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Jaded Exports · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: The Kurral Islands are a relatively remote place off the
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  Speaker 1: east coast of Russia, north of Japan. It's a volcanic
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  Speaker 1: chain that most people would struggle to point out on
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  Speaker 1: a map. The winters are cold, the summers are thick
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  Speaker 1: with fog. Not what one thinks of when you mentioned
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  Speaker 1: volcanic island in the Pacific. During the Cold War, the
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  Speaker 1: Soviet Union maintained a garrison on the island of Iturup.
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  Speaker 1: The garrison was small, had six self propelled barges to
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  Speaker 1: help maintain supply lines between them and the mainland. During
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  Speaker 1: the winter of nineteen fifty nine, most of these barges
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  Speaker 1: were beached in order to protect them from winter storms. However,
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  Speaker 1: in early January of nineteen sixty, Soviet command alerted them
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  Speaker 1: of an incoming supply ship, so two of these barges
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  Speaker 1: were fueled and pushed back out into the sea, where
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  Speaker 1: they were attached with mooring lines. These barges, designated T
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  Speaker 1: ninety seven and T thirty six, were maintained by small
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  Speaker 1: skeleton crews. On January seventeenth, while these men were aboard,
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  Speaker 1: a storm struck. Intense winds battered at the moorings of
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  Speaker 1: both barges. The tether on barge T thirty six snapped
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  Speaker 1: and the one hundred ton ship began to drift in
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  Speaker 1: danger of being swept out to sea. The crew went
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  Speaker 1: to work right away, starting the barges engines in an
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  Speaker 1: attempt to keep her away from the rocks, and all
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  Speaker 1: the while they radioed to shore requesting assistance. At the time,
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  Speaker 1: T thirty six had four men on board and that
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  Speaker 1: was it. They fought that storm on and off for
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  Speaker 1: around ten straight hours until finally the winds led up.
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  Speaker 1: It was a slight relief, although only a temporary one.
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  Speaker 1: You see, they were in the eye of the storm
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  Speaker 1: and they realized that their safest course of action would
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  Speaker 1: be to approach the beach with their barge. Around the
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  Speaker 1: same time, though T ninety seven, the other barge, was
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  Speaker 1: attempting to do the same thing, and it had managed
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  Speaker 1: to beach the barge successfully. As the crew of T
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  Speaker 1: thirty six steered their barge toward a safer part of shore,
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  Speaker 1: the unthinkable happened. They ran out a fuel. There was
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  Speaker 1: nothing the four men on board could do but wait
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  Speaker 1: for the storm to return. The currents carried themselves farther
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  Speaker 1: and farther away from the island until they were floating
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  Speaker 1: in open ocean. Their radio had been damaged during the storm,
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  Speaker 1: so there was no way to call for help anymore.
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  Speaker 1: The last message that they sent to the garrison was
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  Speaker 1: we anticipate disaster. We cannot come ashore. Once the storm sucided,
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  Speaker 1: garrison launched a search party in the surrounding world. They
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  Speaker 1: found wreckage floating in the ocean and assumed the Tea
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  Speaker 1: thirty six had sunk. At the same time, the Tea
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  Speaker 1: thirty six, still very much afloat by the way, was
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  Speaker 1: drifting through the North Pacific on a strong current to
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  Speaker 1: the east, taking them at a speed of seventy eight
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  Speaker 1: miles per day. The water around the Tea thirty six
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  Speaker 1: barge was open and very empty, and even worse, the
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  Speaker 1: strong current meant that fishing was impossible, although the four
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  Speaker 1: men did try their best. TEA thirty six floated through
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  Speaker 1: a stretch of sea reserved for Soviet missile testing, not
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  Speaker 1: seeing a single vessel along the way. On their second
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  Speaker 1: day of floating, they took a complete inventory of their supplies.
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  Speaker 1: Their food was scant, a small supply of cereal, a
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  Speaker 1: loaf of bread, and a bunch of potatoes. During the storm,
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  Speaker 1: diesel fuel had gotten into the potatoes, so those were useless.
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  Speaker 1: Their only source of fresh water was the system that
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  Speaker 1: cooled the engine. They rationed all of these carefully and
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  Speaker 1: collected rain water when they could to stave off their thirst.
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  Speaker 1: Their three day supply of food last for sixteen days
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  Speaker 1: once they ran out, though they boiled leather objects such
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  Speaker 1: as one of their belts, their shoelaces, and the strap
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  Speaker 1: from a walkie talkie so they could eat them. As
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  Speaker 1: you'd imagine, the men lost weight fast, and in the
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  Speaker 1: winter cold, they all had to share one bunk for warmth. However,
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  Speaker 1: none of them turned on each other, all grimly determined
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  Speaker 1: to press on wherever their barge might take them, And then,
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  Speaker 1: after a grueling forty nine days, their ordeal came to
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  Speaker 1: an abrupt end. On March seventh, they were spotted by
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  Speaker 1: helicopters dispatched by the US aircraft carrier, the USS Cure Sarge.
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  Speaker 1: At first, the Russian sailors attempted to explain to the
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  Speaker 1: helicopters that they only needed food and supplies and then
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  Speaker 1: could get back on their own. They feared that accepting
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  Speaker 1: American help would be seen as betrayal by the Soviet Union,
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  Speaker 1: but eventually they caved in and accepted American rescue. The
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  Speaker 1: four Russian soldiers, skinny and disheveled, stumbled aboard the carrier
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  Speaker 1: in a kind of days. They were cautious with how
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  Speaker 1: much they ate, aware of the danger of overeating after starvation. Remarkably,
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  Speaker 1: they received a hero's welcome in both San Francisco and Moscow.
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  Speaker 1: It seems that even in the height of the Cold War,
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  Speaker 1: their achievement was seen as a universal human triumph, because
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  Speaker 1: for as cold as the war might have been, the
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  Speaker 1: open ocean was far colder. We all know the names
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  Speaker 1: of famous Western explorers, people like Christopher Columbus, Francis Drake,
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  Speaker 1: Ferdinand Magellan, but there is one explorer who beat them
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  Speaker 1: all to the punch, exploring the oceans decades before they did.
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  Speaker 1: The explorer in question wasn't European either, but Chinese, and
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  Speaker 1: his name was Janghe. Janghi was born in the early
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  Speaker 1: thirteen seventies in southwestern China to a Muslim family. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: they were caught up in the constant fighting between the
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  Speaker 1: Mongols and the Chinese emperors at the time. When Janghi
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  Speaker 1: was a young boy, his father was killed and he
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  Speaker 1: was captured by the armies of the Ming dynasty. After that,
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  Speaker 1: he was taken to work at the royal courts, which
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  Speaker 1: should have been a significant opportunity to improve his social standing. However,
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  Speaker 1: although medieval China was a fairly prosperous and enlightened place,
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  Speaker 1: service within the court was often brutal. As a result,
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  Speaker 1: Janghi and other young male captives like him were castrated. Now,
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  Speaker 1: this was a common practice at the time. The rationale
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  Speaker 1: was that a eunuch, as these young men were known,
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  Speaker 1: would not have the ability or the desire to have
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  Speaker 1: children and therefore create a dynasty of their own. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: they could be trusted as the most loyal possible servants
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  Speaker 1: to the emperor. Janghe was then made a servant of
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  Speaker 1: the emperor's son Zudi. Zudi was bold and brash and
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  Speaker 1: prone to getting into trouble, but Janghi, who eventually grew
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  Speaker 1: up into a seven foot tall bodyguard of sorts to
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  Speaker 1: the prince, was always there to keep him safe. When
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  Speaker 1: his father passed away in fourteen oh two, Zudi became emperor.
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  Speaker 1: Now he was fairly arrogant and selfish as an emperor,
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  Speaker 1: looking to expand his authority as much as possible. This
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  Speaker 1: was difficult when the Mongols continued to be a problem
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  Speaker 1: in the west. Zudi actually moved the imperial capital from
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  Speaker 1: Nanjing to Beijing so that he could be closer to
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  Speaker 1: the Great Wall and better direct his armies. But he
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  Speaker 1: had other plans in mind for his friend Janghi. The
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  Speaker 1: new emperor wanted Jenghi to expand Chinese authority across the
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  Speaker 1: Ocean to Southeast Asia and beyond. He believed that all
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  Speaker 1: neighboring countries should acknowledge Chinese superiority and be forced to
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  Speaker 1: trade with China. To this end, Jenghi and Zudi oversaw
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  Speaker 1: the construction of the largest navy the world had ever seen.
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  Speaker 1: They built hundreds of ships, some of them the length
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  Speaker 1: of a soccer field. These huge ships had four to
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  Speaker 1: five masts and double layered hulls where large amounts of
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  Speaker 1: drinking water could be stored. It was still one hundred
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  Speaker 1: years before the era of European exploration, and here they
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  Speaker 1: were making ships more advanced than anything the Europeans would
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  Speaker 1: eventually use. Jenghi set sail. On his first voyage in
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  Speaker 1: fourteen oh five. He had a combined crew numbering in
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  Speaker 1: the tens of thousands. Their flotilla was really more of
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  Speaker 1: a large city. They visited Vietnam, a large part of
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  Speaker 1: Southeast Asian islands like Sumatra and Java. In subsequent voyages,
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  Speaker 1: Jenghi sailed as far as India, Eastern Africa, and even
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  Speaker 1: the Persian Gulf, and in all of these places, Jenghi
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  Speaker 1: would present the leaders with Chinese gifts like silk and porcelain,
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  Speaker 1: and demand valuable goods such as spices and jewels. In return,
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  Speaker 1: the leader had to verbally acknowledge the superiority of the
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  Speaker 1: Chinese Emperor, becoming a vassal state of sorts. Now. Sometimes
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  Speaker 1: Jenghi ran into a leader who wouldn't give in to
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  Speaker 1: his demands. In these cases, he would capture the leader
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  Speaker 1: and take them back to China or they would be
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  Speaker 1: forced to literally bow to the emperor before being returned home.
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  Speaker 1: Jenghi's fleet never made it as far as Europe, not
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  Speaker 1: because as they couldn't, They just didn't have any interest
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  Speaker 1: in doing so. All the evidence they had about Europe
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  Speaker 1: at this time was that it was a poor, violent
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  Speaker 1: place with little in the way of luxury, goods or culture.
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  Speaker 1: Jenghi's seventh and final voyage took place from fourteen thirty
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  Speaker 1: one to fourteen thirty three. Now by this point, Zudi
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  Speaker 1: had passed away and been replaced by his son, who
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  Speaker 1: was much more conservative. He wasn't exactly excited by the
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  Speaker 1: fact that his father had nearly bankrupted the country on
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  Speaker 1: expensive building projects like Janghe's treasure fleet. So Janghe took
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  Speaker 1: his final opportunity to visit Mecca in modern day Saudi Arabia,
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  Speaker 1: an important pilgrimage for many Muslims. It was something that
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  Speaker 1: his father had done, but that he had somehow not
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  Speaker 1: yet had a chance to do. Jenghie passed away shortly after.
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  Speaker 1: Whether he died at sea or in China is it known.
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  Speaker 1: The new emperor had many records of his voyages destroyed,
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  Speaker 1: as well as the entire fleet. It was seen as
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  Speaker 1: a decadent national embarrassment. Only recently have historians been able
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  Speaker 1: to piece the story of Jinghi's life back together. His
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  Speaker 1: voyages may not have been practical, but as we all know,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes curiosity is its own reward. I hope you've enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
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  Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
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  Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
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  Speaker 1: by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
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  Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
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  Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
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  Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.