- We are indebted to Pauthier for very interesting illustrations of
this narrative from the Chinese Annalists (p. 410 seqq.). These latter
fix the date to the year 1277, and it is probable that the 1272 or
MCCLXXII of the Texts was a clerical error for MCCLXXVII. The Annalists
describe the people of Mien as irritated at calls upon them to submit to
the Mongols (whose power they probably did not appreciate, as their
descendants did not appreciate the British power in 1824), and as crossing
the frontier of Yung-ch'ang to establish fortified posts. The force of
Mien, they say, amounted to 50,000 men, with 800 elephants and 10,000
horses, whilst the Mongol Chief had but seven hundred men. "When the
elephants felt the arrows (of the Mongols) they turned tail and fled with
the platforms on their backs into a place that was set thickly with sharp
bamboo-stakes, and these their riders laid hold of to prick them with."
This threw the Burmese army into confusion; they fled, and were pursued
with great slaughter.
The Chinese author does not mention Nasr-uddin in connection with this
battle. He names as the chief of the Mongol force Huthukh (Kutuka?),
commandant of Ta-li fu. Nasr-uddin is mentioned as advancing, a few months
later (about December, 1277), with nearly 4000 men to Kiangtheu (which
appears to have been on the Irawadi, somewhere near Bhamo, and is perhaps
the Kaungtaung of the Burmese), but effecting little (p. 415).
[I have published in the Rev. Ext. Orient, II. 72-88, from the British
Museum Add. MS. 16913, the translation by Mgr. Visdelou, of Chinese
documents relating to the Kingdom of Mien and the wars of Kublai; the
battle won by Hu-tu, commandant of Ta-li, was fought during the 3rd
month of the 14th year (1277). (Cf. Pauthier, supra.) - H.C.]
These affairs of the battle in the Yung-ch'ang territory, and the advance
of Nasr-uddin to the Irawadi are, as Polo clearly implies in the beginning
of ch. li., quite distinct from the invasion and conquest of Mien some
years later, of which he speaks in ch. liv. They are not mentioned in the
Burmese Annals at all.
Sir Arthur Phayre is inclined to reject altogether the story of the battle
near Yung-ch'ang in consequence of this absence from the Burmese
Chronicle, and of its inconsistency with the purely defensive character
which that record assigns to the action of the Burmese Government in
regard to China at this time. With the strongest respect for my friend's
opinion I feel it impossible to assent to this. We have not only the
concurrent testimony of Marco and of the Chinese Official Annals of the
Mongol Dynasty to the facts of the Burmese provocation and of the
engagement within the Yung-ch'ang or Vochan territory, but we have in the
Chinese narrative a consistent chronology and tolerably full detail of the
relations between the two countries.
[Baber writes (p. 173): "Biot has it that Yung-ch'ang was first
established by the Mings, long subsequent to the time of Marco's visit,
but the name was well known much earlier. The mention by Marco of the
Plain of Vochan (Unciam would be a perfect reading), as if it were a plain
par excellence, is strikingly consistent with the position of the
city on the verge of the largest plain west of Yuennan-fu. Hereabouts was
fought the great battle between the 'valiant soldier and the excellent
captain Nescradin,' with his 12,000 well-mounted Tartars, against the King
of Burmah and a large army, whose strength lay in 2000 elephants, on each
of which was set a tower of timber full of well-armed fighting men.
"There is no reason to suppose this 'dire and parlous fight' to be
mythical, apart from the consistency of annals adduced by Colonel Yule;
the local details of the narrative, particularly the prominent importance
of the wood as an element of the Tartar success, are convincing. It seems
to have been the first occasion on which the Mongols engaged a large body
of elephants, and this, no doubt, made the victory memorable.
"Marco informs us that 'from this time forth the Great Khan began to keep
numbers of elephants.' It is obvious that cavalry could not manoeuvre in a
morass such as fronts the city. Let us refer to the account of the battle.
"'The Great Khan's host was at Yung-ch'ang, from which they advanced into
the plain, and there waited to give battle. This they did through the good
judgment of the captain, for hard by that plain was a great wood thick
with trees.' The general's purpose was more probably to occupy the dry
undulating slopes near the south end of the valley. An advance of about
five miles would have brought him to that position. The statement that
'the King's army arrived in the plain, and was within a mile of the
enemy,' would then accord perfectly with the conditions of the ground. The
Burmese would have found themselves at about that distance from their foes
as soon as they were fairly in the plain.
"The trees 'hard by the plain,' to which the Tartars tied their horses,
and in which the elephants were entangled, were in all probability in the
corner below the 'rolling hills' marked in the chart. Very few trees
remain, but in any case the grove would long ago have been cut down by the
Chinese, as everywhere on inhabited plains. A short distance up the hill,
however, groves of exceptionally fine trees are passed. The army, as it
seems to us, must have entered the plain from its southernmost point. The
route by which we departed on our way to Burmah would be very
embarrassing, though perhaps not utterly impossible, for so great a number
of elephants." - H.C.]
Between 1277 and the end of the century the Chinese Annals record three
campaigns or expeditions against MIEN; viz.