A new – and controversial – book written by the former Royal Navy officer and cartographer Gavin Menzies claims that the Chinese Hong Bao arrived in Brazil seventy years before Cabral and his expedition.
In 1421: The Year China Discovered America (1421: O Ano em que a China Descobriu o Mundo), published in Brazil by Bertrand, Menzies alleges that the European navigators only reached America because they had aboard their vessels nautical maps based on a Chinese world map. China was the most advanced nation in the world in the middle age.
The book brings documents which state that the real discoverers of America were Chinese navigators and cartographers, in expeditions lead by Zheng He and commanded by eunuch admirals, among them Hong Bao. “It is time justice is done” says the author, “the history books are being re-written.”
Three thousand people were in the 130 ships which made up the expedition that brought the Asians to South America. The trip lasted 31 months, between march 1421 and october 1423.
Pacifism
Just like Columbus, Zheng He, a Mongol muslim eunuch, was protected by the monarch and was choosen to lead the expedition to the barbarian lands. The Chinese intention was, however, different.
The pacifist Zhu Di, emperor of the Ming Dinasty and follower of Confucius, wished mapping the world and establishing commercial partnerships – opposite to Europeans, who violently exterminated native peoples in order to conquer territory.
->The chinese expeditions
