And This They Did, Not
For The Sake Of Plunder, But Because They Believed That In This Way The
Goodly Favour And Wisdom And Repute Of The Murdered Man Would Cleave To
The House Where He Was Slain.
And in this manner many were murdered before
the country was conquered by the Great Kaan.
But since his conquest, some
35 years ago, these crimes and this evil practice have prevailed no more;
and this through dread of the Great Kaan who will not permit such
things.[NOTE 5]
NOTE 1. - There can be no doubt that this second chief city of Carajan is
TALI-FU, which was the capital of the Shan Kingdom called by the Chinese
Nan-Chao. This kingdom had subsisted in Yun-nan since 738, and probably
had embraced the upper part of the Irawadi Valley. For the Chinese tell us
it was also called Maung, and it probably was identical with the Shan
Kingdom of Muang Maorong or of Pong, of which Captain Pemberton procured
a Chronicle. [In A.D. 650, the Ai-Lao, the most ancient name by which the
Shans were known to the Chinese, became the Nan-Chao. The Meng family
ruled the country from the 7th century; towards the middle of the 8th
century, P'i-lo-ko, who is the real founder of the Thai kingdom of
Nan-Chao, received from the Chinese the title of King of Yun-Nan and made
T'ai-ho, 15 lis south of Ta-li, his residence; he died in 748. In A.D.
938, Twan Sze-ying, of an old Chinese family, took Ta-li and established
there an independent kingdom. In 1115 embassies with China were exchanged,
and the Emperor conferred (1119) upon Twan Ch'eng-ya the title of King of
Ta-li (Ta-li Kwo Wang). Twan Siang-hing was the last king of Ta-li
(1239-1251). In 1252 the Kingdom of Nan-Chao was destroyed by the Mongols;
the Emperor She Tsu (Kublai) gave the title of Maharaja (Mo-ho Lo-tso) to
Twan Hing-che (son of Twan Siang-hing), who had fled to Yun-Nan fu and was
captured there. Afterwards (1261) the Twan are known as the eleven
Tsung-Kwan (governors); the last of them, Twan Ming, was made a prisoner
by an army sent by the Ming Emperors, and sent to Nan-King (1381). (E. H.
Parker, Early Laos and China, China Review, XIX. and the Old Thai or Shan
Empire of Western Yun-Nan, Ibid., XX.; E. Rocher, Hist. des Princes du
Yunnan, T'oung Pao, 1899; E. Chavannes, Une Inscription du roy de Nan
Tchao, J.A., November-December, 1900; M. Tchang, Tableau des Souverains
de Nan-Tchao, Bul. Ecole Franc. d'Ext. Orient, I. No. 4.) - H.C.] The city
of Ta-li was taken by Kublai in 1253-1254. The circumstance that it was
known to the invaders (as appeals from Polo's statement) by the name of the
province is an indication of the fact that it was the capital of Carajan
before the conquest.
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