The Travels of Marco Polo Volume II Part 22

I will tell you another thing this King used to do. If he was taking a ride through the city and chanced to see a house that was very small and poor standing among other houses that were fine and large, he would ask why it was so, and they would tell him it belonged to a poor man who had not the means to enlarge it. Then the King would himself supply the means.

And thus it came to pa.s.s that in all the capital of the kingdom of Manzi, Kinsay by name, you should not see any but fine houses.

This King used to be waited on by more than a thousand young gentlemen and ladies, all clothed in the richest fas.h.i.+on. And he ruled his realm with such justice that no malefactors were to be found therein. The city in fact was so secure that no man closed his doors at night, not even in houses and shops that were full of all sorts of rich merchandize. No one could do justice in the telling to the great riches of that country, and to the good disposition of the people. Now that I have told you about the kingdom, I will go back to the Queen.

You must know that she was conducted to the Great Kaan, who gave her an honourable reception, and caused her to be served with all state, like a great lady as she was. But as for the King her husband, he never more did quit the isles of the sea to which he had fled, but died there. So leave we him and his wife and all their concerns, and let us return to our story, and go on regularly with our account of the great province of Manzi and of the manners and customs of its people. And, to begin at the beginning, we must go back to the city of Coiganju, from which we digressed to tell you about the conquest of Manzi.

NOTE 1.--_f.a.ghfur_ or _Baghbur_ was a t.i.tle applied by old Persian and Arabic writers to the Emperor of China, much in the way that we used to speak of the _Great Mogul_, and our fathers of the _Sophy_. It is, as Neumann points out, an old Persian translation of the Chinese t.i.tle _Tien-tzu_, "Son of Heaven"; _Bagh-Pur_ = "The Son of the Divinity," as Sapor or _Shah-Pur_ = "The Son of the King." _f.a.ghfur_ seems to have been used as a proper name in Turkestan. (See _Baber_, 423.)

There is a word, _Takfur_, applied similarly by the Mahomedans to the Greek emperors of both Byzantium and Trebizond (and also to the Kings of Cilician Armenia), which was perhaps adopted as a jingling match to the former term; f.a.ghfur, the great infidel king in the East; Takfur, the great infidel king in the West. Defremery says this is Armenian, _Tagavor_, "a king." (_I.B._, II. 393, 427.)

["The last of the Sung Emperors (1276) 'Facfur' (i.e. the Arabic for _Tien Tzu_) was freed by Kublai from the (ancient Kotan) indignity of surrendering with a rope round his neck, leading a sheep, and he received the t.i.tle of Duke: In 1288 he went to Tibet to study Buddhism, and in 1296 he and his mother, Ts'iuen T'a How, became a bonze and a nun, and were allowed to hold 360 _k'ing_ (say 5000 acres) of land free of taxes under the then existing laws." (_E. H. Parker, China Review_, February, March 1901, p. 195.)--H.C.]

NOTE 2.--Nevertheless the history of the conquest shows instances of extraordinary courage and self-devotion on the part of Chinese officers, especially in the defence of fortresses--virtues often shown in like degree, under like circ.u.mstances, by the same cla.s.s, in the modern history of China.

NOTE 3.--Bayan (signifying "great" or "n.o.ble") is a name of very old renown among the Nomad nations, for we find it as that of the Khagan of the Avars in the 6th century. The present BAYAN, Kublai's most famous lieutenant, was of princely birth, in the Mongol tribe called Barin. In his youth he served in the West of Asia under Hulaku. According to Ras.h.i.+duddin, about 1265 he was sent to Cathay with certain amba.s.sadors of the Kaan's who were returning thither. He was received with great distinction by Kublai, who was greatly taken with his prepossessing appearance and ability, and a command was a.s.signed him. In 1273, after the capture of Siang-Yang (infra, ch. lxx.) the Kaan named him to the chief command in the prosecution of the war against the Sung Dynasty. Whilst Bayan was in the full tide of success, Kublai, alarmed by the ravages of Kaidu on the Mongolian frontier, recalled him to take the command there, but, on the general's remonstrance, he gave way, and made him a minister of state (CHINGSIANG). The essential part of his task was completed by the surrender of the capital _King-sze_ (Lin-ngan, now Hang-chau) to his arms in the beginning of 1276. He was then recalled to court, and immediately despatched to Mongolia, where he continued in command for seventeen years, his great business being to keep down the restless Kaidu. ["The biography of this valiant captain is found in the _Yuen-s.h.i.+_ (ch. cxxvii.). It is quite in accordance with the biographical notices Ras.h.i.+d gives of the same personage. He calls him _Bayan_." (_Bretschneider, Med. Res._ I. p. 271, note).]

["The inventory, records, etc., of Kinsai, mentioned by Marco Polo, as also the letter from the old empress, are undoubted facts: complete stock was taken, and 5,692,656 souls were added to the population (in the two Chen alone). The Emperor surrendered in person to Bayan a few days after his official surrender, which took place on the 18th day of the 1st moon in 1276. Bayan took the Emperor to see Kublai." (_E. H. Parker, China Review_, XXIV. p. 105.)--H.C.]

In 1293, enemies tried to poison the emperor's ear against Bayan, and they seemed to have succeeded; for Kublai despatched his heir, the Prince Teimur, to supersede him in the frontier command. Bayan beat Kaidu once more, and then made over his command with characteristic dignity. On his arrival at court, Kublai received him with the greatest honour, and named him chief minister of state and commandant of his guards and the troops about Cambaluc. The emperor died in the beginning of the next year (1294), and Bayan's high position enabled him to take decisive measures for preserving order, and maintaining Kublai's disposition of the succession.

Bayan was raised to still higher dignities, but died at the age of 59, within less than a year of the master whom he had served so well for 30 years (about January, 1295). After his death, according to the peculiar Chinese fas.h.i.+on, he received yet further accessions of dignity.

The language of Chinese historians in speaking of this great man is thus rendered by De Mailla; it is a n.o.ble eulogy of a Tartar warrior:--

"He was endowed with a lofty genius, and possessed in the highest measure the art of handling great bodies of troops. When he marched against the Sung, he directed the movements of 200,000 men with as much ease and coolness as if there had been but one man under his orders. All his officers looked up to him as a prodigy; and having absolute trust in his capacity, they obeyed him with entire submission. n.o.body knew better how to deal with soldiers, or to moderate their ardour when it carried them too far. He was never seen sad except when forced to shed blood, for he was sparing even of the blood of his enemy.... His modesty was not inferior to his ability.... He would attribute all the honour to the conduct of his officers, and he was ever ready to extol their smallest feats. He merited the praises of Chinese as well as Mongols, and both nations long regretted the loss of this great man." De Mailla gives a different account from Ras.h.i.+duddin and Gaubil, of the manner in which Bayan first entered the Kaan's service. (_Gaubil_, 145, 159, 169, 179, 183, 221, 223-224; _Erdmann_, 222-223; _De Mailla_, IX. 335, 458, 461-463.)

NOTE 4.--As regards Bayan personally, and the main body under his command, this seems to be incorrect. His advance took place from Siang-yang along the lines of the Han River and of the Great Kiang. Another force indeed marched direct upon Yang-chau, and therefore probably by Hwai-ngan chau (infra, p. 152); and it is noted that Bayan's orders to the generals of this force were to spare bloodshed. (_Gaubil_, 159; _D'Ohsson_, II. 398.)

NOTE 5.--So in our own age ran the Hindu prophecy that Bhartpur should never fall till there came a great alligator against it; and when it fell to the English a.s.sault, the Brahmans found that the name of the leader was Combermere = _k.u.mhir-Mir_, the Crocodile Lord!

--"Be those juggling fiends no more believed That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear And break it to our hope!"

It would seem from the expression, both in Pauthier's text and in the G.

T., as if Polo intended to say that _Chincsan_ (Cinqsan) meant "One Hundred Eyes"; and if so we could have no stronger proof of his ignorance of Chinese. It is _Pe-yen_, the Chinese form of _Bayan_, that means, or rather may be punningly rendered, "One Hundred Eyes." Chincsan, i.e.

_Ching-siang_, was the t.i.tle of the superior ministers of state at Khanbaligh, as we have already seen. The t.i.tle occurs pretty frequently in the Persian histories of the Mongols, and frequently as a Mongol t.i.tle in Sanang Setzen. We find it also disguised as _Chyansam_ in a letter from certain Christian n.o.bles at Khanbaligh, which Wadding quotes from the Papal archives. (See _Cathay_, pp. 314-315.)

But it is right to observe that in the Ramusian version the mistranslation which we have noticed is not so undubitable: "Volendo sapere come avea nome il Capitano nemico, le fu detto, _Chinsambaian_, cioe _Cent'occhi_."

A kind of corroboration of Marco's story, but giving a different form to the pun, has been found by Mr. W.F. Mayers, of the Diplomatic Department in China, in a Chinese compilation dating from the latter part of the 14th century. Under the heading, "_A Kiang-nan Prophecy_," this book states that prior to the fall of the Sung a prediction ran through Kiang-nan: "If Kiang-nan fall, a hundred wild geese (_Pe-yen_) will make their appearance." This, it is added, was not understood till the generalissimo _Peyen Chingsiang_ made his appearance on the scene. "Punning prophecies of this kind are so common in Chinese history, that the above is only worth noticing in connection with Marco Polo's story." (_N. and Q., China and j.a.pan_, vol. ii. p. 162.)

But I should suppose that the Persian historian Wa.s.saf had also heard a bungled version of the same story, which he tells in a pointless manner of the fortress of _Sinafur_ (evidently a clerical error for _Saianfu_, see below, ch. lxx.): "Payan ordered this fortress to be a.s.saulted. The garrison had heard how the capital of China had fallen, and the army of Payan was drawing near. The commandant was an experienced veteran who had tasted all the sweets and bitters of fortune, and had borne the day's heat and the night's cold; he had, as the saw goes, milked the world's cow dry.

So he sent word to Payan: 'In my youth' (here we abridge Wa.s.saf's rigmarole) 'I heard my father tell that this fortress should be taken by a man called _Payan_, and that all fencing and trenching, fighting and smiting, would be of no avail. You need not, therefore, bring an army hither; we give in; we surrender the fortress and all that is therein.' So they opened the gates and came down." (_Wa.s.saf_, Hammer's ed., p. 41).

NOTE 6.--There continues in this narrative, with a general truth as to the course of events, a greater amount of error as to particulars than we should have expected. The Sung Emperor Tu Tsong, a debauched and effeminate prince, to whom Polo seems to refer, had died in 1274, leaving young children only. Chaohien, the second son, a boy of four years of age, was put on the throne, with his grandmother Siechi, as regent. The approach of Bayan caused the greatest alarm; the Sung Court made humble propositions, but they were not listened to. The brothers of the young emperor were sent off by sea into the southern provinces; the empress regent was also pressed to make her escape with the young emperor, but, after consenting, she changed her mind and would not move. The Mongols arrived before King-sze, and the empress sent the great seal of the empire to Bayan. He entered the city without resistance in the third month (say April), 1276, riding at the head of his whole staff with the standard of the general-in-chief before him. It is remarked that he went to look at the tide in the River Tsien Tang, which is noted for its bore. He declined to meet the regent and her grandson, pleading that he was ignorant of the etiquettes proper to such an interview. Before his entrance Bayan had nominated a joint-commission of Mongol and Chinese officers to the government of the city, and appointed a committee to take charge of all the public doc.u.ments, maps, drawings, records of courts, and seals of all public offices, and to plant sentinels at necessary points. The emperor, his mother, and the rest of the Sung princes and princesses, were despatched to the Mongol capital. A desperate attempt was made, at Kwa-chau (infra, ch. lxxii.) to recapture the young emperor, but it failed.

On their arrival at Ta-tu, Kublai's chief queen, Jamui Khatun, treated them with delicate consideration. This amiable lady, on being shown the spoils that came from Lin-ngan, only wept, and said to her husband, "So also shall it be with the Mongol empire one day!" The eldest of the two boys who had escaped was proclaimed emperor by his adherents at Fu-chau, in Fo-kien, but they were speedily driven from that province (where the local histories, as Mr. G. Phillips informs me, preserve traces of their adventures in the Islands of Amoy Harbour), and the young emperor died on a desert island off the Canton coast in 1278. His younger brother took his place, but a battle, in the beginning of 1279 finally extinguished these efforts of the expiring dynasty, and the minister jumped with his young lord into the sea. It is curious that Ras.h.i.+duddin, with all his opportunities of knowledge, writing at least twenty years later, was not aware of this, for he speaks of the Prince of Manzi as still a fugitive in the forests between Zayton and Canton. (_Gaubil; D'Ohsson; De Mailla; Cathay_, p. 272.) [See _Parker_, supra, p. 148 and 149.--H.C.]

There is a curious account in the _Lettres edifiantes_ (xxiv. 45 seqq.) by P. Parrenin of a kind of _Pariah_ caste at Shao-hing (see ch. lxxix.

note 1), who were popularly believed to be the descendants of the great lords of the Sung Court, condemned to that degraded condition for obstinately resisting the Mongols. Another notice, however, makes the degraded body rebels against the Sung. (_Milne_, p. 218.)

NOTE 7.--There is much about the exposure of children, and about Chinese foundling hospitals, in the _Lettres edifiantes_, especially in Recueil xv. 83, seqq. It is there stated that frequently a person not in circ.u.mstances to _pay_ for a wife for his son, would visit the foundling hospital to seek one. The childless rich also would sometimes get children there to pa.s.s off as their own; _adopted_ children being excluded from certain valuable privileges.

Mr. Milne (_Life in China_), and again Mr. Medhurst (_Foreigner in Far Cathay_), have discredited the great prevalence of infant exposure in China; but since the last work was published, I have seen the translation of a recent strong remonstrance against the practice by a Chinese writer, which certainly implied that it was _very_ prevalent in the writer's own province. Unfortunately, I have lost the reference. [See _Father G.

Palatre, L'Infanticide et l'Oeuvre de la Ste. Enfance en Chine_, 1878.

--H.C.]

CHAPTER LXVI.

CONCERNING THE CITY OF COIGANJU.

Coiganju is, as I have told you already, a very large city standing at the entrance to Manzi. The people are Idolaters and burn their dead, and are subject to the Great Kaan. They have a vast amount of s.h.i.+pping, as I mentioned before in speaking of the River Caramoran. And an immense quant.i.ty of merchandize comes. .h.i.ther, for the city is the seat of government for this part of the country. Owing to its being on the river, many cities send their produce thither to be again thence distributed in every direction. A great amount of salt also is made here, furnis.h.i.+ng some forty other cities with that article, and bringing in a large revenue to the Great Kaan.[NOTE 1]

NOTE 1.--Coiganju is HWAI-NGAN CHAU, now _-Fu_ on the ca.n.a.l, some miles south of the channel of the Hw.a.n.g-Ho; but apparently in Polo's time the great river pa.s.sed close to it. Indeed, the city takes its name from the River _Hwai_, into which the Hw.a.n.g-Ho sent a branch when first seeking a discharge south of Shantung. The city extends for about 3 miles along the ca.n.a.l and much below its level. [According to Sir J.F. Davis, the situation of Hwai-ngan "is in every respect remarkable. A part of the town was so much below the level of the ca.n.a.l, that only the tops of the walls (at least 25 feet high) could be seen from our boats.... It proved to be, next to Tien-tsin, by far the largest and most populous place we had yet seen, the capital itself excepted." (_Sketches of China_, I.

pp. 277-278.)--H.C.]

The headquarters of the salt manufacture of Hwai-ngan is a place called Yen-ching ("Salt-Town"), some distance to the S. of the former city (_Pauthier_).

CHAPTER LXVII.

OF THE CITIES OF PAUKIN AND CAYU.

When you leave Coiganju you ride south-east for a day along a causeway laid with fine stone, which you find at this entrance to Manzi. On either hand there is a great expanse of water, so that you cannot enter the province except along this causeway. At the end of the day's journey you reach the fine city of PAUKIN. The people are Idolaters, burn their dead, are subject to the Great Kaan, and use paper-money. They live by trade and manufactures and have great abundance of silk, whereof they weave a great variety of fine stuffs of silk and gold. Of all the necessaries of life there is great store.

When you leave Paukin you ride another day to the south-east, and then you arrive at the city of CAYU. The people are Idolaters (and so forth). They live by trade and manufactures and have great store of all necessaries, including fish in great abundance. There is also much game, both beast and bird, insomuch that for a Venice groat you can have three good pheasants.

[NOTE 1]

NOTE 1.--Paukin is PAO-YING-Hien [a populous place, considerably below the level of the ca.n.a.l (_Davis, Sketches_, I. pp. 279-280)]; Caya is KAO-YU-chan, both cities on the east side of the ca.n.a.l. At Kao-yu, the country east of the ca.n.a.l lies some 20 feet below the ca.n.a.l level; so low indeed that the walls of the city are not visible from the further bank of the ca.n.a.l. To the west is the Kao-yu Lake, one of the expanses of water spoken of by Marco, and which threatens great danger to the low country on the east. (See _Alabaster's Journey_ in _Consular Reports_ above quoted, p.

5 [and _Gandar, Ca.n.a.l Imperial_, p. 17.--H.C.])

There is a fine drawing of Pao-ying, by Alexander, in the Staunton collection, British Museum.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

OF THE CITIES OF TIJU, TINJU, AND YANJU.