The Emperor's Mint Then Is In This Same City Of Cambaluc, And The Way It
Is Wrought Is Such That You Might Say He Hath The Secret Of Alchemy In
Perfection, And You Would Be Right!
For he makes his money after this
fashion.
He makes them take of the bark of a certain tree, in fact of the Mulberry
Tree, the leaves of which are the food of the silkworms, - these trees
being so numerous that whole districts are full of them. What they take is
a certain fine white bast or skin which lies between the wood of the tree
and the thick outer bark, and this they make into something resembling
sheets of paper, but black. When these sheets have been prepared they are
cut up into pieces of different sizes. The smallest of these sizes is
worth a half tornesel; the next, a little larger, one tornesel; one, a
little larger still, is worth half a silver groat of Venice; another a
whole groat; others yet two groats, five groats, and ten groats. There is
also a kind worth one Bezant of gold, and others of three Bezants, and so
up to ten. All these pieces of paper are [issued with as much solemnity
and authority as if they were of pure gold or silver; and on every piece a
variety of officials, whose duty it is, have to write their names, and to
put their seals. And when all is prepared duly, the chief officer deputed
by the Kaan smears the Seal entrusted to him with vermilion, and impresses
it on the paper, so that the form of the Seal remains printed upon it in
red; the Money is then authentic. Any one forging it would be punished
with death.] And the Kaan causes every year to be made such a vast
quantity of this money, which costs him nothing, that it must equal in
amount all the treasure in the world.
With these pieces of paper, made as I have described, he causes all
payments on his own account to be made; and he makes them to pass current
universally over all his kingdoms and provinces and territories, and
whithersoever his power and sovereignty extends. And nobody, however
important he may think himself, dares to refuse them on pain of death. And
indeed everybody takes them readily, for wheresoever a person may go
throughout the Great Kaan's dominions he shall find these pieces of paper
current, and shall be able to transact all sales and purchases of goods by
means of them just as well as if they were coins of pure gold. And all the
while they are so light that ten bezants' worth does not weigh one golden
bezant.
Furthermore all merchants arriving from India or other countries, and
bringing with them gold or silver or gems and pearls, are prohibited from
selling to any one but the Emperor. He has twelve experts chosen for this
business, men of shrewdness and experience in such affairs; these appraise
the articles, and the Emperor then pays a liberal price for them in those
pieces of paper.
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