The two armies then joined battle, and immediately the Lydian
warhorses, seeing and smelling the camels, turned round and galloped off."
(Herodotus, Bk. I. i. p. 220, Rawlinson's ed.) - H.C.]
NOTE 3. - We are indebted to Pauthier for very interesting illustrations of
this narrative from the Chinese Annalists (p. 410 seqq.). These latter
fix the date to the year 1277, and it is probable that the 1272 or
MCCLXXII of the Texts was a clerical error for MCCLXXVII. The Annalists
describe the people of Mien as irritated at calls upon them to submit to
the Mongols (whose power they probably did not appreciate, as their
descendants did not appreciate the British power in 1824), and as crossing
the frontier of Yung-ch'ang to establish fortified posts. The force of
Mien, they say, amounted to 50,000 men, with 800 elephants and 10,000
horses, whilst the Mongol Chief had but seven hundred men. "When the
elephants felt the arrows (of the Mongols) they turned tail and fled with
the platforms on their backs into a place that was set thickly with sharp
bamboo-stakes, and these their riders laid hold of to prick them with."
This threw the Burmese army into confusion; they fled, and were pursued
with great slaughter.
The Chinese author does not mention Nasr-uddin in connection with this
battle. He names as the chief of the Mongol force Huthukh (Kutuka?),
commandant of Ta-li fu. Nasr-uddin is mentioned as advancing, a few months
later (about December, 1277), with nearly 4000 men to Kiangtheu (which
appears to have been on the Irawadi, somewhere near Bhamo, and is perhaps
the Kaungtaung of the Burmese), but effecting little (p. 415).
[I have published in the Rev. Ext. Orient, II. 72-88, from the British
Museum Add. MS. 16913, the translation by Mgr. Visdelou, of Chinese
documents relating to the Kingdom of Mien and the wars of Kublai; the
battle won by Hu-tu, commandant of Ta-li, was fought during the 3rd
month of the 14th year (1277). (Cf. Pauthier, supra.) - H.C.]
These affairs of the battle in the Yung-ch'ang territory, and the advance
of Nasr-uddin to the Irawadi are, as Polo clearly implies in the beginning
of ch. li., quite distinct from the invasion and conquest of Mien some
years later, of which he speaks in ch. liv. They are not mentioned in the
Burmese Annals at all.
Sir Arthur Phayre is inclined to reject altogether the story of the battle
near Yung-ch'ang in consequence of this absence from the Burmese
Chronicle, and of its inconsistency with the purely defensive character
which that record assigns to the action of the Burmese Government in
regard to China at this time.
