Authors: Gavin Menzies
The research of Dr. Greg Little and colleagues, who have found widespread evidence in the Caribbean that they believe point to a long-gone maritime culture more sophisticated than the Taino or Carib peoples. More recently we have been told that early tests suggest that the cut stones found date to circa five hundred years ago. For
more information please visit the following links: http://www.mysterious-america.net/newunderwaterbim.html and http:// www.mys sterious-america.net/ bimini-caysal200.html.
Brett Green, whose untiring research against considerable adversity, has provided a host of evidence to support the pre-European Chinese exploration of eastern Australia; William C. Kleisch, Richard Perkins, and Paul McNamee, who have led the search for the elusive Great Dismal Swamp junk, which George Washington's friend saw rise out of the swamp in North Carolina; John Slade, whose research shows the potential for pre-European mining throughout eastern Australia, from the Victorian goldfields to north Queensland; Robertson Shinnick, who found Dr. S. L. Lee's medallion in North Carolina in 1994.
Other notable mentions go to Michael Boss and all of the other contributors to the “Gallery” section of the websiteâa wealth of beautiful paintings, photos, and artifacts; Jerry Warsing, an independent researcher who was one of the first to come forward and let us know that he had come to the same conclusions that I had, before me. We are most grateful for Jerry's continued support and research in North America. Professor Zhiquiang Zhang, whose independent research on Zheng He's travels has been invaluable to ours. D. H. C Tien and Michael Nation of Chinese Computer Communications, whose pioneering research with “Internet Chinese” may one day enable us all to learn to speak Chinese with the ease and fluency of our mother tongues; Anatole Andro, whose book
The 1421 Heresy
complements
1421
and explores the theory further; the Cantravel group, who have accompanied Marcella and me on many an exciting adventure and contributed a great deal to our research: Gill and Frank Hopkins; Carol and Barry Mellor; Gordon and Elizabeth Hay; John and Heleen Lapthorne, and Malcolm and Angela Potter.
The following people have all helped over the years to add to our ever-increasing wealth of knowledge, free of charge, and in good faith, for which we are extremely grateful: Malcolm Brocklebank, Chiara Condi, Tim Fohl, Robert and MeiLi Hefner, Damon de Laszlo, John
Robinson, Bill Hupy, Greg Jeffrey, Hector Williams, Mary Doerflein, David Borden, Rewi Kemp, Ralph McGeehan, Glen Rawlins, Michael Ferraro, Gerald Thompson, Chung Chee Kit, Howard Smith, Kerson Huang, Al Cornett, Tony Brooks, Barbara McEwan, Nicholas Platt, Zhang Wei, Robin Lind, Gerald Andrew Bottomley, Nicholas Wallis, Ester Daniels, William Li, Malcolm Rayner, J. F. Webb, Commodore Bill Swinley, David Borden, Kathrine Zhou, Janna Carpenter, Guofeng Yang, Jamie Bentley, Martin Tai, Ted Bainbridge, Brian Darcey, Rob Stanley, Jan-Erik Nilsson, J. Phillip Arnold, David Lindsay, Mike Osinski, M. J. Gregory, Philip and Wei Lewis; Roger L. Olesen; Adela C. Y. Lee; Guy Dru Drury; Saro Capozzoli; Tim Richardson; Professor Luis Wanke; José Leon Sanchez; Ted Jeggo; Ng Siong Tee; Goo Si Wei; Paolo Costa; Ric Polansky; Professor Mike Bailie; Dr. Wang Tao; Bill Parkhurst, K'ung-Fu Tzu; Duncan Craig, Nico Conti, Barney Chan, Eric Maskrey, Philip Mulholland, Garry Berteig, George J. Fery, Tony Fletcher, Nancy Yaw Davis, J. Phillip Arnold, Chris Righetti, Andy Drake, Paul Wagner, Jim Mullins, John Braine-Hartnell, Michael Penck, Dr. William Goggins, Russell Parker, Bill Hupy, Gillian Bartlett, Shaka Garendi, Rodney Gordon, Bob Butcher, Karin Harvey, John Weyrich, Edward D. Mitchell, Nicholas Platt, David Turner, Phillip Bramble, Jean Elder, Anton McInerney, Patrick Moran, Joy J. Merz, John S. Marr, Scott McClean, Lynn Canada, Richard Zimmerman, William Vigil, Ric Baez, Terry Jackson, Jefferson Wright, Ean McDonald, Beth Flower Miller, Michael Ernest, Omar M. Zen, Bruce Tickell Taylor, Dr. Edward Tumolo, Marie E. Macozek, John Forrest, Julian Wick, Keith Wise, Bobby Sass, Michael Lane, Mari Stair, David Lorrimer, Mark Simonitsch, Dave Blaine, Daryl F. Mallett, Luis Robles, Barry Wright, Mark Smith, Jeff Spira, Chris Nadolny, Li Huangxi, John Pletcher, Paolo Villegas, Kevin Wilson, Janice Avery Clarke, Patricia Duff, Dan Brech, Matthew Wissell, Harry L. Francis, Yangyong Li, Fred J. Gray, Thomas Herbert, Michael Atkinson, Garth Denning, Janet Miller Wiseman, Dean Pickering, Arjan Wilkie, George Barrett, Mark Newell, Roy Dymond; Kate Meyer; Lawrence Smalheiser; Alice Chan; Desmond Brannigan, and Edward Grice Hutchinson.
Exhibitions and Symposia
The Singapore Tourism Board, in association with Pico Art International, mounted the exhibition “1421: The Year China Sailed the World” between June and August 2005. It was held in a large, specially made pavilion, a replica of that used by the early Ming emperors when touring the country. The pavilion was set up in a beautiful site overlooking Singapore Harbor. Pico, the celebrated exhibition designers, arranged for the loan from all around the world of artifacts that evidenced Zheng He's voyages. The exhibition generated huge publicity and corresponding new evidence from Asia and China. I am indebted to the providers and sponsors of the exhibition. The exhibition has now moved to Dr. Tan Ta Sen's wonderful Cheng Ho Cultural Museum in Malacca.
Laboratories and Testing Institutions
I am indebted to the following institutions for their economical, efficient, courteous, and timely testing of evidence: Rafter Radiocarbon Laboratory, Waikato University, GPR Data LLC, Oregon, GPR Geophysical Services, and Forest Research; Pearson plc. For their financial assistance in providing ground penetrating radar survey of the Sacramento wreck site; Surrey University for establishing the origin of elements in artifacts employing Rutherford backscattering techniques.
HarperCollins Team
For much appreciated help and assistance provided by HarperCollins and its imprint William Morrow in the USAâparticularly my editor, Henry Ferris, and his assistant, associate editor Peter Hubbard. Thanks also to Lisa Gallagher, Lynn Grady, Tavia Kowalchuk, and Ben Bruton.
For HarperCollins help and support in the United Kingdom, thanks to Carole Tonkinson, Katy Carrington, Jane Beaton, Anna Gibson, Iain Chapple, and Jessica Carey.
The
1434 Team
Finally, my thanks to the team who have been directly responsible for
1434:
Midas, led by Steven Williams and assisted in Asia by Kaiiten Communications, have achieved almost unbelievable worldwide publicityâI am told more than 22,000 articles or mentions in print media alone. In acting for me I feel sure Midas did not charge normal commercial rates but what I could afford. Their success has resulted in an endless stream of new evidence and has assisted Transworld (who did a wonderful job with
1421
) selling worldwide literary rights.
Christopher Higham, who handles TV rights, has contributed to worldwide sales by achieving important television documentaries broadcast across America, Europe, the Pacific, Australia, and Asia. This in turn has brought new friends to our website with new ideas and new evidence. Chris has borne his own expenses and contributed his time for five years.
Pedalo has devised websites www.1421.tv and www.gavinmenzies.net to cope with this avalanche of new evidence. Its efforts have resulted in very popular sitesâwe now have 3,500 visits a day from 120 countries around the world. Pedalo's fee for achieving this was one third that of its nearest competitor.
Luigi Bonomi, my literary agent, principal of LBA, sold
1434
to HarperCollins, the first publisher to be approached. Luigi also sold
1421
to Transworld when he was a partner in Sheil Land. Luigi is, to my mind, the most successful British literary agentâauthors take note! Without him there would have been no
1421
and no
1434
.
Frank Lee, an experienced Chinese businessman, sold
1421
film rights to Warner Bros. China and was instrumental in negotiating with Phoenix Television to produce a lengthy Mandarin-language
documentary on
1421
and in return set up a Mandarin
1421
websiteâa great source of new evidence from Mandarin and Cantonese speakers. Frank has in his business career set up a very successful sales team in China and elsewhere in Asia and has a huge network of friends and contacts. He is also a discerning historian and has pioneered a new search engine for Chinese historical records. Frank will take over from me as chief executive of the
1421
and
1434
organizations in late 2008 or early 2009. By then we hope the Warner Bros. film on Zheng He will have been released for distribution.
Wendi Watson and her husband, Mike, have produced the illustrations and diagrams for
1434
as they did for
1421
. Wendi has worked from my original unpromising scrawl with good nature and patience for the past seven years. Her results speak for themselvesâin my view Wendi has greatly enhanced the book and made the detailed evidence much easier to assimilate.
Laura Tatham has word-processed
1434
in no fewer than fourteen drafts without once complaining or losing her sense of humor. Laura, who at this writing is approaching her ninetieth year, has supported me by word-processing my scribbles for the past twenty-five years. It is a blessing for me that I have been able to dissuade her from retiring!
Our researchers hereâErica Edes, Antonia Bowen-Jones, Vanessa Stockley, Lorna Lopes, Anna Mandy, Anna Rennie, Susie Sanford, and Leanne Welhamâare a testament to today's young people and the British education system. Unlike me, they are university graduates with good honors degrees. They have consistently and without exception shown dedication, responsibility, initiative, and hard work in assembling into a coherent whole a disparate mass of assorted evidence that pours into our computers day after day. They are head and shoulders better than I and many of my friends were at a similar ageâwe were, for the most part, drunken, irresponsible ruffians.
Their dedication and good nature is also attributable to Ian Hudson, who has led our research team these past five years. Ian has the qualities I lackâgood nature, politeness, and common sense. Whatever readers consider we may have achieved is due to Ian as much as to me. The future success of the
1434
team will largely depend on Ian's leadership, just as the
1421
team has these past five years.
And finally, I offer gratitude to my beloved wife, Marcella. Readers will appreciate that it is not an easy decision for a wife to be asked to agree to a husband in his seventies in moderate health plowing his royalties into future research rather than into a pension fundâand in addition taking on new financial obligations for yet further research. In our excitements and setbacks over the past five years since
1421
was published, Marcella has once again supported me to the hilt, enabling this great adventure to continue.
I and this book owe her everything.
Â
Gavin Menzies
London
Feast of All Saints, 2007
Introduction
Chapter 1: A Last Voyage
Chapter 2: The Emperor's Ambassador
Chapter 3: The Fleets Are Prepared for the Voyage to the Barbarians
Chapter 4: Zheng He's Navigators' Calculations of Latitude and Longitude
Extensive notes on www.gavinmenzies.net.
Chapter 5: Voyage to the Red Sea
Chapter 6: Cairo and the Red Sea Canal