Curtains Made Of This Texture Are
Mentioned In Chinese Books, As Early As The Commencement Of The Christian
Era." - H.C.]
Rashiduddin, in enumerating the Sings or great provincial governments of
the empire, has the following:
"7th FUCHU. - This is a city of Manzi. The
Sing was formerly located at ZAITUN, but afterwards established here,
where it still remains. Zaitun is a great shipping-port, and the
commandant there is Bohauddin Kandari." Pauthier's Chinese extracts show
us that the seat of the Sing was, in 1281, at T'swan-chau, but was then
transferred to Fu-chau. In 1282 it was removed back to T'swan-chau, and in
1283 recalled to Fu-chau. That is to say, what the Persian writer tells us
of Fuju and Zayton, the Chinese Annalists tell us of Fu-chau and
T'swan-chau. Therefore Fuju and Zayton were respectively Fu-chau and
T'swan-chau.
[In the Yuen-shi (ch. 94), Shi po, Maritime trade regulations, it "is
stated, among other things, that in 1277, a superintendency of foreign
trade was established in Ts'uaen-chou. Another superintendency was
established for the three ports of K'ing-yuean (the present Ning-po),
Shang-hai, and Gan-p'u. These three ports depended on the province of
Fu-kien, the capital of which was Ts'uean-chou. Farther on, the ports of
Hang-chou and Fu-chou are also mentioned in connection with foreign trade.
Chang-chou (in Fu-kien, near Amoy) is only once spoken of there. We meet
further the names of Wen-chou and Kuang-chou as seaports for foreign trade
in the Mongol time. But Ts'uean-chou in this article on the sea-trade seems
to be considered as the most important of the seaports, and it is
repeatedly referred to. I have, therefore, no doubt that the port of Zayton
of Western mediaeval travellers can only be identified with Ts'uaen-chou,
not with Chang-chou.... There are many other reasons found in Chinese works
in favour of this view. Gan-p'u of the Yuen-shi is the seaport Ganfu of
Marco Polo." (Bretschneider, Med. Res. I. pp. 186-187.)
In his paper on Changchow, the Capital of Fuhkien in Mongol Times,
printed in the Jour. China B.R.A. Soc. 1888, pp. 22-30, Mr. Geo.
Phillips from Chinese works has shown that the Port of Chang-chau did, in
Mongol times, alternate with Chinchew and Fu-chau as the capital of
Fuh-kien. - H.C.]
Further, Zayton was, as we see from this chapter, and from the 2nd and 5th
of Bk. III., in that age the great focus and harbour of communication with
India and the Islands. From Zayton sailed Kublai's ill-fated expedition
against Japan. From Zayton Marco Polo seems to have sailed on his return
to the West, as did John Marignolli some half century later. At Zayton Ibn
Batuta first landed in China, and from it he sailed on his return.
All that we find quoted from Chinese records regarding T'swan-chau
corresponds to these Western statements regarding Zayton.
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