1424 - Zheng He Sails Northeast

After five extraordinary voyages, the legendary Treasure Fleet of China was ordered to stay in port by the Yongle Emperor in 1421. His campaigns against the Mongols and Yuan to the north for the last decade had stretched the military thin, and it did not seem wise to dispatch another expensive expedition despite the promising reward of spices, animals, and trade routes with foreign ports. Now the fleet would serve as garrison in Nanjing, which was its official title, and its admiral, Zheng He, would be tasked with local duties while one of his commanders, Hong Bao, delivered ambassadors back to their home countries in what would be considered a sixth voyage.

While capable and respected in court, Zheng He was a member of the eunuch faction, which met with increasing friction the Confucianist civil servant faction. As the Yongle Emperor’s health faded, a secret plan was hatched among the civil servants to dispatch Zheng He out of court so they could be closer to the emperor’s son, who was not so enthused by the extravagant treasure ships or the wonders they brought back to China. Originally they intended to send him on a diplomatic mission to Palembang in Indonesia, but an idea was hatched to send him into unexplored waters in hopes he might not return for many years. Cleverly winning over support from the military faction and gaining the emperor’s ear, they concocted the plan to send Zheng He along the coast northward in supposed hope of finding allies on the far side of the Mongols.

Zheng He left in the early spring of 1424 with a much smaller, sturdier fleet than he usually led. After obligatory visits to the courts of Sejong the Great of the Joseon dynasty in Korea and Shogun Ashikaga Yoshikazu in Japan, the fleet moved on northward. Islands became increasingly bare stone and ice, but human life could be found even there. Zheng He traded with Ainu and Aleut in the northern Pacific, noting the vast capabilities of fishing and the potential for introducing manufactures.

At the Bering Strait, ice made travel impassable, so Zheng He continued eastward in hopes of finding a northeast passage that could take him to kingdoms beyond the Mongols as potential allies. The coast unfortunately turned southward, but Zheng He pressed on. He mapped and traded with more groups along the coast, revealing thickly wooded lands and extensive bays. Once past an enormous peninsula in desert lands, the fleet came to the complex city-states of the Toltec. An overland journey brought them to the growing Aztec Empire, fierce warriors with obsidian blades and a relatable respect for jade. The Aztecs stated that they had no knowledge of the Mongols or even the distant Europeans at the western end of the Silk Road. In fact, there seemed to be another sea to the east of their empire. Though disheartened by finding the mandate impossible to complete, Zheng He was excited to see that the Aztec stores of gold were seemingly as infinite as the emperor’s and that they were eager to trade for iron weapons and cannons.

Zheng He returned to China in the fall of 1425 to learn that not only had the Yongle Emperor died, but so had his son, the Hongxi Emperor. The new Xuande Emperor was much more excited than his father about the expeditions, and the tobacco, wild animals including jaguars and colorful birds, and immense piles of gold prompted him to order another voyage. This next voyage established trading posts with tribes along the Pacific to supply the route to the Aztec as well as exploring farther southward, which led to contact with the formidable and wealthy Incan Empire. Chinese interest in this new-to-them world grew even more when an upriver expedition from the Great Golden Bay discovered immense gold fields.

As government-controlled maritime trade dwindled through the fifteenth century, private commerce expanded widely. The middle class grew with merchants and manufacturers, leading to organized companies beyond the normal Confucian family order. New philosophy came to the population, which encouraged expansion and growth, expanding Chinese influence westward to counter European expeditions. China became the unquestioned center of world affairs even though political turmoil would change its governance over time.

On the eastern side of the ocean, populations faced bitter plagues from the disease exchange, prompting Chinese physicians to introduce variolation to immunize against smallpox and medical research analyzing contact that would lead to a germ theory. Populations largely recovered by the time of European arrival from across the Atlantic, where settlers only made footholds in the larger native nations who had adapted not only with biological resistance but also to warfare with firearms.

 

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In reality, Zheng He went to Palembang. Though documents at the time show that the Treasure Fleets turned strong profits, later ministers condemned them as wasteful and destroyed much of the archives about them. Some researchers suggest that Chinese ships did, in fact, visit the Americas, such as Gavin Menzies describing a voyages Zhou Man and Hong Bao mapping much of the continents' coasts. In 1980, John Furry of Natural History Museum of Northern California stated he had found a submerged shape in Sacramento River bearing a resemblance to a Chinese junk and that core samples judged the ship’s building at roughly 1400.

April, 1483 - Muhammad XII Captures Lucena

The Iberian Peninsula had been in turmoil for centuries. Dominated by Muslim rule since the Umayyad invasion in 711, Christian kingdoms in the north sought an aspirational Reconquista to liberate the whole land to Christendom for seven hundred years. By the fifteenth century, only the Emirate of Granada was still under Muslim authority, yet the Christians were slowed by periodic infighting between the major kingdom of Portugal and the twin Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. The Muslims, too, faced infighting in 1482 when Muhammad XII overthrew his father during yet another war sparked by raiding in 1481 to end the Truce of 1478 put into place during the War of Castilian Succession.

The war initially went well for Granada with the king’s brother-in-law, al-Zagal, in competent command of the southern forces. The king’s son proved overly ambitious and overthrew his father with courtly intrigue in 1482 and soon wanted victories to match his uncle’s at Loja breaking the Christian siege and winning battles in the hills. Muhammad marched on Lucena and besieged it. Lights in the towers altered nearby Cabra to come to Lucena. Nervous, Muhammad considered withdrawing, but a letter to his uncle advised him to defeat one and then the other as he had manipulating opponents at court.

Muhammad feigned a retreat, prompting the Cabrans to take up pursuit and the Lucena defenders to charge out of their defenses. As the two Christian armies became entangled, the Granadan forces turned about and formed ranks. Unable to organize a protected retreat and confused with the different towns’ soldiers literally bumping into one another under different commanders’ orders, the Christian armies were struck down. Those who made it back to Lucena were far too few to defend the town, which was captured the next day. Cabra fell soon afterward as Granadans pushed forward.

War dragged on and on. The Castilian fleet circled Granada, but the forces under Muhammad’s eager leadership moved quickly at lifting any siege that could be laid on land while raiding parties kept much of the Christian forces at home. Even more frustrated than the rulers was the Italian navigator Cristoforo Colombo, who went by the Latin Christophorus Columbus as he sought financial backing for a scheme to sail west across the Atlantic to reach Asian markets. In the 1480s, he had approached John II of Portugal with the idea, which was dismissed as his calculations of the Earth’s circumference were too small as well as Portugal’s monopoly on African and Indian Ocean trade granted by the Pope. Columbus then approached Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, who were intrigued by the idea of sailing around the Portuguese, but they were too busy with the war. To keep Columbus from moving on, they gave him a salary and kept him in Spain for several years. By the 1490s, Columbus was disappointed enough to sail for France, where he again ran into a block as Charles VIII’s court had just invested in the First Italian War. Columbus then tried England, where he discovered there was already an expedition planned by another Italian, Giovanni Caboto, whom the English called John Cabot.

While Columbus slinked back to Spain to live on his salary, Cabot made sail in 1496. He had scraped together funding from Bristol shippers who also hoped to compete with Lisbon, bankers from Florence, and the court of Henry VII, who granted him £50. Cabot’s first outing failed to find land in the rough waters of the North Atlantic against the prevailing current. He sailed again in 1497, finding land and staking a claim for England. Though he met no natives, his crew did see two figures running in the trees and recovered an unstrung, red-wooded bow.

Europe marveled at the discovery, and Spain balked at the idea of English claims. Having already lost trade routes to Portugal, Spain (backed by France) appealed to Rome so they could buy time until the Granada War was over. Pope Alexander VI decreed in a bull that all lands discovered west of 30° latitude up to the Indian Ocean would be held in “Christian common,” meaning no extensive claims could be made and trading posts could only be established with papal permission.

Though the coast and major rivers of the Americas were thoroughly explored over the next century by sailors like Corte-Real and Vespucci, there were few efforts of settlement beyond merchants living with tribal communities eager to trade. Most of the economic interest in the western hemisphere was in fishing on the Grand Banks and raiding to capture slaves. The raiding parties caused coastal natives to organize defenses and determine which ships belonged to which nations. A complex and constantly changing system of alliances grew during the Age of Exploration, and native peoples had formed recognized nations that remained unconquered through the Age of Empire such as the French-allied Montagnais-Naskapi-Objiwe, the Iroquois-led Algonquin Alliance, the Five Tribes of Great Florida, the Maya, the Orinoco Peoples, and the Tupi.

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In reality, the Siege of Lucena was a disastrous defeat for Muhammad XII, known as Boabdil to the Castilians. The army of Granada was destroyed and Boabdil was captured, giving Ferdinand a tool to sow division into the country as al-Zagal became Muhammad XIII. Over the next decade, the Spanish forces captured Granada and completed the Reconquista begun centuries before with Boabdil being released to formally surrender Granada. Ferdinand and Isabella reached out to Columbus just as he was planning to leave for France and made good on promises to fund his expedition in 1492.

March 31, 1492 - Alhambra Decree Begins Scheme to Send Jews West

The Reconquista of Spain completed with the Battle of Granada on January 2, 1492.  Muslims had controlled the Iberian Peninsula after their invasion in 711, but gradually the Christian kingdoms of the north expanded southward.  In-fighting slowed the Christian efforts, but the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in 1469 united two of the largest kingdoms to a single force.  In twenty years of warfare, they pushed back the Muslims to Granada, where they affirmed rule of the peninsula fully in the hands of Christian monarchs.

Following the battle, Ferdinand and Isabella settled on to new projects.  With the conquest of Granada, the Catholic Monarchs had acquired vast lands but also now ruled a new population of Muslims and Jews.  Jews, as fellow "People of the Book", were initially treated with respect under early Muslim rule.  Jews from all over the Mediterranean immigrated to what was then known as al-Andalus, creating banking and centers of education.  Religious zeal increased on both sides of the peninsula as Christians called to retake lands lost by the Visigoths, and tolerance of Jews fell.  The Spanish Inquisition began in 1480, giving religious authority to the crown rather than the Pope.  Their agent, Dominican friar Tomás de Torquemada, served as Grand Inquisitor as well as confessor for Isabella.  Along with others, he encouraged the monarchs to expel non-Christians from the country to purify it.  Those who did not leave would have to convert (and the Inquisition would make certain they did not secretly practice forbidden faith) or face torture and death.

While religious fervor marked much of the reasoning behind expulsion, the matter was also economical.  Torquemada stressed that much of the economy of Spain was held by influential Jews.  With their power, they could subvert the authority of the Church or even the monarchs.  He called for their expulsion long before the conquest of Granada, but Ferdinand and Isabella did not want to risk the crash of their economy during wartime.  With the war over, they could restructure their economy as well as seize the valuable property of the Jews who chose to flee.

Meanwhile, Christopher Columbus, an Italian navigator campaigned at court for funding of an expedition that would reach the Orient by sailing west.  He had attempted to win favor from John II of Portugal, but the king had turned him away after his advisers stated the calculations for the circumference of the Earth were far too short.  Columbus had argued at court since 1486, noting the potential wealth from a new trade route.  He was given no positive answer, but he was furnished with food, lodging, and a salary, keeping him on retainer rather than seeking support from any other monarch of Europe.

When it slipped that Columbus would eventually be turned down on the advice of Torquemada, Columbus decided to change his position.  He took one item of Torquemada's agenda, the removal of the Jews, and tied it to his own.  Managing an interview with Torquemada, he pointed out the danger of letting the Jews "escape" to build up power elsewhere.  Instead, they should be sent to the East, where their wares would have to pass through Spain to market.  Torquemada approved the plan, and the monarchs soon announced the "Alhambra Decree", stating that in four months Jews would be forced to live in Granada alone.  That summer, hundreds of thousands of Jews moved to the city, allowed to keep their possessions but selling homes and businesses far under value.

In 1493, Columbus returned successfully from what was soon to be realized as the New World.  His next expedition left that September, and along with it went a large fleet of forced Jewish immigrants.  The Spanish established settlements on Hispaniola, using Jews and local natives as labor.  Over the next decade, the Jews of Spain converted, sneaked out of the country, or were deported to the New World.  During the rule of the Spanish Empire, several Jewish revolts began, but the might of the Conquistadors and the Spanish navy put down the rebellions.  Many Jews settled into their work on plantations and were joined by African slaves, creating a lucrative economy exporting to Europe.

By the seventeenth century, new hope for the Jews arrived as other nations began to colonize the Caribbean.  Piracy flourished, and, in the chaos, Jews escaped from Hispaniola by the thousands to neighboring islands.  Many settled on the far coast of Hispaniola under French rule, helping to make Saint-Domingue the most prosperous colony in the region.  The Caribbean became a popular destination for Jews fleeing oppression in other areas of Europe, particularly Germany and Italy, where corporations funded ships to transport colonists.

Antisemitism continued in the Caribbean, where for centuries the Jewish people were held as second-class citizens along with natives and Africans.  As they gained economic clout by the early twentieth century, however, the Jews won their recognition, and the Caribbean today is well known for its banking, produce, and tourism.  In modern times, many Jews hold to ideals of Zionism, wishing for a Jewish state in Palestine, where some Jews have established communities.  However, with the large Jewish population of the Caribbean, there has not been fervent international action answering the call for a geographic "Israel."

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In reality, the Alhambra Decree simply expelled the Jews from Spain. Torquemada convinced Isabella to deny Columbus's request, but, as he was riding away, he was stopped by messengers from Ferdinand who had asked the queen to reconsider.  Meanwhile, the Jews of Spain fled by land or sea, where many perished as brigands sliced them open looking for swallowed jewels or captains threw them overboard after charging exorbitant fees for passage.  Many Jews escaped to the Ottoman Empire, where Sultan Bajazet boasted, "How can you call Ferdinand of Aragon a wise king, the same Ferdinand who impoverished his own land and enriched ours?"

September 8, 1492 – Survivor of Columbus Expedition Found

A fishing boat north of the Canary Islands spotted a man clinging to a barrel in the midst of waves. They managed to him aboard, and, after several hours' rest, the delirious man told his story, saying that the small fleet sent with the Italian Cristoforo Colombo had met with disaster. He gave a wild tale of an enormous sea serpent destroying the ships, a tale which he continued relating after returning to the taverns of the Canaries in trade for drinks.

While some superstitious sailors believed the stories, others were suspicious of the Portuguese caravels that had been spotted nearby. Portugal denied any involvement, but the caravels had disappeared shortly after Columbus. Other rumors suspected a sudden storm while still more suggested that the man had simply jumped ship. However, as winter came and years passed, it was obvious that Columbus and his ships were not going to return.

Christopher's brother Bartholomew Columbus continued to press the French King Charles VIII to support an expedition even after Christopher's disappearance, but the French had lost the Italian War and incurred major debts. Moving along, the younger Columbus returned to England where Henry VII had once offered marginal support for the lost expedition, but too late as Christopher had already promised to sail for Isabella and Spain. After several years, Bartholomew managed to convince Henry to give £50 toward the expedition, which was more than the Royal Council advised. Taking whatever he could get, Bartholomew followed the pledge with gathering pledges from others while stressing that they would please the king because of their support.

In 1499, in a single, well-stocked ship called Mary, Bartholomew set sail from Bristol and headed southwest, following the wind and mimicking his lost brother's course. While he dreamed of finding Christopher perhaps shipwrecked or living on some paradisaical island, no evidence of the former expedition was found. Instead, they came across a chain of islands that Bartholomew initially took for Japan. After comparing the local Carib with what he and the other sailors knew of the Japanese, Bartholomew realized that they had come across something wholly uncharted.

After a lengthy stay charting the islands, Columbus's men discovered natives willing to trade gold on a large island they would call Anglandia. Leaving a station of eight men to build a fort, Columbus loaded his ship with spices, gold, and local goods and returned to England by a northern route. Upon his return in 1502, Columbus was knighted and granted governorship of this “New England” as well as promises for handsome rewards as trade became lucrative.

Within a few years, England began domination of the Caribbean. The Portuguese would launch their own expeditions with noted cartographer Amerigo Vespucci more to the south, while the Spanish would directly challenge the English by settling northward. Henry VIII dedicated his rule to securing the west, fighting numerous naval wars until finally dominating North Columbia above the Isthmus with a treaty giving South Columbia to the Portuguese. The Dutch and Spanish would have minor colonies while France went far north to monopolize the fur-trade.

Upon the conquest of the Aztecs by Sir Walter Raleigh, the English found themselves with a seemingly unending source of income from the Columbias. The resulting wealth fueled the growing problems between Protestants and Catholics as well as Parliamentarians and Royalists, tearing the country apart over the course of the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, the English Golden Age would come to an end, eclipsed by growing French, Portuguese, and Dutch supremacy.


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In reality, Christopher Columbus's expedition west would fail to find a route to Asia but succeed in discovering the Western Hemisphere. Spain grew mighty with American gold, though its investment in wars against Protestants, specifically the Dutch, would give no lasting base for Spanish power. Later British settlement in North America as well as in Africa and Asia would contribute to the nation becoming the World Power of the nineteenth century.