
The China Ship - wallflower
https://multimedia.scmp.com/culture/article/spanish-galleon/chapter_01.html
======
hevi_jos
Reading about this always makes me remember how much we stand at the shoulders
of giants.

Thinking about things like on each of those voyages half the crew will die of
Scurvy and other illnesses, for hundreds of years.

Now it is going to the moon or Venus, or Mars what requires a significant risk
to do, because of danger like radiation or absence of civilization out there.

Some day in the future, traveling to Mars will be routine and people would
barely think on those that made it possible.

How much people think about the incredible thing it is we could travel to the
other side of the planet on a single day?

------
nerdponx
Cool article. This was one time when I actually wish the article was slightly
longer. I came away with only the vaguest sense of what made the return trip
more difficult. Who were the "enemies" in question?

~~~
ihsw2
Your wish is granted! There are four chapters.

[https://multimedia.scmp.com/culture/article/spanish-
galleon/...](https://multimedia.scmp.com/culture/article/spanish-
galleon/chapter_02.html)

[https://multimedia.scmp.com/culture/article/spanish-
galleon/...](https://multimedia.scmp.com/culture/article/spanish-
galleon/chapter_03.html)

[https://multimedia.scmp.com/culture/article/spanish-
galleon/...](https://multimedia.scmp.com/culture/article/spanish-
galleon/chapter_04.html)

As for the "enemies," they were little more than pirates, brigands, and
otherwise despondent vagrants looking for a bit of self-help justice (helping
themselves to the spoils of thievery and robbery.)

~~~
jackfoxy
Here some narrative on a privateer prowling the California coast at end of the
China trade route period.
[http://factcards.califa.org/ran/elrefugio.html](http://factcards.califa.org/ran/elrefugio.html)

------
Ftuuky
Those articles are so cool, loved reading them. It reminds me of the long
explanations in the book Cryptonomicon about Intramuros/Manilla and how the
bigger ballast stones that came from Europe ended as huge stair steps.

------
peterbraden
In the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson, part of the story takes place around
the China galleons.

Definitely worth a read if you find this sort of thing exciting.

~~~
Latteland
Yeah, that was a long but interesting read. He has a long discussion about the
secret of what latitude to use to cross Eastward. I never understood that loop
so well until I saw the pics and diagrams in this story.

edit - fixed some of my endless typos

------
njarboe
Interesting how this circle trade route in the Pacific was used by Europeans
for over 200 years before Hawaii was found by Cook in 1778.

------
21
The book Sapiens states that in the 1500s the Chinese had a 15 thousands ocean
ready ship fleet, but for various reasons there were not really into
exploring.

Is that really true? 15k ships sounds absurdly high for that era.

~~~
dmoy
Also bear in mind that China already had a population of ~130m at year 1500.
More than twice as much population as the next 5 biggest groups combined
(french empire, ottomans, Inca, HRE, and southern Indiana).

Literally like 30% of the world's population in one empire.

Just to keep scale in perspective.

~~~
dmoy
India.... Stupid autocorrect, obviously southern Indiana was not the one of
the top 6 empires in year 1500...

------
distances
On part 3 the passengers' paperwork was checked after a month of travel, about
500 kilometres away from the starting point of Manila. Sixteen were found to
have lacking documents, and were left on an island.

That's of course terrifying, but also quite puzzling: why weren't the papers
checked at the point of departure?

~~~
unchocked
Possibly the crown was weak relative to commercial wealth at the port, and
bribery was common. At a remote outpost, it might be easier to defend the
crown’s interests against bribery. Just speculating.

------
Gravityloss
When humans start journeying outside low earth orbit again, it can be like
this. Long and dangerous trips.

~~~
Ftuuky
Hopefully with less scurvy and pirates.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Scurvy/starvation, and pirates will always be with us. With the added bonus of
losing air supply.

~~~
adrianN
Since we figured out what causes scurvy and the amount of vitamins needed to
prevent it weighs almost nothing, I'd bet that scurvy won't be one of the
problems we encounter in space.

~~~
Ftuuky
I agree, lack of nutrients and vitamins won't be a concern in most space
trips. I also don't know about pirates. Where are they going to hide?

I think the biggest risks are loss of breathable air and
claustrophobia/prolonged isolation (if people freak out in ships, imagine in
deep space).

~~~
jacobush
Pirates... maybe. They could go places hard to reach, so even if you knew
roughly were they were, they could be hard to apprehend.

But anyway, if we have pirates, there is a space ecosystem large enough to
leech off, so a win!

~~~
Ftuuky
But you could detect them approaching your vessel, all you got to do is change
course and/or speed up.

~~~
adrianN
Battles in space are about who has more fuel and who can dissipate waste heat
faster. You want to fire small, hard to detect ammunition from hours or days
far away and try your best to anticipate the evasive maneuvers or shape your
bullets' trajectories such that evading costs most fuel.

~~~
Ftuuky
Interesting. So spaceships will probably be heavily armoured, full of big long
range weapons (rail guns?) and huge fuel reserves for unforeseeable course
changes.

~~~
adrianN
The heavier you are the more fuel you need for high-G maneuvers, the more fuel
you carry the heavier you are... more guns and more armor are not
unconditionally better.

------
lappet
I love the quality of their illustrations and info graphics. Anyone here have
tips on how to make similar graphics?

------
baxtr
South China Morning Post is a great source for information about East Asia. I
recommend their daily newsletter to anyone interested.

~~~
alextheparrot
Could you give more context about their biases? I’m not familiar with the news
source, but would like to be informed about that area of the world (While not
just reading heavily one-sided articles).

~~~
joejerryronnie
I feel they are biased in China's favor but not so much so as to make the
information unreliable. If you understand that many of the articles are
written from the Chinese perspective, then you should be able to filter out
the mild propaganda. It seems there are a number of international writers, as
well.

~~~
pishpash
I don't find them biased in China's favor, but you are right that they write
from a mostly dispassionate and -- as Hong Kong is inextricably tied to China
-- cautiously realistic perspective about China. It tends not to have the
shallow caricatures, shrill alarmism, and conspiratorial/racist undertones of
the American yellow press.

~~~
joejerryronnie
I would say "optimistic" not necessarily "realistic" perspective. Although
some American journalism may show alarmism when discussing China, they are not
completely wrong here. The Chinese government is very aggressive when trying
to establish an economic hegemony over a certain industry or geographic
region. Their ability to formulate and execute broad agendas across government
and industry (e.g. China 2050, Belt & Road, etc) is quite impressive but
everyone knows China is not really playing fair (e.g. government subsidized
"private" companies, questionable business ethics, obfuscation of company
data, theft of trade secrets, currency manipulation, different sets of rules
for non-Chinese companies/investors, etc.) It's a bit like gambling in Vegas.
You may not know the exact methods, but you know the system is setup so that
the house always has better odds than you.

As Xi continues to lock down China and exert more and more control, it will be
interesting to see if China's central economic strategies and dynamic startup
industry will continue to flourish or if they will be crushed under the weight
of totalitarianism.

