Christopher Columbus the map reading Tourist / Ancient Chinese Sailing
Did Chinese beat out Columbus?
Singapore exhibit celebrates travels of an early explorer
By Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop
Published: SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2005
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/24/features/chinam.php
...found the article while searching for scurvy and Chinese sailors. I know that we were sailing way before the Europeans figured out that floating in the water aren't just for witches anymore, but I don't recall ever reading about the early sailors getting scurvy or other sealife diseases. I thought the answer was obvious; that despite civilization, the Ancient Chinese remained more in touch with their environment than their industrializing counterparts in Europe.
It's like that Chinese fable about that lazy boy who starved to death, his caretakers had hung a ring of bread around his neck, but he was too lazy to turn it. I can't understand how people not without means can starve in the forest, it's full of food, insects are a good source of protein and you can find those in the ground even in winter. I can't understand why the sailors would get sick on stale food when they are above the fruitful sea.
Trawl Nets; not just for fishing boat. If the European sailors have brought with them trawl nets, than they'll have a fresh source of meat, more hydration, and some fishes, the cod, has vitamin C as well. Oh yeah, kelp is highly edible, many Asian culture enjoys seaweed soup, seaweed strips, the kind that turns the soup purple. The green thick kind that you cook with mung beans are good for getting rid of toxics too.
The answer as to why the Chinese sailors didn't get sick was more complexed though, at least in the 1400s;
With 600 years of sailing experience, the Chinese had already developed many tools useful to sailing over great distances - like magnetized compasses and watertight bulkhead compartments of a kind the West would have to wait hundreds of years for. Importantly, Zheng He's ships, known as junks, included on-board vegetable patches, growing soybeans in tubes all year to provide protein and vitamin C, guarding sailors against scurvy.
Singapore exhibit celebrates travels of an early explorer
By Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop
Published: SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2005
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/24/features/chinam.php
...found the article while searching for scurvy and Chinese sailors. I know that we were sailing way before the Europeans figured out that floating in the water aren't just for witches anymore, but I don't recall ever reading about the early sailors getting scurvy or other sealife diseases. I thought the answer was obvious; that despite civilization, the Ancient Chinese remained more in touch with their environment than their industrializing counterparts in Europe.
It's like that Chinese fable about that lazy boy who starved to death, his caretakers had hung a ring of bread around his neck, but he was too lazy to turn it. I can't understand how people not without means can starve in the forest, it's full of food, insects are a good source of protein and you can find those in the ground even in winter. I can't understand why the sailors would get sick on stale food when they are above the fruitful sea.
Trawl Nets; not just for fishing boat. If the European sailors have brought with them trawl nets, than they'll have a fresh source of meat, more hydration, and some fishes, the cod, has vitamin C as well. Oh yeah, kelp is highly edible, many Asian culture enjoys seaweed soup, seaweed strips, the kind that turns the soup purple. The green thick kind that you cook with mung beans are good for getting rid of toxics too.
The answer as to why the Chinese sailors didn't get sick was more complexed though, at least in the 1400s;
With 600 years of sailing experience, the Chinese had already developed many tools useful to sailing over great distances - like magnetized compasses and watertight bulkhead compartments of a kind the West would have to wait hundreds of years for. Importantly, Zheng He's ships, known as junks, included on-board vegetable patches, growing soybeans in tubes all year to provide protein and vitamin C, guarding sailors against scurvy.