After these initial discoveries, the focus of Chinese exploration shifted to the maritime sphere, although the Silk Road leading all the way to Europe continued to be China's most lucrative source of trade. Gan Ying, the emissary of General Ban Chao, perhaps traveled as far as Roman Syria in the late 1st century AD.

Han military control of the region was established with the Protectorate of the Western Regions, but the Tarim Basin states were only loosely under Han control as tributary vassals on the western frontier. Emperor Wu also expanded Han territories beyond the Gansu corridor into the Western Regions, in what is now Xinjiang. The Western Han envoy Zhang Qian traveled beyond the Tarim Basin in the 2nd century BC, introducing the Chinese to the kingdoms of Central Asia, Hellenized Persia, India, and the Middle East in search of allies against the Xiongnu.įrom 104 to 102 BC, Emperor Wu of Han waged war against the ' Yuezhi' who controlled ' Dayuan', a Hellenized kingdom of Fergana established by Macedonian king Alexander the Great in 329 BC. “They were marked down,” he recalls.Countries described in Zhang Qian's report (visited countries are highlighted in blue). “Except,” writes Menzies, “for the satellite transmission Perry made from his Lower East Side tenement to the Dakotas, where it was inscribed for eternity in the buffalo pelts.” Menzies found the pelts at an antique store in Bergen County. But a one-legged blacksmith named Perry knew the intrepid Cherokee women, managed not to catch smallpox from them, came to America, and never was heard from again.

1844: The Year Native Americans Discovered EuropeĪbandoning his prior assertions that China discovered America, and that Europe soon followed, Menzies describes his recent discovery of patterns in ancient bison pelts which are “incontrovertible evidence” that neither Europeans nor Asians made it, in his words, “to the place we now know as ‘North America’ - which is really just a social construct, anyway, I mean, let’s face it - until after a small band of Cherokee lesbians in canoes reached the shores of Ireland in 1844.” Unfortunately they all immediately caught smallpox and died, which is why we have never heard their story until now.

1421 china discovered america