Volume II Part 22 (1/2)

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.