Nan to the sea.
The old channel crossed by Polo in the present journey is quite deserted.
The greater part of the bed is there cultivated; it is dotted with
numerous villages; and the vast trading town of Tsing-kiang pu was in 1868
extending so rapidly from the southern bank that a traveller in that year
says he expected that in two years it would reach the northern bank.
The same change has destroyed the Grand Canal as a navigable channel for
many miles south of Lin-t'sing chau. (J.R.G.S. XXVIII. 294-295;
Escayrac de Lauture, Mem. sur la Chine; Cathay, p. 125; Reports of
Journeys in China, etc. [by Consuls Alabaster, Oxenham, etc., Parl. Blue
Book], 1869, pp. 4-5, 14; Mr. Elias in J.R.G.S. XL. p. 1 seqq.)
[Since the exploration of the Hwang-Ho in 1868 by Mr. Ney Elias and by Mr.
H.G. Hollingworth, an inspection of this river was made in 1889 and a
report published in 1891 by the Dutch Engineers J.G.W. Fijnje van
Salverda, Captain P.G. van Schermbeek and A. Visser, for the improvement
of the Yellow River. - H.C.]
NOTE 3. - Coiganju will be noticed below. Caiju does not seem to be
traceable, having probably been carried away by the changes in the river.
But it would seem to have been at the mouth of the canal on the north side
of the Hwang-Ho, and the name is the same as that given below (ch. lxxii.)
to the town (Kwachau) occupying the corresponding position on the Kiang.
"Khatai," says Rashiduddin, "is bounded on one side by the country of
Machin, which the Chinese call MANZI.... In the Indian language Southern
China is called Maha-chin, i.e. 'Great China,' and hence we derive the
word Machin. The Mongols call the same country Nangiass. It is
separated from Khatai by the river called KARAMORAN, which comes from the
mountains of Tibet and Kashmir, and which is never fordable. The capital
of this kingdom is the city of Khingsai, which is forty days' journey
from Khanbalik." (Quat. Rashid., xci.-xciii.)
MANZI (or Mangi) is a name used for Southern China, or more properly for
the territory which constituted the dominion of the Sung Dynasty at the
time when the Mongols conquered Cathay or Northern China from the Kin, not
only by Marco, but by Odoric and John Marignolli, as well as by the
Persian writers, who, however, more commonly call it Machin. I imagine
that some confusion between the two words led to the appropriation of the
latter name, also to Southern China. The term Man-tzu or Man-tze
signifies "Barbarians" ("Sons of Barbarians"), and was applied, it is
said, by the Northern Chinese to their neighbours on the south, whose
civilisation was of later date.[1] The name is now specifically applied
to a wild race on the banks of the Upper Kiang. But it retains its
mediaeval application in Manchuria, where Mantszi is the name given to
the Chinese immigrants, and in that use is said to date from the time of
Kublai. (Palladius in J.R.G.S. vol. xlii. p. 154.) And Mr. Moule
has found the word, apparently used in Marco's exact sense, in a Chinese
extract of the period, contained in the topography of the famous Lake of
Hang-chau (infra, ch. lxxvi.-lxxvii.)
Though both Polo and Rashiduddin call the Karamoran the boundary between
Cathay and Manzi, it was not so for any great distance. Ho-nan belonged
essentially to Cathay.
[1] Magaillans says the Southerns, in return, called the Northerns
Pe-tai, "Fools of the North"!
CHAPTER LXV.
HOW THE GREAT KAAN CONQUERED THE PROVINCE OF MANZI.
You must know that there was a King and Sovereign lord of the great
territory of Manzi who was styled FACFUR, so great and puissant a prince,
that for vastness of wealth and number of subjects and extent of dominion,
there was hardly a greater in all the earth except the Great Kaan himself.
[NOTE 1] But the people of his land were anything rather than warriors;
all their delight was in women, and nought but women; and so it was above
all with the King himself, for he took thought of nothing else but women,
unless it were of charity to the poor.
In all his dominion there were no horses; nor were the people ever inured
to battle or arms, or military service of any kind. Yet the province of
Manzi is very strong by nature, and all the cities are encompassed by
sheets of water of great depth, and more than an arblast-shot in width; so
that the country never would have been lost, had the people but been
soldiers. But that is just what they were not; so lost it was.[NOTE 2]
Now it came to pass, in the year of Christ's incarnation, 1268, that the
Great Kaan, the same that now reigneth, despatched thither a Baron of his
whose name was BAYAN CHINCSAN, which is as much as to say "Bayan Hundred
Eyes." And you must know that the King of Manzi had found in his horoscope
that he never should lose his Kingdom except through a man that had an
hundred eyes; so he held himself assured in his position, for he could not
believe that any man in existence could have an hundred eyes. There,
however, he deluded himself, in his ignorance of the name of Bayan.[NOTE 3]
This Bayan had an immense force of horse and foot entrusted to him by the
Great Kaan, and with these he entered Manzi, and he had also a great
number of boats to carry both horse and food when need should be.
