The Movie "The Warlords" the much acclaimed chinese epic set in the era of Taiping Rebellion appears to have an actual historical setting. As this was not much discussed.

While there is much additional drama there, the historical context of the battle, most specifically the battle for Suzhou and eventually Nanjing this was the setting of the actual battle for Suzhou where the Imperial army eventually took the city from the Rebels as follows:

An incident connected with the surrender of Suzhou, however, soured Li’s relationship with Gordon. By an arrangement with Gordon, the rebel princes yielded Nanjing on condition that their lives should be spared. In spite of the agreement, Li ordered their instant execution. This breach of faith so infuriated Gordon that he seized a rifle, intending to shoot the falsifier of his word, and would have done so had Li not fled.

Taken from Wikipedia of course.

Of course this is were the similarities end, outside of the actual battles that took place, including the one in Nanjing, the victorious army, being the "Ever Victorious Army" was actually led first by one Frederick Townsend Ward and succeed later by Charles George Gordon and actively supported if not innovated according to some by Li Heng-sung. So who was playing Gordon, and who was playing Li Hongzhang?

Zheng He, probably today one of the most famous chinese admirals in chinese history has gotten a lot more publicity, thanks largely to the controversial book 1421 and most recently 1434.

Taken from a recent Wikipedia edit the summary goes as follows:

Between 1405 and 1433, the Ming government sponsored a series of seven naval expeditions. Emperor Yongle designed them to establish a Chinese presence, impose imperial control over trade, and impress foreign peoples in the Indian Ocean basin. He also might have wanted to extend the tributary system, by which Chinese dynasties traditionally recognized foreign peoples.

Zheng He was placed as the admiral in control of the huge fleet and armed forces that undertook these expeditions. Zheng He’s first voyage consisted of a fleet of perhaps 300 ships^[6] (other sources say 200)^[7] holding almost 28,000 crewmen. These were probably mainly large six-masted ships - it is now thought that the large and flat nine-masted "treasure ships" were probably river ships used by the Emperor.^[8]

One of a set of maps of Zheng He’s missions (郑和航海图), also known as the Mao Kun maps, 1628.

On the first three voyages, Zheng He visited southeast Asia, India, and Ceylon (today known as Sri Lanka). The fourth expedition went to the Persian Gulf and Arabia, and later expeditions ventured down the east African coast, as far as Malindi in what is now Kenya. Unspecified officials have reportedly endorsed the theory, so far unproven, that one of Zheng He’s ships foundered on the rocks near Lamu island, off the coast of today’s Kenya, with survivors swimming ashore, marrying locals and creating a family of Chinese-Africans that is now being reunited with the Chinese motherland ^[9]. Throughout his travels, Zheng He liberally dispensed Chinese gifts of silk, porcelain, and other goods. In return, he received rich and unusual presents from his hosts, including African zebras and giraffes that ended their days in the Ming imperial zoo. Zheng He and his company paid respects to local deities and customs, and in Ceylon they erected a monument honouring Buddha, Allah, and Vishnu.

It is generally accepted that Zheng He accomplished amazing travels and distances during his time and despite some of the wildness of some of the claims like in the book 1421 and 1434, it certainly should be hoped that his achievements as a naval explorer, arguably ahead of much of the world in his time should be honored and noted and not belittled as it would appear to be read in all the critics that are targetted at 1421 such as 1421exposed.

The problem is not that the book 1421 (and 1434) is arguably full of errors or misconstrued facts (though perhaps not as outlandish as Daeniken on the origin of man) but when you read things like on Junk History you worry that Zheng He’s remarkable legacy might be reduced in order to shoot down revisionist history that may very well be mostly fabrication, but then the true legacy of a great admiral would be hurt by the written shrapnel that is being hurled against each other.

It is a mistake to try to compare great explorers (in my opinion) by the "greatness" of their achievements, afterall, why is Columbus so famous when nobody disputes that the Vikings discovered the "real" America centuries before he even did, and then he got it wrong anyway! I still find this in some History books that claim Columbus’s discovery as first. Does that make Columbus any less great than say, Eric the Red or Leif Erikson? Of course not, for his time he did something remarkably brave, in a society that was conforming to a certain worldview. It is not as important that the Greeks or the Romans discovered many things prior to the Renaissance that were perhaps even "rediscovered". What matters are the brilliant and/or brave minds of their time who strove to achieve with the boundaries and limitations set by then. By arguing that Zheng He was "greater" than Columbus, Magellan and Da Gama, there can only be one other response, that perhaps infact he was not "as great" and to prove the point his achievements need to be diminished - this we must avoid.

OFIA, Bulgaria  —  A 2,400-year-old golden mask that once belonged to a Thracian king was unearthed in a timber-lined tomb in southeastern Bulgaria, archaeologists said Monday.

The mask, discovered over the weekend, was found in the tomb along with a solid gold ring engraved with a Greek inscription and the portrait of a bearded man.

"These finds confirm the assumption that they are part of the lavish burial of a Thracian king," said Margarita Tacheva, a professor who was on the dig near the village of Topolchane, 180 miles east of the capital, Sofia.

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