u/iamthi

In 1421, the Ming Dynasty had the most powerful naval fleet in history — over 300 ships, some nearly 400 feet long. Zheng He had already reached East Africa, the Persian Gulf, and possibly further.

Then the Yongle Emperor died. The Confucian bureaucracy took over, declared maritime expeditions wasteful, and burned the ships. Seventy years later, Columbus crossed the Atlantic with three vessels, the largest being 85 feet.

A few things I keep thinking about:

The Ming weren't interested in permanent settlement the way Europeans were. Zheng He's voyages were about tribute relationships and trade — not colonization in the European sense. Does that change the outcome for Indigenous populations, or does resource extraction inevitably lead to the same place regardless of who's doing it?

China also didn't have the same disease transmission dynamic. The catastrophic 90% population collapse of Indigenous Americans was largely driven by European diseases — smallpox, measles, influenza. Would contact with China have carried the same biological risk?

And if the Americas remain largely intact into the 1500s and 1600s — no plantation economy, no transatlantic slave trade as we know it — how does that reshape Africa, Europe, and the global balance of power going into the modern era?

Curious what people think. Especially on the disease question — that one seems underexplored.

What do you think of this thumbnail?

What If Zheng He's Voyages Continued and China Reached the Americas?

What would Africa look like today if Europe never colonized it?

What would Africa look like today if Europe never colonized it?

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