A fascinating tale, "1421: The Year China Discovered the World," tells the saga of the "Star Fleet" armada, said to be the largest fleet of wooden ships ever assembled.
Based on fifteen years of research by retired British Royal Navy submarine commander Gavin Menzies, the film follows the Star Fleet's voyages in a hunt for proof of a controversial theory: that in a series of voyages between A.D. 1405 and A.D. 1432, Chinese admiral Zheng He led the Star Fleet to circumnavigate the globe, discovering the Americas in the process, over half a century before Christopher Columbus.
The Star Fleet story begins with the third Ming emperor, who ordered a giant fleet to be built to trade and collect tribute from the "barbarians beyond the seas."
The Star Fleet was impressive in scale and technology. It consisted of over 300 ships, including at least five huge treasure junks that measured over 100m long and 50m wide, dwarfing the ships used by Columbus.
There are no remains of the huge junks, but archaeologists have uncovered remains of the smaller ships, showing advanced technology. Watertight bulkheads divided the hull, so the ship could stay afloat if one section flooded. The outer hulls were triple-planked for strength, and supported nine masts.
Amazingly, the dockyards used to build many of the ships can still be seen in the heart of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province to this day. An 11m long rudder found there in 1959 is said by archaeologists to be 600 years old.
The fleet's historian recorded that the Star Fleet set up a base at Malacca in its first voyage to Malaysia. In seven voyages over the following years they traded silk and porcelain for gold and spices at Ceylon in Sri Lanka and Calicut in India, and horses at Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.
The fleet also visited Somalia on the sixth voyage. Imperial Chinese records show that Zheng He returned more than 12,000 km back to the Imperial Palace in Beijing and brought a giraffe, to the astonishment of court officials.
But whether the Star Fleet discovered the Americas remains to be seen. Mr Menzies bases his theory on the observation that the first European explorers already had maps showing them where to go.
"Columbus had a map of the Caribbean; Magellan had a map of the world… Someone was in the Caribbean in 1424, 70 years before Columbus… Somebody discovered the world before Europeans did," he said.
Mr Menzies compared modern maps of the Caribbean, Florida and Patagonia to the ancient Piri Reis and Cantino maps, which were published before Europeans arrived in those locations. The similarities are compelling evidence that someone skilled in cartography had been to the Americas before the Europeans.
However, the Star Fleet crew might not have been responsible. Historians point to the lack of records of the Star Fleet ever sailing beyond the Cape of Good Hope.
Even if Zheng He didn't discover the Americas, the tale of the Star Fleet is a fresh, entertaining look at the world voyages during the Ming dynasty.
"1421: The Year China Discovered the World" is available from leading bookstores and video stores. For more information see the official Web site at www.1421.tv
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