If his voyages weren't defunded, could China have discovered

>>2738693
No there was no real incentive to go that way. Also the Pacific would.have been much harder to cross than the Atlantic.

Am I just supposed to know who this grainy photo of a statue respresents

>>2738764
Zheng He

>>2738759
The Polynesians didn't have much problem doing it.

>>2738693
No, they would have died from scurvy senpai

Pretty sure they did in 1421. Just reading about in a book I got.

>>2738786
The Polynesians were expert sailors who paddled to Madagascar in fucking canoes. The Chinese lacked the knowhow to cross large sections of open ocean. If you look at any of Zheng He's voyages the fleet is never more than a week away from the coast.

>>2738804
>They could have colonized it if they didn't defund him

No.

He would have sailed up to Suez and contacted Europeans, though.

Chinese Socotra in 1420 is not impossible.

>>2738786
That was a process that took hundreds of years

Daily reminder that the Chinese were dumbasses who built all of their ships with flat bottoms because they rarely sailed outside of their own rivers.

>I have no idea if this is a meme or actual history

>>2738693

it wouldnt have made a difference if china discovered the americas, they were going isolationist as fuck.

>>2738870
It's a maymay.

The Chinese used ocean going junks for trade with Japan.

>>2739000

Their isolationism is due to the natural borders of China itself. No culture stays isolationist if there is an easy venue of expansion. That said, America is too far away for the Chinese to think of colonizing. The pacific be huge yo.

>>2738693
Not really, since his voyages were aimed at the Indian Ocean, not the Pacific.

>>2738823
It still awesome how freaking good at navigating the sea the Polynesian people were.

>>2738804

What book?

File: images.jpg (36KB, 386x600px) Image search: [Google]

36KB, 386x600px

>>2739267
Bought at a charity sale in the history section.
Seems pretty airtight.

>>2738786
They had outrigger canoes that could withstand the harsh conditions of the Pacific, also they still didn't reach the Americas unless you count Hawaii.

>>2739294
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Menzies#1421:_The_Year_China_Discovered_the_World

>>2739294
Menzies is a hack and his works are all wishful pseudohistory.