Early Maritime Exploration

Ming treasure fleet

• when the chinese scholar gentry finally booted the mongols out, the ming dynasty was established

• the ming were super embassed that the mongols had conquered them, so they tried to extinguish any trace of mongol from their empire, and enforce tradtional chinese practices

• one of these practices was the ming treasure fleet, and they built it up to be better than it had been before

voyages of zheng he

• took 7 expeditions all over the indian basin with the massive treasure fleet

• they traded for luxury goods

• this was a business venture (not military). they aimed to show everyone that china was back in the maritime trade business (after being isolated in terms of maritime from the mongols.

• shipping anything by water was cheaper and easier than shipping by land

• also safer because to travel by land you would have to cross through other countries borders

european world maps c. 1450

• all educated people have known that the world was round at this point (you can literally see it when sailing on flat open ocean)

• the backside of the world was assumed to be water

• this led to people (christopher columbus) getting the idea to sail west across the backside of the globe to reach china (the money was in that area near the indian basin)

• this could be beneficial because the spanish wouldn’t have to run into the portugese, as they were blocking the spanish from stopping at any of the posts needed to get fresh water

portugese maritime exploration

• the portugese were fishermen and sailors, not really involved with any global trade

• they have good shipmakers and map makers, because of the strong fishing and sailing background

• prince henry created a school of navigation and calls people to lisbon

• he says he will pay them well and that they will build a fleet to sail and map the coastline of africa

magellan + crew

• magellan and his crew were hired by the italians to circumnavigate the globe

• he leaves in 1519, dies by the Filipino islands, and his crew was the first to map all the way around the globe

• the sailing was very harsh, as they were out in the open ocean, so this is an impressive feat