A 20th century copy of the statue of Chengzu Zhu Di c1424 in his tomb hall. Note the very real and current money being left by the Chinese. This is the emperor who sent the 7 great fleets (with their 1,000s of huge junks) to map the planet between 1421 and 1424. Most of them returned to find Zhu Di dead as his career went south after the new Forbidden City was struck by lightening and burned. It is thought that they mapped everything, both American coasts (N&S), Antarctica, north coast of Greenland, but not Europe.....some guy named Marco something had already given them a good European map.
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