ttom500: Check out a books titled "1426" and "1436"
The author takes the position that in 1426, a giant fleet from China (some 2000 ships total departed) made it way to first to Africa...then by canal and the Nile River , the MED to Europe. Landing in northern Italy near Venice. Some 600 hundred arriving ships landed here, as the other 1400 were diverted to other destinations enroute.
He shows that most the European inventions followed this. That Europeans now had maps of the new world that Columbus used. That
European knowledge of the stars and their orbits (for sea navigation) changed.
All this came according the books writer from the Chinese version of a massive encloypedia that they carried.
Did it happen? I don't know. But if it did...it is the biggest technology tranfer in the history of man. If it happened, you have to give the Chinese the number one spot for inventions, and improvements to man kind world wide.
Thanks ttom500 for your post but ya all 'ifs'. we dunno what reality is. But id f your ifs can be put true, ya the world owe this sort of easy life to that giant fleet. MORE IDEAS?