The Travels of Marco Polo Volume II Part 31

[3] _Foreigner in Far Cathay_, pp. 158, 176.

[4] A famous poet and scholar of the 11th century.

[5] Mr. Wylie, after ascending this hill with Mr. Moule, writes: "It is about two miles from the south gate to the top, by a rather steep road. On the top is a remarkably level plot of ground, with a cl.u.s.ter of rocks in one place. On the face of these rocks are a great many inscriptions, but so obliterated by age and weather that only a few characters can be decyphered. A stone road leads up from the city gate, and another one, very steep, down to the lake. This is the only vestige remaining of the old palace grounds. There is no doubt about this being really a relic of the palace.... You will see on the map, just inside the walls of the Imperial city, the Temple of Brahma.

There are still two stone columns standing with curious Buddhist inscriptions.... Although the temple is entirely gone, these columns retain the name and mark the place. They date from the 6th century, and there are few structures earlier in China." One is engraved above, after a sketch by Mr. Moule.

[6] See the plan of the city with last chapter.

CHAPTER LXXVIII.

TREATING OF THE GREAT YEARLY REVENUE THAT THE GREAT KAAN HATH FROM KINSAY.

Now I will tell you about the great revenue which the Great Kaan draweth every year from the said city of Kinsay and its territory, forming a ninth part of the whole country of Manzi.

First there is the salt, which brings in a great revenue. For it produces every year, in round numbers, fourscore _tomans_ of gold; and the _toman_ is worth 70,000 _saggi_ of gold, so that the total value of the fourscore tomans will be five millions and six hundred thousand _saggi_ of gold, each saggio being worth more than a gold florin or ducat; in sooth, a vast sum of money! [This province, you see, adjoins the ocean, on the sh.o.r.es of which are many lagoons or salt marshes, in which the sea-water dries up during the summer time; and thence they extract such a quant.i.ty of salt as suffices for the supply of five of the kingdoms of Manzi besides this one.]

Having told you of the revenue from salt, I will now tell you of that which accrues to the Great Kaan from the duties on merchandize and other matters.

You must know that in this city and its dependencies they make great quant.i.ties of sugar, as indeed they do in the other eight divisions of this country; so that I believe the whole of the rest of the world together does not produce such a quant.i.ty, at least, if that be true which many people have told me; and the sugar alone again produces an enormous revenue.--However, I will not repeat the duties on every article separately, but tell you how they go in the lump. Well, all spicery pays three and a third per cent. on the value; and all merchandize likewise pays three and a third per cent. [But sea-borne goods from India and other distant countries pay ten per cent.] The rice-wine also makes a great return, and coals, of which there is a great quant.i.ty; and so do the twelve guilds of craftsmen that I told you of, with their 12,000 stations apiece, for every article they make pays duty. And the silk which is produced in such abundance makes an immense return. But why should I make a long story of it? The silk, you must know, pays ten per cent., and many other articles also pay ten per cent.

And you must know that Messer Marco Polo, who relates all this, was several times sent by the Great Kaan to inspect the amount of his customs and revenue from this ninth part of Manzi,[NOTE 1] and he found it to be, exclusive of the salt revenue which we have mentioned already, 210 _tomans_ of gold, equivalent to 14,700,000 _saggi_ of gold; one of the most enormous revenues that ever was heard of. And if the sovereign has such a revenue from one-ninth part of the country, you may judge what he must have from the whole of it! However, to speak the truth, this part is the greatest and most productive; and because of the great revenue that the Great Kaan derives from it, it is his favourite province, and he takes all the more care to watch it well, and to keep the people contented.

[NOTE 2]

Now we will quit this city and speak of others.

NOTE 1.--Pauthier's text seems to be the only one which says that Marco was sent by the Great Kaan. The G. Text says merely: "_Si qe jeo March Pol qe plusor foies ho faire le conte de la rende de tous cestes couses_,"-- "had several times heard the calculations made."

NOTE 2.--_Toman_ is 10,000. And the first question that occurs in considering the statements of this chapter is as to the unit of these tomans, as intended by Polo. I believe it to have been the _tael_ (or Chinese ounce) of gold.

We do not know that the Chinese ever made monetary calculations in gold.

But the usual unit of the revenue accounts appears from Pauthier's extracts to have been the _ting_, i.e. a money of account equal to ten taels of silver, and we know (supra, ch. l. note 4) that this was in those days the exact equivalent of one tael of gold.

The equation in our text is 10,000 _x_ = 70,000 saggi of gold, giving _x_, or the unit sought, = 7 _saggi_. But in both Ramusio on the one hand, and in the Geog. Latin and Crusca Italian texts on the other hand, the equivalent of the toman is 80,000 _saggi_; though it is true that neither with one valuation nor the other are the calculations consistent in any of the texts, except Ramusio's.[1] This consistency does not give any greater weight to Ramusio's reading, because we know that version to have been _edited_, and corrected when the editor thought it necessary: but I adopt his valuation, because we shall find other grounds for preferring it. The unit of the _toman_ then is = 8 _saggi_.

The Venice saggio was one-sixth of a Venice ounce. The Venice mark of 8 ounces I find stated to contain 3681 grains troy;[2] hence the _saggio_ = 76 grains. But I imagine the term to be used by Polo here and in other Oriental computations, to express the Arabic _miskal_, the real weight of which, according to Mr. Maskelyne, is 74 grains troy. The _miskal_ of gold was, as Polo says, something more than a ducat or sequin, indeed, weight for weight, it was to a ducat nearly as 1.4: 1.

Eight _saggi_ or _miskals_ would be 592 grains troy. The tael is 580, and the approximation is as near as we can reasonably expect from a calculation in such terms.

Taking the silver tael at 6_s._ 7_d._, the gold tael, or rather the _ting_, would be = 3_l._ 5_s._ 10_d._; the _toman_ = 32,916_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._; and the whole salt revenue (80 tomans) = 2,633,333_l._; the revenue from other sources (210 tomans) = 6,912,500_l._; total revenue from Kinsay and its province (290 tomans) = 9,545,833_l._ A sufficiently startling statement, and quite enough to account for the sobriquet of Marco Milioni.

Pauthier, in reference to this chapter, brings forward a number of extracts regarding Mongol finance from the official history of that dynasty. The extracts are extremely interesting in themselves, but I cannot find in them that confirmation of Marco's accuracy which M.

Pauthier sees.

First as to the salt revenue of Kiang-Che, or the province of Kinsay. The facts given by Pauthier amount to these: that in 1277, the year in which the Mongol salt department was organised, the manufacture of salt amounted to 92,148 _yin_, or 22,115,520 _kilos.;_ in 1286 it had reached 450,000 _yin_, or 108,000,000 _kilos.;_ in 1289 it fell off by 100,000 _yin_.

The price was, in 1277, 18 _liang_ or taels, in _chao_ or paper-money of the years 1260-64 (see vol. i. p. 426); in 1282 it was raised to 22 taels; in 1284 a permanent and reduced price was fixed, the amount of which is not stated.

M. Pauthier a.s.sumes as a mean 400,000 _yin_, at 18 taels, which will give 7,200,000 _taels;_ or, at 6_s._ 7_d._ to the tael, 2,370,000_l._ But this amount being in _chao_ or paper-currency, which at its highest valuation was worth only 50 per cent. of the nominal value of the notes, we must _halve_ the sum, giving the salt revenue on Pauthier's a.s.sumptions = 1,185,000_l._

Pauthier has also endeavoured to present a table of the whole revenue of Kiang-Che under the Mongols, amounting to 12,955,710 paper _taels_, or 2,132,294_l._, _including_ the salt revenue. This would leave only 947,294_l._ for the other sources of revenue, but the fact is that several of these are left blank, and among others one so important as the sea-customs. However, even making the extravagant supposition that the sea-customs and other omitted items were equal in amount to the whole of the other sources of revenue, salt included, the total would be only 4,264,585_l._

Marco's amount, as he gives it, is, I think, unquestionably a huge exaggeration, though I do not suppose an intentional one. In spite of his professed rendering of the amounts in gold, I have little doubt that his tomans really represent paper-currency, and that to get a valuation in gold, his total has to be divided _at the very least_ by two. We may then compare his total of 290 tomans of paper _ting_ with Pauthier's 130 tomans of paper _ting_, excluding sea-customs and some other items. No nearer comparison is practicable; and besides the sources of doubt already indicated, it remains uncertain what in either calculation are the limits of the province intended. For the bounds of Kiang-Che seem to have varied greatly, sometimes including and sometimes excluding Fo-kien.

I may observe that Ras.h.i.+duddin reports, on the authority of the Mongol minister Pulad Chingsang, that the whole of Manzi brought in a revenue of "900 tomans." This Quatremere renders "nine million pieces of gold,"

presumably meaning dinars. It is unfortunate that there should be uncertainty here again as to the unit. If it were the _dinar_ the whole revenue of Manzi would be about 5,850,000_l._, whereas if the unit were, as in the case of Polo's toman, the _ting_, the revenue would be nearly 30,000,000 sterling!

It does appear that in China a toman of some denomination of money near the dinar was known in account. For Friar Odoric states the revenue of Yang-chau in _tomans_ of _Balish_, the latter unit being, as he explains, a sum in paper-currency equivalent to a florin and a half (or something more than a dinar); perhaps, however, only the _liang_ or tael (see vol.

i. pp. 426-7).

It is this calculation of the Kinsay revenue which Marco is supposed to be expounding to his fellow-prisoner on the t.i.tle-page of this volume. [See _P. Hoang, Commerce Public du Sel_, Shanghai, 1898, Liang-tahe-yen, pp.

6-7.--H.C.]

[1] Pauthier's MSS. A and B are hopelessly corrupt here. His MS. C agrees with the Geog. Text in making the toman = 70,000 saggi, but 210 tomans = 15,700,000, instead of 14,700,000. The Crusca and Latin have 80,000 saggi in the first place, but 15,700,000 in the second. Ramusio alone has 80,000 in the first place, and 16,800,000 in the second.

[2] _Eng. Cyclop., "Weights and Measures."_

CHAPTER LXXIX.

OF THE CITY OF TANPIJU AND OTHERS.

When you leave Kinsay and travel a day's journey to the south-east, through a plenteous region, pa.s.sing a succession of dwellings and charming gardens, you reach the city of TANPIJU, a great, rich, and fine city, under Kinsay. The people are subject to the Kaan, and have paper-money, and are Idolaters, and burn their dead in the way described before. They live by trade and manufactures and handicrafts, and have all necessaries in great plenty and cheapness.[NOTE 1]

But there is no more to be said about it, so we proceed, and I will tell you of another city called VUJU at three days' distance from Tanpiju. The people are Idolaters, &c., and the city is under Kinsay. They live by trade and manufactures.

Travelling through a succession of towns and villages that look like one continuous city, two days further on to the south-east, you find the great and fine city of GHIUJU which is under Kinsay. The people are Idolaters, &c. They have plenty of silk, and live by trade and handicrafts, and have all things necessary in abundance. At this city you find the largest and longest canes that are in all Manzi; they are full four palms in girth and 15 paces in length.[NOTE 2]

When you have left Ghiuju you travel four days S.E. through a beautiful country, in which towns and villages are very numerous. There is abundance of game both in beasts and birds; and there are very large and fierce lions. After those four days you come to the great and fine city of CHANSHAN. It is situated upon a hill which divides the River, so that the one portion flows up country and the other down.[1] It is still under the government of Kinsay.

I should tell you that in all the country of Manzi they have no sheep, though they have beeves and kine, goats and kids and swine in abundance.

The people are Idolaters here, &c.

When you leave Changshan you travel three days through a very fine country with many towns and villages, traders and craftsmen, and abounding in game of all kinds, and arrive at the city of CUJU. The people are Idolaters, &c., and live by trade and manufactures. It is a fine, n.o.ble, and rich city, and is the last of the government of Kinsay in this direction.[NOTE 3] The other kingdom which we now enter, called Fuju, is also one of the nine great divisions of Manzi as Kinsay is.

NOTE 1.--The traveller's route proceeds from Kinsay or Hang-chau southward to the mountains of Fo-kien, ascending the valley of the Ts'ien T'ang, commonly called by Europeans the Green River. The general line, directed as we shall see upon Kien-ning fu in Fo-kien, is clear enough, but some of the details are very obscure, owing partly to vague indications and partly to the excessive uncertainty in the reading of some of the proper names.

No name resembling Tanpiju (G.T., _Tanpigui_; Pauthier, _Tacpiguy, Carpiguy, Capiguy_; Ram., _Tapinzu_) belongs, so far as has yet been shown, to any considerable town in the position indicated.[2] Both Pauthier and Mr. Kingsmill identify the place with Shao-hing fu, a large and busy town, compared by Fortune, as regards population, to Shang-hai.

Shao-hing is across the broad river, and somewhat further down than Hang-chau: it is out of the traveller's general direction; and it seems unnatural that he should commence his journey by pa.s.sing this wide river, and yet not mention it.