Chinese ships at start of 1400’s

[Anonymous]

I've read that at least one reason these Chinese ships were so large was that the crews of such ships lived on board the vessels. They literally were born, married, and died there. As you might expect from the Chinese, many of the ships even had gardens on board. The Yuan (Mongol) dynasty of the 13th and 14th centuries was known to have trading ships large enough to accommodate sixty individual cabins for merchants and up to 300 crew members. Often these ships would go out and not return until a year or more later. These large ships were probably ideal for trading, but not so ideal for warfare as navy vessels.

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

With Chinese ships at the start of 1400’s about 3 times as large as Europeans vessels it is difficult if even only for a moment not to imagine how different the course of world history would be if Chinese ship building had continued along this trajectory. I know one should not delve into counterfactual history but if will allow ourselves to go down this route for a moment it is interesting to see where one ends. I wonder how our students would factor this particular narrative if we asked them to engage in this type of counterfactual history or better yet what lesson can be learned when one society scales back on technological advancement. What comes to mind is the current state of NASA and the lack of available space shuttles and the reliance on foreign nations to get to space? It would be interesting to see what our students have to say about this matter and how once Chinese ships ruled the seas at three times the size of European ships.

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