(This source has been summarised and put online by Dr. Sally K. Church with the help of Tina Schivatcheva.) Between 1413 and 1420, Chen Cheng 陳誠 (1365–1457) travelled on three diplomatic missions between China and Herat (in present-day Afghanistan). These missions are remarkable because of the length of the journey (approximately 4,053 miles, or 6,521… Read More »
ZHENG HE: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PLAUSIBILITY OF 450-FT TREASURE SHIPS Dr. Sally K. Church This paper examines the issues and arguments surrounding the question of whether Zheng He’s 鄭和ships could have been the size recorded in the official Ming history (Ming shi 明史), that is, 44 zhang long by 18 zhang wide, or 447 by… Read More »
Impressions of early 13th century Central Asia as seen through the Poetry of Yelü Chucai 耶律楚材 (Yeh-lü Ch’u-ts’ai) (1190-1244) by Dr. Sally K Church (University of Cambridge) and Prof. Qiu Jiangning 邱江宁 (Zhejiang Normal University) The paper we presented in Cambridge contained a large amount of introductory material, not only about Yelü Chucai himself, but also… Read More »