Nor did Kublai
apparently prosecute any other operations against the Sung during that
long interval.
Now Polo represents that the long siege of Saianfu, instead of being a
prologue to the subjugation of Manzi, was the protracted epilogue of that
enterprise; and he also represents the fall of the place as caused by
advice and assistance rendered by his father, his uncle, and himself, a
circumstance consistent only with the siege's having really been such an
epilogue to the war. For, according to the narrative as it stands in all
the texts, the Polos could not have reached the Court of Kublai before
the end of 1274, i.e. a year and a half after the fall of Siang-yang, as
represented in the Chinese histories.
The difficulty is not removed, nor, it appears to me, abated in any
degree, by omitting the name of Marco as one of the agents in this affair,
an omission which occurs both in Pauthier's MS. B and in Ramusio. Pauthier
suggests that the father and uncle may have given the advice and
assistance in question when on their first visit to the Kaan, and when the
siege of Siang-yang was first contemplated. But this would be quite
inconsistent with the assertion that the place had held out three years
longer than the rest of Manzi, as well as with the idea that their aid had
abridged the duration of the siege, and, in fact, with the spirit of the
whole story. It is certainly very difficult in this case to justify
Marco's veracity, but I am very unwilling to believe that there was no
justification in the facts.
It is a very curious circumstance that the historian Wassaf also appears
to represent Saianfu (see note 5, ch. lxv.) as holding out after all the
rest of Manzi had been conquered. Yet the Chinese annals are systematic,
minute, and consequent, and it seems impossible to attribute to them such
a misplacement of an event which they represent as the key to the conquest
of Southern China.
In comparing Marco's story with that of the Chinese, we find the same
coincidence in prominent features, accompanying a discrepancy in details,
that we have had occasion to notice in other cases where his narrative
intersects history. The Chinese account runs as follows: -
In 1271, after Siang-yang and Fan-ch'eng had held out already nearly three
years, an Uighur General serving at the siege, whose name was Alihaiya,
urged the Emperor to send to the West for engineers expert at the
construction and working of machines casting stones of 150 lbs. weight.
With such aid he assured Kublai the place would speedily be taken. Kublai
sent to his nephew Abaka in Persia for such engineers, and two were
accordingly sent post to China, Alawating of Mufali and his pupil Ysemain
of Huli or Hiulie (probably Ala'uddin of Miafarakain and Ismael of
Heri or Herat). Kublai on their arrival gave them military rank.
