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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 323 of 1350
Words from 86490 to 86765
of 370046
