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 Wassaf'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." (Wassaf, 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 documents, 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.
On their arrival at Ta-tu, Kublai's chief queen, Jamui Khatun, treated them
with delicate consideration. This amiable lady, on being shown the spoils
that came from Lin-ngan, only wept, and said to her husband, "So also shall
it be with the Mongol empire one day!" The eldest of the two boys who had
escaped was proclaimed emperor by his adherents at Fu-chau, in Fo-kien, but
they were speedily driven from that province (where the local histories, as
Mr. G. Phillips informs me, preserve traces of their adventures in the
Islands of Amoy Harbour), and the young emperor died on a desert island off
the Canton coast in 1278.
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