Beijing 2004

Beijing, the new northern capital, was inaugurated on 2 February 1421 by order of the Emperor Zhu Di whose father, the first Ming emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, had driven out the Mongol overlords to reunify China.

China was now the greatest power on earth and Zhu Di's 26,000 guests included potentates arid envoys from Japan and Africa, India and Arabia. The ten-course banquet was served on the finest porcelain. Three weeks later in England, Henry V married Catherine De Valois and his 600 guests were treated to salted cod served on rounds of stale bread, which acted as plates. Zhu Di had an army of 1 million men with guns, while Henry V went to war with France with 5000 longbow, sword and pike. Beijing was the capital of a cultural and intellectual colossus thousands of years old, which had not suffered a Dark Age as had Europe after the Romans.

In March 1421 the foreign guests were taken home on great fleets of ocean going junks. With their red silk sails and watertight compartments, with their support ships carrying grain and water, they could stay at sea for three months at a time and cover over 4000 miles without making landfall. The rudder of one of the largest was nearly as long as Columbus's flagship in which he sailed for America.

After returning Zhu Di's guests, these fleets would eventually Circumnavigate the world in great voyages of exploration, and indeed provided the ancient maps and charts which were to guide European navigators like Columbus and Magellan many years later.

Zhu Di's instructions were "to treat distant peoples with kindness". When in April 2004 we made our own voyage of exploration to Beijing, we were certainly treated with kindness.

Peter Woollette

Longfei Newsletter Volume 6 Issue 1 Table of Contents