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The book Sapiens states that in the 1500s the Chinese had a 15 thousands ocean ready ship fleet, but for various reasons there were not really into exploring.
by 21 8y ago
The book Sapiens states that in the 1500s the Chinese had a 15 thousands ocean ready ship fleet, but for various reasons there were not really into exploring.
Is that really true? 15k ships sounds absurdly high for that era.
- sndean 8y agoI've seen some similar numbers; in the thousands at least. After seeing some believed numbers for single battles involving ~500 Roman ships in ~260-0 BC [0], thousands for the entire Chinese fleet centuries later doesn't seem too surprising. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Actium#Order_of_battle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Actium#Order_of_batt...
- alextheparrot 8y agoThe 15,000 number seemed quite high based on my understanding of China’s complete lack of capability in maritime warfare from about 1700s onward. Apparently, though, during the Míng dynasty China had a large fleet, which had a reported size of 3500 [0, unacademic] or 2700 and 3000 ships [1, academic]. They were exploring the Asian sub-continent in the so-called “Treasure fleets” [2], but those fleets did not go nearly as far as the European traders who would arrive in Canton and Macau from mainland Europe in the 1500s. [0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/500-years-ago-china-destroyed-its-world-dominating-navy-because-its-political-elite-was-afraid-of-a7612276.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/500-years-... [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/43383349 https://www.jstor.org/stable/43383349 [2] https://www.thoughtco.com/why-did-the-treasure-fleet-stop-195223 https://www.thoughtco.com/why-did-the-treasure-fleet-stop-19...
- forkLding 8y agoChinese person here, I don't think those numbers are that accurate or those ships were being maintained or seaworthy. That period was chaotic on the seas and piracy was rampant with frequent attacks in-land, as well during that period the Chinese Haijin was in force, which means no private seafaring (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haijin). If they had that many ships, it was likely inherited off Zheng He's expeditions and the 1400s Chinese period's brief uprise in naval interest (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He#Expeditions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He#Expeditions), the Vietnamese conquest or the Mongolian Yuan dynasty who might have used them as an naval invasion force or even other previous dynasties who were far more interested in commerce but all these events were more than 50 years before the 1500s. However, note at that period, China had went from years of prosperity in the early 1500s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongzhi_Emperor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongzhi_Emperor) to chaos in the mid to late-1500s and land wars were more important with Chinese fighting Mongols and Japanese (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanli_Emperor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanli_Emperor).
- mcguire 8y agoWikipedia and my memory suggests it may have been hundreds to thousands of ships and tens of thousands of personnel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_treasure_voyages?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_treasure_voyages?wprov=sf... Why the West Rules---For Now by Ian Morris discusses the expeditions at length. They weren't exploring, they were cementing relations with existing direct and indirect trading partners. That's the reason for the large crews.
- dmoy 8y agoAlso bear in mind that China already had a population of ~130m at year 1500. More than twice as much population as the next 5 biggest groups combined (french empire, ottomans, Inca, HRE, and southern Indiana). Literally like 30% of the world's population in one empire. Just to keep scale in perspective.
- dmoy 8y agoIndia.... Stupid autocorrect, obviously southern Indiana was not the one of the top 6 empires in year 1500...