The Chinese extracts give no idea of
the temporary completeness of the conquest, nor do they mention Great Pagan
(lat. 21 deg. 13'), a city whose vast remains I have endeavoured partially
to describe.[2] Sir Arthur Phayre, from a careful perusal of the Burmese
Chronicle, assures me that there can be no doubt that this was at the
time in question the Burmese Royal Residence, and the city alluded to in
the Burmese narrative. M. Pauthier is mistaken in supposing that
Tarok-Mau, the turning-point of the Chinese Invasion, lay north of this
city: he has not unnaturally confounded it with Tarok-Myo or
"China-Town," a district not far below Ava. Moreover Male, the position of
the decisive victory of the Chinese, is itself much to the south of Tagaung
(about 22 deg. 55').
Both Pagan and Male are mentioned in a remarkable Chinese notice extracted
in Amyot's Memoires (XIV. 292): "Mien-Tien ... had five chief towns, of
which the first was Kiangtheu (supra, pp. 105, 111), the second
Taikung, the third Malai, the fourth Ngan-cheng-kwe (? perhaps the
Nga-tshaung gyan of the Burmese Annals), the fifth PUKAN MIEN-WANG
(Pagan of the Mien King?). The Yuen carried war into this country,
particularly during the reign of Shun-Ti, the last Mongol Emperor
[1333-1368], who, after subjugating it, erected at Pukan Mien-Wang a
tribunal styled Hwen-wei-she-se, the authority of which extended over
Pang-ya and all its dependencies." This is evidently founded on actual
documents, for Panya or Pengya, otherwise styled Vijayapura, was the
capital of Burma during part of the 14th century, between the decay of
Pagan and the building of Ava. But none of the translated extracts from the
Burmese Chronicle afford corroboration. From Sangermano's abstract,
however, we learn that the King of Panya from 1323 to 1343 was the son of
a daughter of the Emperor of China (p. 42). I may also refer to
Pemberton's abstract of the Chronicle of the Shan State of Pong in the
Upper Irawadi valley, which relates that about the middle of the 14th
century the Chinese invaded Pong and took Maung Maorong, the capital.[3]
The Shan King and his son fled to the King of Burma for protection, but
the Burmese surrendered them and they were carried to China. (Report on
E. Frontier of Bengal, p. 112.)
I see no sufficient evidence as to whether Marco himself visited the "city
of Mien." I think it is quite clear that his account of the conquest is
from the merest hearsay, not to say gossip. Of the absurd story of the
jugglers we find no suggestion in the Chinese extracts. We learn from them
that Nasruddin had represented the conquest of Mien as a very easy task,
and Kublai may have in jest asked his gleemen if they would undertake it.
The haziness of Polo's account of the conquest contrasts strongly with his
graphic description of the rout of the elephants at Vochan.
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