Rong (79–166 A.D.) writes, “Link the supply ships and open up the tall sails. . . .”

The first naval battle using sailing ships took place in 208 A.D., along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

The rudder is first shown in a pottery model of a Chinese ship excavated from a tomb dated to the first century A.D. This model is now in the Kuangchow Historical Museum. By 260 A.D. Chinese ships had staggered masts, enabling multisail ships. By now Chinese ships had watertight bulkheads—a typical medium-sized junk had fifteen bulkheads and thirty-seven rib frames.

By the second century A.D. Chinese ships could carry large numbers of passengers and substantial cargo in relative comfort and safety across the oceans of the world. China by the second century A.D. had caught up with European ship technology of 1450 B.C. Chinese ships could sail to and from the Americas with the Black Current and return—it was no longer a one-way journey.