Khubilai Khan's Lost Fleet: In Search of a Legendary Armada
In 1279, near what is now Hong Kong, the Mongol ruler Khubilai Khan fulfilled the dream of his grandfather, Genghis Khan, by conquering China. The Grand Khan now ruled the largest empire the world has ever seen, stretching from the China Sea to the plains of Hungary. He also inherited the world's largest navy-more than seven hundred ships. Yet within fifteen years, Khubilai Khan's massive fleet was gone. What actually happened to the Mongol navy, considered for seven centuries to be little...
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"James Delgado is one of the world's preeminent marine archaeolgists; he's also a terrific writer, and Khubilai Khan's Lost Fleet is a fascinating adventure tale packed with insights into a maritime empire about which most Westerners know almost nothing."—Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea "The attempts by Khubilai Khan to invade Japan with his all-conquering Mongol armies were instrumental in forging Japan's national consciousness, yet the precise details of the operations have for centuries remained a mystery. Through brilliant and painstaking research James Delgado has brought Khubilai Khan's lost fleet to the surface, showing for the first time the true nature of the doomed adventure."—Stephen Turnbull, author of The Samurai Sourcebook"This is two stories in one: how the armada sent by Khubilai Khan to invade Japan in 1281—the greatest fleet in history before D-Day—was churned to bits by a typhoon and how some of those bits are being retrieved in one of the greatest feats of modern marine archaeology. James Delgado has been at the heart of this project. He ranges widely, showing how the past and present illuminate each other. (To the Japanese, the typhoon was the original kamikaze, the 'divine wind' after which their World War II suicide bombers were named.) Objectivity is matched with personal involvement, scholarship with narrative skill. This is history at its best: rigorous, original, and vivid."—John Man, author of Kublai Khan and The Terra Cotta Army
Timeline of Chinese, Japanese and Korean Dynasties and Periods viMaps viiiIntroduction 1Prologue: A Divine Wind 81 Hakozaki 142 Asian Mariners 233 Enter the Mongols 354 Khubilai Khan 475 The Song 616 Tsukushi 757 The Bun'ei War 878 The Mongols Return 999 Kamikaze 11210 Takashima 12611 Broken Ship 14012 Distant Seas, Distant Fields 154Epilogue: The Legacy of Khubilai Khan's Navy 168Acknowledgements 179Sources 185Notes 196Index 217
