Uploaded September 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago

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Before asking whether Marco Polo’s Zipangu was Japan, we need a control:

How did medieval ships actually sail to Japan?

In 1323, a merchant vessel departed the Ningbo region of China for Hakata, Japan—and sank before reaching its destination.

The Sinan shipwreck left behind more than 30,000 recovered objects, cargo tablets, inscriptions, dates, temple names, and archaeological evidence allowing researchers to reconstruct a real medieval China-to-Japan voyage.

We then compare that evidence with Masatoshi Yoshino’s research into historical navigation across the East China Sea and Fernão Mendes Pinto’s description of seasonal conditions around Ningbo and Nanking.
The result is not an argument that winter voyages to Japan were impossible.

Some occurred.

The distinction is more important:
Possibility is not pattern.

Yah Bless.