Annex 10 – Evidence of Chinese Fleets visit to Australia – West Coast
1. Maps
Zheng He’s maps of Western Australia. Professor Zhiqiang Zhang’s article entitled “Zheng He’s Fleets had reached Australia before 1450” published in Chinese mainland edition of the Peoples daily October 24 2003. Professor Zhiquiang Zhang’s article in Chinese and English will be placed on the website. Here is GM’s interpretation:
(i) Professor Zhiqiang noticed Zheng He’s Fleets sailed far south of Mozambique and Malagascar to ‘Malindi’.
(ii) This Malindi was actually the southern tip of South Africa. However it had the same name as ‘Malindi’s in East Africa, thousands of miles further north. Chinese scholars had until now confused the 3 Malindi’s.
(iii) “This time it was different, because the angle from which the chart [was viewed] was changed. This time [land shown on Zheng He’s charts] was to the east not from Malindi of Kenya, nor from Malindi of Tanzania, but to the East from the Malindi of Africa’s southern tip along the same latitude. At that moment, I took out the modern map and looked in comparison and concluded without any hesitation: this is Australia”.
“Now we could confidently proclaim Zheng He’s Fleets had discovered Australia in the early 15th century. Zheng He’s Fleets Nautical Chart is the evidence, irrefutable evidence beyond all doubt.”
“We can also see from the chart [Wu Pei Chih] the two routes along which Zheng He’s Fleets returned to China, (1) via southwest Australia where they sailed northward (Hong Bao’s Fleet) (2) one from the east: west of the Tiger Tail reef” (Great Barrier Reef – Zhou Man’s route) – Professor Zhiqiang Zhang – Beijing, 28 August 2003. From (1) we know Zheng He’s Fleets sailed northwards inside the Great Barrier Reef, from (2) they settled Australia – but where? European and Jesuit Charts give the first clue:
· Australia appears on European maps of the Dieppe school published centuries before Europeans reached Australia, viz. Desliens, Vallard (showing horses), Desceliers, Jean Rotz (1540s). These show West, North, East and South Australia (to Warrnambool). Someone charted Australia before Europeans did so. Captain Cook may have had a Chinese map (William Li).
· Albertin di Virga of 1410, where Australia is called ‘Java La Grande’ and placed in the correct position with the correct size and shape of the crest from Colliers Bay to the Gulf of CarpentariaAlbertin di Virga of 1410, where Australia is called ‘Java La Grande’ and placed in the correct position with the correct size and shape of the crest from Colliers Bay to the Gulf of Carpentaria
· Australia appears on Jesuit maps drawn when in China and based on Chinese Maps, viz. Father Ricci 1589 (Now in the Royal Geographic Society, London)
· Taiwan porcelain map (1447) showing East coast to Tasmania.
· Zheng He’s passage chart shows Barrier Reef (Martin Tai)
· Melchior Thevenot in Relations 1663 – Chinese aware of Australia – (M Righton).
· Hessel Gerritsz chart (1618) shows Australia (purchased Seville) – (M Righton).
· Australia shown on Wu Pei Chih (Sun Shuyun and Zhiqiang Zhang) (1422)
· Ma Huan ( Rosace = Australia = Darwin = Marani) (Martin Tai evidence)
· Old Chinese map of Australia disappeared from public viewing in National Palace Museum in Taiwan. (Liuqioqing)
2. Chinese Claims and Records
- Chinese Premier Hu Jintao’s speech to Austrailian Parliament 24 October 2003:
“Back in the 1420’s, the Expeditionary Fleets of China’s Ming Dynasty reached Australian shores. For centuries, the Chinese sailed across vast seas and settled down in what they called “Southern Land”, or todays Australia. They brought Chinese culture to this land and lived harmoniously with the local people, contributing their proud share to Australians economy, society and its thriving pluralistic culture.”
- The Chinese merchant Wang Da Yuan as recorded in the Dao Yi Zhi:
“In 1330, Wang Da Yuan was only twenty years old: he boarded a commercial deep ocean ship and set sail from Quan Zhou returning in summer/ autumn of 1334…..” [The] crossed Indian Ocean back to Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Java, then to Australia, from Australia to Kalimantan, through the Philippines Isles and finally to Quanzhou.
“In 1337, Wang Da Yuan embarked the second time from Quan Zhou….[travelled through] the Strait of Mozambique and various places in Australia and returned to Quan Zhou two years later.” Translation by Martin Tai
- Zheng He’s knowledge of Wang Da Yuan’s book Dao Yi Zhi:
Ma Huan (who accompanied Zheng He’s Fleets):
“I followed Zheng He to various countries being there personally and witnessing with my own eyes, I attest what was written in Dao Yi Zhi were not false.” Translation by Martin Tai
In Dao Yi Zhi Lue there are two sections about Australia:
1. Ma Na Li, 2. Ro So Si (from Martin Tai Ro So Si may be a typo for Ro Po Si). Merchants and sailors of Quanzhou mentioned Australia was at the end of the earth and called it ‘End Island’.
· Wang Da Yuan’s description of Australia:
“Some men and women in different form, they did not weave, wore no cloth, covered their bodies with bird feathers, ate without fire, drank blood….[others] wore colourful short garments, wrapped with a piece of Ban Ga La cloth as a skirt…”
· He called the red fire tree of Australia the “Si Naw” tree.
· He describes a large stretch of marshland east of modern Darwin and the Kilberry Plateau – “columns and columns of steep mountain peeks, like horses galloping in the sky, positioned near the sea.”
· There are two longish sections in the Dao Yi Zhi Lue describing customs of Australia.
· Confucius Spring and Autumn Annals (481 BC) recording solar eclipses in Australia – (Professor Wei)
· Classics of Mountains and Seas (338 BC) describes kangaroos, quiong –giong, boomerangs and black millet (S. Australia) – (Professor Wei)
· Shizi (338 BC) reports kangaroos in China. – (Professor Wei)
· Atlas of Foreign Countries (265-316 AD) describes small black pygmies (N. Australia), Jiaojiao people, plants grow leaves in winter, shed them in summer. – (Professor Wei)
3. Accounts of Contemporary European Historians and Explorers
An account of the exploration and charting of the West Australian coast by Willem de Vlamingh, December 1696 and January 1697 – “THE SOUTHLAND EXPLORATION” ( Battye Library) By Gunther Schilder. © Published by Canaletto 1984. BRN 117751
11th and 12th century copper schols (Franciscan missionaries’ evidence) describe voyages by huge fleets of junks (60-100) sailing for Australia to mine minerals.
4. Accounts of Local people
- Reader’s story: Huge ship anchor found on top of a cliff on an island two or three nights North of Broome (Australia). Anchor points to a grave – a large marble slab with an unidentifiable inscription upon it. Also, ancient hand-made clay pots that seem to have been used for smelting gold discovered near-by. (Buckley Dwyer )
5. Linguistics
- Lynda Nutter has found there are some 70 Nyungah words (peoples who live at Mundaring) almost identical to Japanese (Nihongo). A full list will be placed on the website in due course (see Stone: Engravings below)
6. Shipwrecks/ anchors and fishing gear with Chinese characteristics
- West Coast – Blackwood River estuary (340 19’ S, 1150 11’ E) (Legend of Sam Chalwell).
- Perth – King Sound (evidence of Jim Mullins/Norm Fuller)
- Diver Alan Robinson – find of a possible 12th century Chinese junk off the coast of Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia. He found articles including patterned ceramics and a “… magnificent cream coloured vase, covered in beautiful blue patterns. It stood 34” high, with a shape like an ancient Roman amphorae, except that the base was angled out to form a substantial stand. Below the flanged neck two handles projected in the form of coiled serpents. The whole object was beautifully glazed…” – Des Williams
- Willem de Vlamingh’s log (mission of Dec. 1696 – Jan 1967) mentions coming across what looked like the “lining of a ship – very old” 8-10 miles up the Swan River. Could this be part of a Chinese shipwreck of the 15th Century? (Jamie Bentley)
- A reader recalls how the remains of a shipwreck were found on a Perth metropolitan beach after a wild winter storm brought by the Westerly winds. At the time the newspaper report claimed that they were very old certainly before the time of British settlement. As to the exact time and place he cannot accurately pinpoint these. The beaches north of Fremantle on which the wreck was found were either Leighton, Cottesloe or Swanbourne. The decade was either the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s. Can anyone help with our research into this wreck? – Henry Court
7. Chinese Porcelain and Ceramics
Further research needed
8. Pre-Columbian Chinese Jade found in the wake of the Chinese Fleet
- Darwin – Chu Lao (Professor Wei and Professor Needham’s evidence)
- NSW – Ganesh and Hanuman statuettes
9. Artefacts, gems, votive offerings, coins and funerary urns
- Incense Urn found in the form of a ship’s anchor standing upright, topped by a bird with wings outstretched around which a slender dragon is entwined – Warrnambool, Australia (Patrick Connelly)
- Pskov coin of 1400’s found in Gympie, Australia. Pskov was an old fortress city in Russia when it was ruled by the Mongol-Chinese. This astounding find shows that trade took place between Australia and Russia at this time – Brett Green
- Four large shell middens found on the land next to the Howard River which runs into Shoal Bay to the East of the current city of Darwin. It is claimed that they were constructed by Aborigines but it seems doubtful. Could there be a link between the middens next to the Howard River and the voyages of the Chinese fleets that visited Darwin? (Laurence Ah Toy)
- Incense Urn found in the form of a ship’s anchor standing upright, topped by a bird with wings outstretched around which a slender dragon is entwined – Warrnambool, Australia (Patrick Connelly)
10. Stone: Buildings/ Structures/ Implements/ Engravings
- Stone structure and engraved rock at Mundaring – Lynda Nutter’s finds at Mundaring in the Helena Valley at 116° 23’E (Same longitude as the Forbidden City) The most important inscriptions are: “The 15th day of the Seventh Lunar month, at the Bon Lantern festival, guidance is given to souls to assist their return to their origin, China.”
- The carved characters noted above have the same meaning in Chinese and Nihongo (Japanese). The rocks have been set up in a way to enable longitude to be calculated at the winter solstice.
- The Helena encampment is also described in “The Helena Story” – (Edward Quicke)
- Petroglyphs from “The Burrup” near Dampier on the NW coast of Western Australia. They are locally well known and one is even described locally as “The Chinaman” – (Dr John Groom)
- Stone jetty made from rocks and stone from an inland quarry, Western Australia -(Mike Harty)
- With regards to the Chinese habit of cutting stone circles in rocks at various locations as evidence for others of their visitation – similar circles around 5 to 8 inches in diameter have been picked into low stone face in North Western Tasmania at a place known as “The Sundown” next t where a fresh water creek empties on the beach about 10 kilometers south of the Arthur River. Coen Smit.
11. Mining Operations found by first Europeans
Further research needed
13. Plants foreign to Australia
- From China: Lotus and papyrus
- From China: Eclipta Prostrata (false daisy) – (Mark Parison)
- From S America – 74 plant species.
- Plantations of Prickly Pear Cactus, which originates in North and South America and is valued for its medicinal properties, found at site of Gympie Pyramid, Australia
- A widely-used Chinese herb Eccipta Prostrata is listed in the Encyclopaedia Botanica (Australian Edition) as native to Queensland and NSW, Australia. In fact the plant is indigenous to China, Taiwan and Japan. It is probably another of those plants introduced from China during the 1421-23 voyages. (Mark Parison)
- A reader reports about visiting a site in Dampier, Western Australian in about 1978/9. where they had been cataloguing Aboriginal rock carvings on stones for the Western Australian Museum. In a nearby area the sides of low hills were striped with rows of loose-stone terraces up to a hundred metres long. A guide said that the WA Museum was trying to verify that crops had been cultivated there by Aborigines, who had hitherto been classified as hunter-gatherers, with no evidence of their having remained in the one place for long. Could these have instead been the terraces upon which crops were grown by Chinese visitors from Zhou Man’s expeditions? – Richard Lynam
14. Animals foreign to Australia
See Australia East Coast +
- The Elephant bird aka Vouron Patra (Aepyornis maximus). – This was an huge flightless bird, much similar to the Moa of New Zealand. Despite its originating in Madagascar, eggs and a skull of the elephant bird were found in Australia in 1968. For more information on the find please visit the following link: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/2462.asp It appears Fra Mauro Came across the bird as well in his travels. Here is a full translation for the Venetian text of Fra Mauro’s map of 1459, describing the ship or junk from India (he draws accurate pictures of Zheng He’s junks on that map) returning from the Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope [page 91 of HB version of 1421.] “… They made the return to the said Cabo de Diab [Cape of Good Hope] in 70 days and drawing near to the shore to supply their wants, the sailors saw the egg of a bird called Roc, the egg being as big as a seven gallon cask, and the size of the bird is such that from the point of one wing to another was sixty paces and it can quite easily lift an elephant or any other large animal. It does great damage to the inhabitants and is very fast in flight…” [Translation Crone at page 32.]
- Feral pigs – A lot of research has been done into feral pig populations in Australia recently. Most particularly this relates to the different sub species present, and specific parasites carried by these pigs. It is interesting to note that there is strong speculation that many of these species are believed to be derived from Chinese or ‘Asian’ pigs, and are definitely not descended from European pigs. Many of these colonies are now believed to have been established well prior to European settlement. Research is ongoing. Equally interesting is research on parasites recovered from non-European pigs in the Cape Tribulation area of Queensland which are not otherwise present in Australia – Joel Murray
- A reader, commenting on the works of Heironymous Bosch, says how in his “Garden of Earthly Delights” (c. 1504) he depicts platypus and kangaroos, years before the first Europeans “discovered” Australia. Furthermore there is what appears to be an Australian magpie (gymnorhena tibicens) in the painting as well – Tony Magrathea
- Reader claims that a porcelain piece in the China exhibit in the British Museum (casenumber 33) that is identified as the “Dancing Bear” is clearly a koala bear. Any more information on this piece would be appreciated.
15. Art
- Cave painting (Governor Grey) of Chinese – compare with Zheng He’s statue in Fujian Palace Cave painting (Governor Grey) of Chinese – compare with Zheng He’s statue in Fujian Palace
- Cave paintings very different from aboriginal paintings – different looking people, strange animal and the use of green colouring – Hall’s Creek, NW of Western Australia – (Peter Harvey)
- Yalgoo Cave Painting, WA, using the traditional Chinese style of composition with the flattened perspective including a horizon, the middle ground image of a ship and the foreground, peninsular (Stuart West)
- Australian reader remembers his father telling him that there were paintings of white people from before white settlement in caves in the Nullabor. The local aborigines had seen these people as the spirits of departed souls and had once viewed modern whites much the same way. He has also seen stone fish in the north and in Victoria. These are apparently most unusual for aborigines who did not settle in one place or normally create such structures but if they learnt it from others (and it is an Asian technique) then it would make more sense. (Royce Burns)
16. Chinese customs, games, clothes and legends
Further research needed
17. Armour, metal weapons, cannons and implements found
- Ancient lead weight with Loisels pumice dated 1410-1630 (Bill Ward).
18. Diseases
Further research needed
19. DNA
Further research needed
20. Meteorological events and weather
Further research needed
21. Stars and Navigation
Further research needed
Professor Edward Bryant’s work (separate annex)
What GM thinks happened
Hong Bao’s Fleet – Much as in book as evidenced by Zheng He’s recently rediscovered Navigation charts of the Antarctic and Western Australia. Some sailors settled in the Helena Valley (Lynda Nutter) at the estuary of the Blackwood River and on Rottnest Island
Zhou Man’s Fleet – Transpacific to Australia and down NSW coast to Auckland and Campbell Island – as in book. There caught be Tsunami north of Auckland Island (Annexes 17 and Para 20). Majority of Fleet impaled on New Zealand South Island. Other Junks hurled NW to Australia – wrecked at Wollongong, Tasmania (Storm Bay); Edward Island; Warnambool (Port Fairy); Kangeroo Island; Blackwood River. Some sailed north up NSW coast inside and outside Barrier to China via the Spice Islands (Zheng He’s Charts). This scenario squares with all the artefacts, wrecks, legends, flora and fauna, histories and charts found to date.
