Pauthier supposes the word to represent
Kien-Kwe "the Kingdom of Kien," because in the 8th century this
territory had formed a principality of which the seat was at Kien-chau,
now Kien-ning fu. This is not satisfactory either, for no evidence is
adduced that the name continued in use.
One might suppose that Choncha represented T'swan-chau, the Chinese
name of the city of Zayton, or rather of the department attached to it,
written by the French Thsiuan-tcheou, but by Medhurst Chwanchew, were
it not that Polo's practice of writing the term tcheu or chau by giu
is so nearly invariable, and that the soft ch is almost always expressed
in the old texts by the Italian ci (though the Venetian does use the
soft ch).[1]
It is again impossible not to be struck with the resemblance of Chonka
to "CHUNG-KWE" "the Middle Kingdom," though I can suggest no ground for
the application of such a title specially to Fo-kien, except a possible
misapprehension. Chonkwe occurs in the Persian Historia Cathaica
published by Mueller, but is there specially applied to North China. (See
Quat. Rashid., p. lxxxvi.)
The city of course is FU-CHAU. It was visited also by Friar Odoric, who
calls it Fuzo, and it appears in duplicate on the Catalan Map as Fugio
and as Fozo.
I used the preceding words, "the city of course is Fu-chau," in the first
edition.
