Reddit讨论：中国本可以先发现并殖民美洲吗 [美国媒体]

Is it true that China could have found and colonized America first but they stopped voyaging because it was deemed too expensive, or for other reasons?

中国本可以先发现并殖民美洲，但他们却因为会耗费巨资或其他原因而停止航行，这是真的吗？



JonnoPol
Zheng He served as fleet admiral under the Yongle Emperor. He conducted seven ‘Treasure Voyages’ with the Ming Treasure fleet, as a massive tour de force. These voyages went to various places in South East Asia, as well as India, and as far as East Africa and the Sinai peninsula (Map). The aim of these voyages was to gain tribute from the various kingdoms considered under the ‘sphere’ of China; and thus the size of the fleet (supposedly one of the largest navies ever built with roughly 100-240 ships of various size) was impressive. The largest ships, the Treasure ships, were very large indeed, and some have argued that the largest ships in the fleet were over 100 metres long; however this is largely unverifiable, and is very questionable as it would make them at least twice the length of European vessels of the same period (thus it’s questionable whether construction of such a ship was physically possible in this period). It is much more likely that the ships were about 40-60 metres in length (still a very impressive size), in fact the Chinese built a replica ship for their museum which had a length of about 63 metres.

郑和曾在永乐帝时期担任舰队统帅。 他指挥了明宝船舰队的7次“下西洋”航行，这支强大舰队行经东南亚以及印度，远至东非和西奈半岛的各个地方(见地图)。 这些航行的目的是为了访问被认为属于中国范围的各个属国并带回贡品; 因此，这支舰队的规模(据说是有史以来最大的海军之一，拥有大约100至240艘不同规模的舰船)令人印象深刻。 最大的“宝船”的确非常巨大，有些人认为舰队中最大的船只超过100米长，但这基本上无法核实，而且非常值得怀疑，因为它们的长度至少是同一时期欧洲船只长度的两倍(因此在这个时期建造这样一艘船的实际可能性是值得怀疑的)。 事实上，中国为他们的博物馆建造了一艘船的复制品，船身长度约为63米。



Edit: After the destruction of Zheng’s fleet; the Ming Dynasty no longer had the desire to invest heavily in a world-class navy; they were instead much more concerned with internal struggles and controlling/ expanding their land borders, particularly in the South-East and in the North. As far as I know, interest in constructing a powerful navy would not take place in China until the late 19th century, during which China constructed several semi-modernised fleets which would ultimately lose to the Imperial Japanese Fleet in the first Sino-Japanese War (Despite how one-sided the conflict appears in hindsight, the Chinese fleet did pose a potential challenge to the IJN, and many in the West did not know initially which fleet would come out on top).

第一次编辑: 郑和的舰队被摧毁后，明王朝不再愿意大力投资建设世界级的海军，而是更加关注内部斗争和控制 / 扩大陆地边界，特别是在东南亚和北方。 据我所知，直到19世纪末，中国才有兴趣建设一支强大的海军，在此期间，中国建造了几支半现代化舰队，最终在中日甲午战争输给了日本舰队（尽管事后看来，这场冲突是一边倒的，但中国舰队确实对日本舰队构成了潜在的挑战，许多西方人起初并不知道哪个舰队会胜出）。

Edit 2: Wow, I didn't expect such a response, I'll attempt to answer questions to the best of my knowledge, using the sources in front of me ('China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty 1405-1433' by Edward Dryer, 'When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433' by Louise Levathes and Sextants of Beijing). I apologise for delays in answering questions, I’ll try and get round to all of them, I want to make sure they are backed up by several sources which will take a bit more time for answers.

第二次编辑: 哇，我没有料到会完成这样的回答，我将尽我所知来回答这些问题，前面我使用的资料来源于(《中国与海洋》 ，1405-1433) ，爱德华 · 戴乐尔(Edward Dryer)的《当中国统治海洋: 龙的宝座舰队，1405-1433》 ，路易斯 · 列维斯(Louise Levathes)和《北京的六分仪》)。 我很抱歉延迟回答问题，我会试着回答所有的问题，但我想确保它们有详实资料的支持，所以要花更多的时间来得到答案。



Cranyx
What caused Zheng to fall out of favor to such a degree that he deserved damnatio memoriae?

是什么导致郑失宠到了被抹去记录的地步？

CheetoMussolini
Where the Ming in conflict with other Mongolian successor states or some other steppe peoples?

明朝与蒙古后裔或其他草原民族在哪里发生冲突？

memnoc
Weren't his ships intentionally burned by one of his recent (at the time) successors?

他的船队不是被他后来的(当时的)继任者故意烧毁了吗？

PostPostModernism
That's astounding that a fleet of that magnitude could just be 'forgot and left to rot'. And yes I understand we have contemporary ship graveyards and the like. But just harboring such a fleet of ships would be a large administrative task, and they would be extremely valuable if sold off to shipping or fishing interests. Was there something about the way the Ming empire viewed empirical property which would have fed into their treatment?

令人震惊的是，如此规模的舰队竟然会被"遗忘并任其腐烂"。 是的，我知道我们有现代船只墓地等等。 但是，仅仅拥有这样一支船队将是一项庞大的管理任务，而且如果它们被出售给航运或渔业利益集团，将极具价值。 是因为明朝一些看待其帝国财产的方式导致他们这样处理吗？



terminus-trantor
I would just like to add a little bit to this nice answer.
Also, the discovery of a rudder suspected to have belonged to one of Zheng's ships in China does support the largest estimates of Zheng's treasure ships (the size of the rudder discovered at Longjiang would belong to a ship of roughly 538-600 feet).
Recently I recommended few articles that go into a recap of what we do know of Zheng He's ships, and the authors conclusion pretty much repeats here quoted Dreyer's work, but also touches on some other issues, like examination of the rudder mentioned in this post.
According to the author, the formula which was initially used to calculate the size of the ship from the rudder post fragment was incorrect as the original work used formulas to get ship and rudder size for a "steel, engine-driven ship".
Basically, the estimate of the ship sizes from rudder are incorrect, and a more educated guess (and we are talking about guesses) would give a size rather in the more reasonable range of 100-200 feet length. I suggest anyone who wants to read exact details about the rudder claim, to read pages 29-31 in the linked article (academia.edu), but I highly recommend reading the whole thing for a whole picture of what we know and don't know of Zheng He ships

我只是想在这个好的答案上再加点东西。
此外，在中国发现疑似属于郑和船只的船舵，也支持了对郑和宝船的最大估计(在龙江发现的船舵的尺寸属于一艘大约538-600英尺的船只)。
最近我推荐了几篇文章，回顾一下我们所知道的郑和的船只，作者的结论几乎是重复这里引用德雷尔的工作，但也涉及一些其他问题，如本文中提到的舵检查。
作者认为，最初用计算"钢铁机动船"的船舶尺寸和舵杆尺寸的公式来(根据舵杆碎片)计算船舶尺寸是不正确的,(应该用木船的公式)。
基本上，根据方向舵估计船的大小是不正确的，更有根据的猜测(我们讨论的是猜测)会给出一个更合理的长度范围，即100-200英尺。 我建议任何想要详细阅读有关船舵索赔的人，阅读academia.edu的链接文章，我强烈推荐阅读整篇文章，了解我们所知道的和不知道的郑和船。