Columbus, de Gama, and Zheng He! 15th Century Mariners

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Columbus, de Gama, and Zheng He! 15th Century Mariners발음듣기

This is Crash Course World History and today we're going to do some compare and contrast because that's what passes for hip in the world history circle.발음듣기

So you've probably heard of Christopher Columbus who in 1942 sailed the ocean blue and discovered America, a place that had been previously discovered only by millions of people ...발음듣기

Mr. Green! Mr. Green! Columbus was just a lucky idiot. Yeah. No.발음듣기

Here's a little rule of thumb from the past: if you're not an expert something, don't pretend to be an expert.발음듣기

This is going to serve you well both in your academic career and in your kissing career.발음듣기

Moving on ... (theme music) Someone like me from the past, I'd argue that Columbus has a deserved reputation in history, but was he really the greatest sailor of the 15th century?발음듣기

Well, let's meet the other contestants.발음듣기

In the red corner we have Zheng He who, when it comes to oceangoing voyages, was the first major figure of the 15th century.발음듣기

And in the blue corner is Vasco da Gama from scrappy little Portugal who managed to introduce Europeans to the Indian Ocean Trade Network.발음듣기

Columbus, you have to sit in the polka-dotted corner.발음듣기

As you'll no doubt remember from our discussion of Indian Ocean Trade, it was dominated by Muslim merchants, involved ports into Africa, the Middle East, India, Indonesia and China and it made a lot of people super rich.발음듣기

That last point explains why our three contestants were so eager to set sail ...발음듣기

Well, that and the ceaseless desire of human beings to discover things and contract scurvy.발음듣기

Let's begin with Zheng He who's probably the greatest admiral you've never heard of.발음듣기

A couple of important things about Zheng He: first he was a Muslim.발음듣기

That may seem strange until you consider that by the late 14th century, China had a long experience with Muslims, especially when they were ruled by wait for it, the Mongols.발음듣기

(horses galloping) Secondly, Zheng He was was a eunuch.발음듣기

Fortunately, 15th century China had excellent general anesthesia so I'm sure it didn't hurt at all when they castrated him.발음듣기

What's that, Stan? They didn't have general anesthesia? Oh boy.발음듣기

Stan, I'm seeing it, I can see, I, ah ...발음듣기

Stan, show me something cute right now! (sigh) Oh, hi there, kitty.발음듣기

How'd you get in that little teacup?발음듣기

Thank you, Stan. Right, so Zheng He rose from humble beginnings to lose both of his testicles and become the greatest admiral in Chinese history.발음듣기

Between 1405 and 1433, Zheng He led seven voyages throughout the Indian Ocean.발음듣기

The expeditions of the so-called "treasure ships." They were huge.발음듣기

Columbus' first voyage consisted of three ships.발음듣기

Zheng He led an armado of over 300 with a crew of over 27,000, more than half of London's population at the time.발음듣기

Some of these ships were enormous.발음듣기

The flag ships, known as the "treasure ships" were over 400 feet long and had seven or more masts.발음듣기

You see that tiny little ship there in front of the treasure ship?발음듣기

That's a to-scale rendering of Christopher Columbus' flag ship, the Santa Maria. Zheng He wasn't an explorer.발음듣기

The Indian Ocean Trade routes were already known to him and other Chinese sailors.발음듣기

He visited Afria, India and the Middle East and in a way, his journeys were trade missions, but not in the sense of filling his ships up with stuff to be sold later for higher prices.발음듣기

At the time, China was the leading manufacturer of quality goods in the world and there wasn't anything they actually needed to import.발음듣기

What they needed was prestige and respect so that people would continue to see China as the center of the economic universe.발음듣기

There was tribute system to prove which foreign rulers or their embassadors would come to China and engage in a debasing ritual called the "kowtow" wherein they acknowledge the superiority of the Chinese emperor and offered him, or her, but usually him gifts in exchange for the right to trade with China.발음듣기

The opportunity to humble yourself before the Chinese emperor was so valuable that many a prince was happy to jump on a treasure ship and sail back to China with Zheng He.발음듣기

Also, these tribute missions brought lots of crazy things to China, including exotic animals.발음듣기

From Africa, Zheng He brought back a zoo's worth of rhinos, zebras and even giraffes.발음듣기

Basically, he was like the Medieval Chinese Gnome.발음듣기

Thanks, Thought Bubble! So the Chinese were world leaders in naval technology and they wanted to dominate trade here in the Indian Ocean, so why then did these voyages end?발음듣기

One reason was that Zheng He couldn't live forever and sure enough, he didn't ...발음듣기

Also, his patron the Yongle Emperor died and the emperor's successors were disinterested in maritime trade.발음듣기

They were more concerned with protecting China against its traditional enemies, Nomads from the Steppe.발음듣기

To do this, they built a rather famous wall.발음듣기

The Great Wall was mostly built under the Ming Dynasty using resources that they only had because they stopped building gigantic ships.발음듣기

And just imagine what might have happened if the Ming emperors had embraced a different strategy, one that was based on outreach instead of isolationism.발음듣기

Now to the blue corner ... representing Portuguese exploration, we have Vasco da Gama.발음듣기

A couple things about Portugal:First, it has a fair bit of coastline.발음듣기

Secondly, it was relatively resource-poor which meant it relied upon trade in order to grow.발음듣기

Also, the [unintelligible] was the only place in Europe where Muslims could be found in large numbers in the 15th century which meant the Christian crusading spirit was quite strong there presumably because Muslims had brought so much stability and prosperity to the region.발음듣기

The chief among these crusaders was Prince Henry the Navigator, so-called because he was not a navigator. He was however, a patron.발음듣기

Not only of sailors themselves, but of a special school at Sagres in which nautical knowledge was collected and new maps were made, all kinds of awesome stuff.발음듣기

All that knowledge gave Portuguese sailors a huge competitive advantage when it come to exploration.발음듣기

Henry commissioned sailors to search for two things:First, a path to the Indian Ocean so they could get in on the lucrative spice trade, and second, to find the kingdom of Prestor John, a mythical christian king who was supposed to live in Africa somewhere so that Henry could have Prestor John's help in a crusade.발음듣기

Da Gama was the first of Henry's proteges to make it around Africa and into the Indian Ocean.발음듣기

In 1498, he landed at Calicut, a major trading post on India's west coast and when he got there, merchants asked him what he was looking for.발음듣기

He answered with three words, "Gold and Christians," which basically sums up Portugal's motivation for explorations.발음듣기

So once the Portuguese breached the Indian Ocean, they didn't create like huge colonies because there were already powerful empires in the region.발음듣기

It's said they apparently sat in the middle of the Indian Ocean doing nothing.발음듣기

Actually, they were able to capture and control a number of coastal cities creating what historians call a "trading post empire."발음듣기

They could do this thanks to their well-armed ships which captured cities by firing cannons in to city walls like IRL Angry Birds.발음듣기

But since the Portuguese people didn't have enough people or boats to run the Indian Ocean Trade, they had to rely on extortion.발음듣기

So Portuguese merchant ships would capture other ships and force them to purchase a permit to trade called the [cartide].발음듣기

Without a [cartide], the merchant couldn't trade in any of the towns that Portugal controlled.발음듣기

To merchants who fled the Indian Ocean Trade for years in relative freedom, the Portuguese were just glorified pirates extracting value from trade without adding to its efficiency or volume.발음듣기

So the [cartide] strategy sort of worked for awhile, but the Portuguese never really took control of the Indian Ocean Trade.발음듣기

But they were successful enough that their neighbor, Spain, became interested in their own route to the Indies.발음듣기

That brings us to Columbus, but first, let's dispel some myths:One, Columbus and his crew knew the earth was round.발음듣기

He was just wrong about the earth's size.발음듣기

Columbus [unintelligible] geography and Imago Mundi based on Muslim scholarship and ended up overestimating the size of Asia and underestimating the size of the oceans.발음듣기

Two, Columbus never thought he'd made it to China.발음듣기

He called the people he encountered "Indians" because he thought he'd made it to the East Indies what we now know as Indonesia.발음듣기

And three, Columbus was not a lucky idiot!발음듣기

He navigated completely unknown waters primarily by using a technique known as "dead reckoning" in which you figure out your position based on three pieces of information: the direction you're going, your speed and the time, which you figure out by an hourglass.발음듣기

With only that technology to guide you, it's not actually that easy to hit a continent.발음듣기

Come here, people who are saying he didn't hit a continent, he only hit some islands ... Come here ... DUH!발음듣기

(harp music) An open letter to the line of demarcation.발음듣기

But first, let's see what's in the secret compartment today. Oh ... It's a globe.발음듣기

Thanks, Stan. Just what I always needed.발음듣기

Dear Line of Demarcation, You have so much to teach us about the way that the world used to work and the way that it works now.발음듣기

In 1494, Pope Alexander VI settled a dispute between Portugal and Spain by dividing the world into two parts; the Spanish part and the Portuguese part.발음듣기

This whole thing, at least according to Pope Alexander VI, could be split between Spain and Portugal.발음듣기

At least when it came to so-called "unclaimed land."발음듣기

I mean, unclaimed by whom? You know all the American Indian's were like, "Wait, this land is available?발음듣기

In that case, we'll just keep it if it's all the same to you."발음듣기

Anyway, Line of Decaration, I have great news for you.발음듣기

What Alexander the VI did totally worked.발음듣기

We haven't had a problem since.발음듣기

Best wishes, John Green So Columbus' first journey, he made four, the last three of which were pretty calamitous, was tiny and he initially landed on a small Caribbean island he called "San Salvadore" in search, like the Portuguese, of gold and Christians.발음듣기

He was able to convince Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to fund his expedition by promising riches and conversions of the natives, hopefully to sign them up for yet another crusade.발음듣기

There's a long-standing myth that Columbus tricked Ferdinand and Isabella into paying for his trip, but in fact, they commissioned two different sets of of experts to analyze his plans, both of which agreed he was crazy.발음듣기

One called the plan impossible to any educated person.발음듣기

But even so, Ferdinand and Isabella footed the bill partly because they were full of crusading zeal after expelling the Muslims from Spain, and partly because they were desperate to get their hands on some of that pepper richness.발음듣기

Columbus, of course, failed at finding riches.발음듣기

He returned with neither spices nor gold.발음듣기

He did greet some Christians which we'll discuss in a future episode, but in terms of goal accomplishment, Columbus was much less successful than either Zheng He or Vasco da Gama.발음듣기

But within two generations of Columbus, Spain would become fantasically wealthy and for a time, they were the leading power in Europe.발음듣기

Columbus' voyages also had a huge, largely negative impact on the people the Spanish encountered in the Americas.발음듣기

And excitingly from my perspective, once Columbus returned from San Salvadore, we can speak for the first time of a truly world history ...발음듣기

Except for you, Australia. So who was the greatest mariner of the 15th century?발음듣기

As usual, it depends on your definition of greatness.발음듣기

If you value administrative competence over ill-advised adventure, then Zheng He is certainly the winner.발음듣기

But the reason we remember Columbus over him or Vasco da Gama is that Columbus' voyages had a lasting impact on the world, even if it wasn't necessarily a positive one.발음듣기

And that makes me wonder what kind of person you'd want to be ... a capable administrator and brilliant sailor like Zheng He, a daring captain like da Gama, or the bearer of a complicated but famous legacy like Columbus.발음듣기

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