Volume II Part 23 (1/2)

When you leave Cayu, you ride another day to the south-east through a constant succession of villages and fields and fine farms until you come to TIJU, which is a city of no great size but abounding in everything. The people are Idolaters (and so forth). There is a great amount of trade, and they have many vessels. And you must know that on your left hand, that is towards the east, and three days' journey distant, is the Ocean Sea. At every place between the sea and the city salt is made in great quant.i.ties.

And there is a rich and n.o.ble city called TINJU, at which there is produced salt enough to supply the whole province, and I can tell you it brings the Great Kaan an incredible revenue. The people are Idolaters and subject to the Kaan. Let us quit this, however, and go back to Tiju.

[NOTE 1]

Again, leaving Tiju, you ride another day towards the south-east, and at the end of your journey you arrive at the very great and n.o.ble city of YANJU, which has seven-and-twenty other wealthy cities under its administration; so that this Yanju is, you see, a city of great importance.[NOTE 2] It is the seat of one of the Great Kaan's Twelve Barons, for it has been chosen to be one of the Twelve _Sings_. The people are Idolaters and use paper-money, and are subject to the Great Kaan. And Messer Marco Polo himself, of whom this book speaks, did govern this city for three full years, by the order of the Great Kaan.[NOTE 3]

The people live by trade and manufactures, for a great amount of harness for knights and men-at-arms is made there. And in this city and its neighbourhood a large number of troops are stationed by the Kaan's orders.

There is no more to say about it. So now I will tell you about two great provinces of Manzi which lie towards the west. And first of that called Nanghin.

NOTE 1.--Though the text would lead us to look for _Tiju_ on the direct line between Kao-yu and Yang-chau, and like them on the ca.n.a.l bank (indeed one MS., C. of Pauthier, specifies its standing on the same river as the cities already pa.s.sed, i.e. on the ca.n.a.l), we seem constrained to admit the general opinion that this is TAI-CHAU, a town lying some 25 miles at least to the eastward of the ca.n.a.l, but apparently connected with it by a navigable channel.

_Tinju_ or _Chinju_ (for both the G.T. and Ramusio read _Cingui_) cannot be identified with certainty. But I should think it likely, from Polo's ”geographical style,” that when he spoke of the sea as three days distant he had this city in view, and that it is probably TUNG-CHAU, near the northern sh.o.r.e of the estuary of the Yang-tzu, which might be fairly described as three days from Tai-chau. Mr. Kingsmill identifies it with I-chin hien, the great port on the Kiang for the export of the Yang-chau salt. This is possible; but I-chin lies _west_ of the ca.n.a.l, and though the form _Chinju_ would really represent I-chin as then named, such a position seems scarcely compatible with the way, vague as it is, in which Tinju or Chinju is introduced. Moreover, we shall see that I-chin is spoken of hereafter. (_Kingsmill_ in _N. and Q. Ch. and j.a.pan_, I. 53.)

NOTE 2.--Happily, there is no doubt that this is YANG-CHAU, one of the oldest and most famous great cities of China. [Abulfeda (_Guyard_, II. ii.

122) says that Yang-chau is the capital of the f.a.ghfur of China, and that he is called Tamghadj-khan.--H.C.] Some five-and-thirty years after Polo's departure from China, Friar Odoric found at this city a House of his own Order (Franciscans), and three Nestorian churches. The city also appears in the Catalan Map as _Iangio_. Yang-chau suffered greatly in the T'a-P'ing rebellion, but its position is an ”obligatory point” for commerce, and it appears to be rapidly recovering its prosperity. It is the headquarters of the salt manufacture, and it is also now noted for a great manufacture of sweetmeats (See _Alabaster's Report_, as above, p 6)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Yang chau: the three Cities Under the Sung]

[Through the kindness of the late Father H. Havret, S J, of Zi ka wei, I am enabled to give two plans from the Chronicles of Yang chau, _Yang chau fu che_ (ed. 1733); one bears the t.i.tle ”The Three Cities under the Sung,”

and the other. ”The Great City under the Sung” The three cities are _Pao yew cheng_, built in 1256, _Sin Pao cheng_ or _Kia cheng_, built after 1256, and _Tacheng_, the ”Great City,” built in 1175; in 1357, Ta cheng was rebuilt, and in 1557 it was augmented, taking the place of the three cities; from 553 B.C. until the 12th century, Yang-chau had no less than five enclosures; the governor's yamen stood where a cross is marked in the Great City. Since Yang-chau has been laid in ruins by the T'a-P'ing insurgents, these plans offer now a new interest.--H.C.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Yang-chau: the Great City under the Sung.]

NOTE 3.--What I have rendered ”Twelve _Sings_” is in the G.T. ”douze _sajes_,” and in Pauthier's text ”_sieges_.” It seems to me a reasonable conclusion that the original word was _Sings_ (see I. 432, supra); anyhow that was the proper term for the thing meant.

In his note on this chapter, Pauthier produces evidence that Yang-chau was the seat of a _Lu_ or circuit[1] from 1277, and also of a _Sing_ or Government-General, but only for the first year after the conquest, viz.

1276-1277, and he seems (for his argument is obscure) to make from this the unreasonable deduction that at this period Kublai placed Marco Polo--who could not be more than twenty-three years of age, and had been but two years in Cathay--in charge either of the general government, or of an important district government in the most important province of the empire.

In a later note M. Pauthier speaks of 1284 as the date at which the _Sing_ of the province of Kiang-che was transferred from Yang-chau to Hang-chau; this is probably to be taken as a correction of the former citations, and it better justifies Polo's statement. (_Pauthier_, pp. 467, 492.)

I do not think that we are to regard Marco as having held at any time the important post of Governor-General of Kiang-che. The expressions in the G.

T. are: ”_Meser Marc Pol meisme, celui de cui trate ceste livre, seingneurie ceste cite por trois anz._” Pauthier's MS. A. appears to read: ”_Et ot seigneurie, Marc Pol, en ceste cite, trois ans._” These expressions probably point to the government of the _Lu_ or circuit of Yang-chau, just as we find in ch. lxxiii. another Christian, Mar Sarghis, mentioned as Governor of Chin-kiang fu for the same term of years, that city being also the head of a _Lu_. It is remarkable that in Pauthier's MS. C., which often contains readings of peculiar value, the pa.s.sage runs (and also in the Bern MS.): ”_Et si vous dy que ledit Messire Marc Pol, cellui meisme de qui nostre livre parle_, sejourna, _en ceste cite de Janguy. iii. ans accompliz, par le commandement du Grant Kaan,_” in which the nature of his employment is not indicated at all (though _sejourna_ may be an error for _seigneura_). The impression of his having been Governor-General is mainly due to the Ramusian version, which says distinctly indeed that ”_M. Marco Polo di commissione del Gran Can n' ebbe il governo tre anni continui_ in luogo di un dei detti Baroni,” but it is very probable that this is a gloss of the translator. I should conjecture his rule at Yang-chau to have been between 1282, when we know he was at the capital (vol. i. p. 422), and 1287-1288, when he must have gone on his first expedition to the Indian Seas.

[1] The _Lu_ or Circuit was an administrative division under the Mongols, intermediate between the _Sing_ and the _Fu_, or department. There were 185 _lu_ in all China under Kublai. (_Pauth._ 333). [_Mr. E.L.

Oxenham, Hist. Atlas Chin. Emp._, reckons 10 provinces or _sheng_, 39 _fu_ cities, 316 _chau_, 88 _lu_, 12 military governors.h.i.+ps.--H.C.]

CHAPTER LXIX.

CONCERNING THE CITY OF NANGHIN.

Nanghin is a very n.o.ble Province towards the west. The people are Idolaters (and so forth) and live by trade and manufactures. They have silk in great abundance, and they weave many fine tissues of silk and gold. They have all sorts of corn and victuals very cheap, for the province is a most productive one. Game also is abundant, and lions too are found there. The merchants are great and opulent, and the Emperor draws a large revenue from them, in the shape of duties on the goods which they buy and sell.[NOTE 1]

And now I will tell you of the very n.o.ble city of Saianfu, which well deserves a place in our book, for there is a matter of great moment to tell about it.

NOTE 1.--The name and direction from Yang-chau are probably sufficient to indicate (as Pauthier has said) that this is NGAN-KING on the Kiang, capital of the modern province of Ngan-hwei. The more celebrated city of _Nan-king_ did not bear that name in our traveller's time.