Kublai on their arrival gave them military rank. They
exhibited their skill before the Emperor at Tatu, and in the latter part of
1272 they reached the camp before Siang-yang, and set up their engines. The
noise made by the machines, and the crash of the shot as it broke through
everything in its fall, caused great alarm in the garrison. Fan-ch'eng was
first taken by assault, and some weeks later Siang-yang surrendered.
The shot used on this occasion weighed 125 Chinese pounds (if catties,
then equal to about 166 lbs. avoird.), and penetrated 7 or 8 feet into
the earth.
Rashiduddin also mentions the siege of Siangyang, as we learn from
D'Ohsson. He states that as there were in China none of the Manjaniks or
Mangonels called Kumgha the Kaan caused a certain engineer to be sent
from Damascus or Balbek, and the three sons of this person, Abubakr,
Ibrahim, and Mahomed, with their workmen, constructed seven great
Manjaniks which were employed against SAYANFU, a frontier fortress and
bulwark of Manzi.
We thus see that three different notices of the siege of Siang-yang,
Chinese, Persian, and Venetian, all concur as to the employment of foreign
engineers from the West, but all differ as to the individuals.
We have seen that one of the MSS. makes Polo assert that till this event
the Mongols and Chinese were totally ignorant of mangonels and trebuchets.
This, however, is quite untrue; and it is not very easy to reconcile even
the statement, implied in all versions of the story, that mangonels of
considerable power were unknown in the far East, with other circumstances
related in Mongol history.
The Persian History called Tabakat-i-Nasiri speaks of Aikah Nowin the
Manjaniki Khas or Engineer-in-Chief to Chinghiz Khan, and his corps of
ten thousand Manjanikis or Mangonellers. The Chinese histories used by
Gaubil also speak of these artillery battalions of Chinghiz. At the siege
of Kai-fung fu near the Hwang-Ho, the latest capital of the Kin Emperors,
in 1232, the Mongol General, Subutai, threw from his engines great
quarters of millstones which smashed the battlements and watch-towers on
the ramparts, and even the great timbers of houses in the city. In 1236 we
find the Chinese garrison of Chinchau (I-chin-hien on the Great Kiang
near the Great Canal) repelling the Mongol attack, partly by means of
their stone shot. When Hulaku was about to march against Persia (1253),
his brother, the Great Kaan Mangku, sent to Cathay to fetch thence 1000
families of mangonellers, naphtha-shooters, and arblasteers. Some of the
crossbows used by these latter had a range, we are told, of 2500 paces!
European history bears some similar evidence. One of the Tartar
characteristics reported by a fugitive Russian Archbishop, in Matt. Paris
(p. 570 under 1244), is: "Machinas habent multiplices, recte et fortiter
jacientes"
It is evident, therefore, that the Mongols and Chinese had engines of
war, but that they were deficient in some advantage possessed by those of
the Western nations. Rashiduddin's expression as to their having no
Kumgha mangonels, seems to be unexplained. Is it perhaps an error for
Karabugha, the name given by the Turks and Arabs to a kind of great
mangonel? This was known also in Europe as Carabaga, Calabra, etc. It is
mentioned under the former name by Marino Sanudo, and under the latter,
with other quaintly-named engines, by William of Tudela, as used by Simon
de Montfort the Elder against the Albigenses: -
"E dressa sos Calabres, et foi Mal Vezina
E sas autras pereiras, e Dona, e Reina;
Pessia les autz murs e la sala peirina."[9]
("He set up his Calabers, and likewise his Ill-Neighbours,
With many a more machine, this the Lady, that the Queen,
And breached the lofty walls, and smashed the stately Halls.")
Now, in looking at the Chinese representations of their ancient mangonels,
which are evidently genuine, and of which I have given some specimens
(figs. I, 2, 3), I see none worked by the counterpoise; all (and there are
six or seven different representations in the work from which these are
taken) are shown as worked by man-ropes. Hence, probably, the improvement
brought from the West was essentially the use of the counterpoised lever.
And, after I had come to this conclusion, I found it to be the view of
Captain Fave. (See Du Feu Gregeois, by MM. Reinaud and Fave, p. 193.)
In Ramusio the two Polos propose to Kublai to make "mangani al modo di
Ponente"; and it is worthy of note that in the campaigns of Alauddin
Khilji and his generals in the Deccan, circa 1300, frequent mention is
made of the Western Manjaniks and their great power. (See Elliot, III.
75, 78, etc.)
Of the kind worked by man-ropes must have been that huge mangonel which
Mahomed Iba Kasim, the conqueror of Sind, set in battery against the great
Dagoba of Daubul, and which required 500 men to work it. Like Simon de
Montfort's it had a tender name; it was called "The Bride." (Elliot, I.
120.)
Before quitting this subject, I will quote a curious passage from the
History of the Sung Dynasty, contributed to the work of Reinaud and Fave
by M. Stanislas Julien: "In the 9th year of the period Hien-shun (A.D.
1273) the frontier cities had fallen into the hands of the enemy
(Tartars). The Pao (or engines for shooting) of the Bwei-Hwei
(Mahomedans) were imitated, but in imitating them very ingenious
improvements were introduced, and pao of a different and very superior
kind were constructed. Moreover, an extraordinary method was invented of
neutralising the effects of the enemy's pao.
