Marco Polo

Journey to the End of the Earth

Robin Brown

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780750934213
• eBook ISBN: 9780752472300
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

The incredible story of Marco Polo's journey to the ends of the earth has for the last seven hundred years been beset by doubts as to its authenticity. Did this intrepid Venetian really trek across Asia minor as a teenager, explore the length and breadth of China as the ambassador of the ruthless dictator, Kublai Khan, and make his escape from almost certain death at the hands of Kublai Khan's successors?

Robin Brown's book aims to get to the truth of Marco Polo's claims. Covering his early life, his extraordinary twenty-four-year Asian epic and his reception in Italy on his return, Marco Polo places the intrepid Venetian in context, historically and geographically. What emerges confirms the truth of Polo's account. Polo, scholars now agree, opened vistas to the medieval mind and stirred the interest in exploration that prompted the age of the European ocean voyages. All who now enjoy the fruits of Marco Polo's incredible journey through Asia - whether in the form of spectacles, fireworks, pasta or any of the many products of the Silk Road - will find in Robin Brown-Lowe's book a fascinating portrait of a man who made history happen by bringing about the meeting of East and West.

Book Two

INTRODUCTION

Marco was awe-struck by the Great Khan, Kublai, his splendid court and the palaces and cities gracing his vast empire. And as a result he had been judged a subjective and biased witness to the wonders of the East and its mighty ruler.

In fact, this awe was partly a reflection of the degree to which the Western world was ignorant of this Lord of Lords ruling a world of which their knowledge was all but non-existent. In Pre-Crusades Europe, Kublai was still the dreaded son of Genghis, who had terrorised eastern Europe and terrified the west. And this reputation had been well founded. Tartar conquest was based on a single ultimatum: lay down your arms and accept the rule of a Tartar lord or be exterminated by his army. Men, women and children were ruthlessly killed and their skulls piled in vast mounds to remind the next intransigent city of its inevitable fate.

When they came the Tartar hordes were widely regarded as unstoppable.

Marco discovered that this was observably not the case with Kublai. Tartar (Moghul) rule had matured by the time he reached the court of the Lord of Lords. Arguably, in fact, Kublai’s tenuous control of an essentially vast and ungovernable area of land had begun to slip. Most of Book Two is devoted to setting this record straight and it is much the largest part of the manuscript.

Marco and his family would (they claimed) actively participate in the expansion of Kublai’s empire, Nicolo and Maffeo building huge siege engines of European design which brought about the submission of one of China’s larger, most strongly fortified cities.

Marco appears to have been content with winning a place in the Great Khan’s diplomatic corps and in the old man’s heart. Great Emperor Kublai might have been, but for much of his life he was at war with his many influential sons to whom he had given vast lands to govern. He was also surrounded by a stifling plutocracy, so the stories Marco bought him from remote lands must have been a refreshing relief.

I believe that we are fortunate that Marco Polo was young and impressionable. The collapse of Kublai’s Empire was still some time in the future and the young Marco toured the mighty kingdom when it was in its fading but still glorious prime. He gave his sense of wonder free rein, uninhibited by much experience or worldly comparisons.

Most of the time he quite literally could not believe his eyes. He probably kept careful notes, knowing Kublai’s voracious appetite for news and gossip. How extraordinary it all was can be judged by the fact that when he returned home and, with Rustichello’s help, published it in a book, few readers believed him.

But as I have said previously, the details have in so many cases, including the most extraordinary, proved remarkably accurate. For example his story of twenty thousand innocents being killed en route to serve as companions to the dead when the body of Mangu Khan is conveyed to Mount Attai, was treated with outright derision.

Chinese annals which have come to light since support this grisly tale, in fact Marco may have understated the numbers by as many as ten thousand souls. As recently as 1661 the Tartar emperor, Shun-chi, ordered a huge human sacrifice upon the death of a favourite mistress. Similarly, seemingly minor details such as his description of ‘a certain small animal not unlike a rabbit called by our people Pharoah’s mice’ was confirmed by several subsequent travel accounts as areas of large marmot populations.

Even the apparently ridiculous story of drinks floating back and forth to Kublai’s table has been checked out and is now thought to have been a mechanical conjuring trick. The French traveller, Rubruquis, reports that the Tartar princes were fond of such tricks and that one of them had hired a fellow countryman of his to design a curious bit of machinery which conveyed into the dining hall a variety of beverages which issued from the mouths of silver lions.

Book Two is, in reality, a eulogy to a benign, just and civilised elder statesman, as far a cry as you could get from a man others believed could have been the scourge of Europe, with a taste for blood-letting and savagery. No doubt Marco’s early impressions were naïve (he was after all in his early twenties), but when he was influential at court he found Kublai Khan remarkably even handed on vexing subjects such as religion.

Quite who this Lord of Lords actually believed in has never been satisfactorily established. He certain wasn’t a Muslim, although much of his empire was, and he seems to have carefully observed most of the important religious festivals of the major religions in the lands he ruled.

Marco Polo likes to give the impression that Kublai considered becoming a Christian, on one occasion sending Nicolo and Maffeo for oil from the lamp of the Holy Sepulchre and with a request to the Pope to send him one hundred ‘learned men’ who could prove that the Christians worshipped the one true God.

The history of the world would indubitably have been changed had that request ever been followed up, but Christianity failed to make its greatest leap forward when the Pope’s representatives – admittedly just two of them, but with the power to create priests – lost their nerve when they heard reports of the ever-warring Tartars in their path.

The truth seems to be that Kublai was an eclectic on the subject of religion and openly fascinated by the magic claimed for the religious artefacts of the various religions. Apart from the holy oil from Jerusalem, he also tried to buy Buddha’s begging bowl. He kept teams of necromancers, sooth-sayers, wizards and astrologers at the court and seems to have had as much faith in their miracles as in the Christian faith. When it comes to religious content and emphasis in the Marco Polo manuscript one also has to take into account the fact that in the first years of its long life it was translated, copied and illuminated exclusively by clerics of the Christian church.

Marco further suggests that Kublai had huge and very wide interests particularly in nature and natural history, a field of interest to which I have been professionally attached for some years. It is my view, however, that it is Marco who has the real interest in the flora and fauna of the vast empire, rather than Kublai, whose interests were mostly sporting. Admittedly Marco reports that the Emperor once sent a team of ambassadors to the island of Madagascar to get him a giant feather of the mythical great auk, but this again seems more an interest in curios than ornithology.

Book Two is extraordinarily rich for a manuscript of this vintage in ‘pure’ natural history. It gives the first documented instance of elephants used as fighting machines, detailed descriptions of the training of the Tartar fighting horses and how armies of hundreds of thousands rode, milked and bled their animals for food. The extraordinary mobility of the Tartar armies was dependent entirely on their remarkable horsemanship and the fact that they could live on a rich whey porridge of mares’ milk mixed with blood.

Rather than a merciless killer, Kublai is revealed as being a collector of exotic trees, the pioneer of large arboretums and of public roads planted with trees two feet apart to provide shelter for travellers.

Kublai, a Tartar, has a passion for horses and he can afford the very best. At the New Year festivals, the Great Khan is given upwards of one hundred thousand horses – all of them pure white.

There are descriptions of royal hunts conducted with trained leopards, lynxes and even tigers. These big cats are carried around in special wagons – along with a little dog to keep them company. Buck, bear, boar, wild asses and oxen are the fair game of these royal sporting outings.

Marco describes with wonder two influential Masters of the Hunt each with a staff of ten thousand huntsmen. They take Kublai hunting in the frozen north of his vast empire (towards Siberia) with a host of gerfalcons, peregrines, sakers and hunting vultures so numerous ten thousand ‘taskoal’ or bird-handlers are required to look after the raptors. Five thousand dogs are also involved in the chase and some of the eagles are so large they can pull down a wolf. The two Masters of the Hunt have a contract to supply Kublai’s court with one thousand pieces of game a day. Quails, Marco adds (with his usual care for the detail which adds such credibility to his accounts), don’t count.

Kublai’s hunting pavilion is a handsomely carved affair covered with wild cats’ skins mounted on the backs of four elephants. The royal quarters are covered outside with tigers’ skins with an inner lining of ermine and sable. The concept of conservation was, of course, still hundreds of years in the future.

Marco visits lands where the air is redolent with the smell of musk and he explains in detail how the musk-ox produces it once a month ‘like a boil full of blood’. In many of these lands wild game is the only source of food and clothing. We also learn in Book Two of silk-worms and how they are fed exclusively on mulberry leaves, a trade secret that could have led to silk being produced elsewhere than in India and China.

There are graphic descriptions of huge serpents with claws like those of the tiger, and glaring eyes ‘larger than a 4-penny loaf’. This is the first recorded description in Western literature of the Asian crocodile. Tigers (which Marco calls lions) are a constant danger to the traveller, some so huge and predatory it is safer to spend your night moored in mid-stream rather than venture to the river bank. Marco also tells of a species of huge dogs, a couple of which can overcome a tiger.

Plants also attract Marco’s constant attention and he describes cane 90 foot long that can be split and twisted into ropes 900 feet in length. In the wondrous city of Kinsai, the ‘celestial’ city which was then the capital of southern China, surrendered to Kublai’s army by the Song dynasty, he finds bamboos a foot thick. Ever the Venetian merchant at heart he notes the prices of all the medicinal plants like ginger, tea, ganganal and rhubarb. We learn how fine sugar is made from cane using a process of refining which uses wood ash introduced by experts from ancient Babylon.

The mundane is dutifully recorded along with the exotic: Marco points out that Kublai gets a huge amount of his revenue from the production of salt. The tightly controlled production of salt, which is cast in moulds, is used as currency in certain parts.

Marco relates in this book how fine porcelain is made from certain earths laid down for years, but it would be several hundred years before any western manufacturer was able to produce porcelain. It was Marco’s degree of pure revelation which so stunned a sceptical Western world when the first handwritten copies of his book appeared. Almost every page of Book Two has something on it which was new to Europeans.

The most startling of these is that this mighty empire which then covered three-quarters of a world known to very few people, was run not on gold, stones, or cowrie shells but on scraps of paper. This printed money, Marco revealed, was accepted throughout Kublai’s kingdom ‘on pain of death’.

We hear also of a similarly unique communication system (an early, infinitely more extensive version of the American Pony Express) serviced by messengers on foot and mounted. This countrywide courier service had its own roads, boats and lavish guest houses. Messengers covered up to 250 miles in one day, running or riding in relays.

Book Two slips in the first reference in Western literature to coal: ‘a sort of black stone which burns like charcoal and gives out much more heat than wood.’ Coal was completely unknown in Europe at this time. For good measure he confounds his Western readers with the news that, with such an easy source of heat, those who can afford it take a hot bath at least three times a week.

It is a tragedy but small wonder that poor Marco, in his own lifetime, was regarded as the biggest liar that had ever been and was lampooned at medieval fairs by clowns as a teller of a million tall tales. But were these attacks not simply egocentric Europeans refusing to accept that behind the veils of the mysterious, apostate East, two wild horsemen from the steppes had built a civilisation to equal anything the West had to offer? Book Two is Marco Polo’s irrefutable affidavit to all this and it must have been very hard, not least for the all-powerful Christian church, to stomach.

Book Two

LORD OF LORDS

The epithet Kublai Khan means ‘Lord of Lords’, one to which he is quite entitled, I would say, in that he surpasses any sovereign who has ever lived in terms of the number of his subjects, the extent of his territories and the size of his income. I hope I can also persuade you that he indeed commands more obedience from his subjects than any monarch who has ever lived.

Kublai Khan is directly descended from Genghis Khan, founder of the Tartar empire. He is the sixth of his line and began his reign in 1256. Even though he is the legitimate heir he had to fight for the throne against his brother and his officers of the court. But his courage, virtue and prudence carried the day.

Today in the year 1288, he has been on the throne for thirty-two years and is eighty-five years of age. Prior to ascending the throne he served industriously in the army where he had a reputation for bravery and daring. His judgement and military skills earned him a reputation as the most able and successful commander that ever commanded the Tartar army.

Once on the throne he quit the field and entrusted the conduct of military expeditions to his captains and his sons, with one vital exception. One of Kublai’s nephews, a young chief called Nayan, took over a number of cities and provinces gaining resources that enabled him to raise an army of some four hundred thousand horse. Pride got the better of him when he found himself at the head of so many men and he resolved to throw off the allegiance he and his predecessors had paid to the Grand Khan and usurp the sovereignty.

Nayan secretly despatched messengers to Kaidu, the powerful chief of Turkistan and the nephew of Kublai, who was rebelling against the Grand Khan. (He hated Kublai, who had punished him for several serious offences, with a passion.)

To Kaidu, therefore, Nayan’s proposals were very attractive and he promised to bring one hundred thousand horses into the alliance. But the assembling of so large a force could not be kept hidden from the Grand Khan and he immediately reacted by closing all the passes leading to the countries of Nayan and Kaidu to cover his own preparations. He assembled a force of three hundred and sixty thousand horse from troops stationed within ten days’ march of the city of Kanbula and another million infantrymen were enlisted from among his private guard, his falconers and domestic servants. Within twenty days they were ready. This was clever planning. Had Kublai relied on the standing army charged with the protection of the provinces of China, they would have required thirty or forty days to assemble and this would have allowed time for the enemy to establish commanding positions. As it was, Kublai fell on Nayan before he had joined forces with Kaidu and destroyed him absolutely.

It is worth noting here that in North and South China, as well as other parts of the empire, there are many disloyal and seditious people ranged against the Grand Khan. There is an ever-present threat of rebellion that obliges Kublai to maintain Tartar armies a few miles outside the large cities and centres of population ready to move in at a moment’s notice. He changes these armies and these officers every two years.

Such precautions result in the population being kept in quiet subjugation and few uprisings are attempted. The troops are paid out of imperial revenues and they have their own cattle and milk which they sell in city markets to provide them with all they need. You thus have a string of Tartar troops across the country at distances of thirty, forty and sixty days’ journey. Even if half of them were collected in one place you would not believe the multitude.

Kublai’s advance on Nayan was carried out in complete secrecy even though it involved a forced march that continued night and day for over a fortnight. Road blocks were set up and all who sought to pass were made prisoner. Kublai halted his troops on a plain overlooking Nayan’s encampment and rested them for two days. Astrologers were called in and declared before the whole army that Kublai would win. (The Grand Khan routinely brought in astro-logers to inspire the troops with a promise of victory.)

The following morning the army tore down the hill springing on an unprepared enemy, with no scouts, or advanced guards. Nayan himself was asleep in his tent with a wife. By the time Nayan awoke, it was too late to get his army into proper fighting order and all he could do was curse the fact that he had not yet joined up with Kaidu.

Kublai advanced in a huge wooden castle mounted high on the backs of four elephants armoured with thick, hardened leather and livery of cloth of gold. The castle housed many crossbowmen and archers and bore the royal standard adorned with the sun and the moon. Thirty battalions of horse, each ten thousand strong, and troopers armed with bows, followed behind. Two wings swept out to outflank Nayan’s army.

Five hundred infantrymen, armed with short lances and swords, marched in front of each battalion of horse. If the enemy took flight these men were trained to mount behind the horse soldiers until they caught up with the enemy, whereupon they set to work killing the enemy horses with their lances.

Once the Grand Khan’s army was in position all manner of wind instruments, a seemingly infinite number, were sounded, followed by the singing of songs as was the Tartar custom before battle commenced. The start of the battle was signalled with the clash of cymbals, the beating of drums and more singing. I tell you, it was wonderful to hear.

Kublai first ordered the flanking troops to attack and they were soon involved in bloody conflict. The air was filled with arrows which rained down causing huge casualties of men and horses. The shouts of the combatants, the hiss of weapons and the screams of the horses were enough to strike terror in the strongest hearts.

With their arrows discharged, the armies locked in hand-tohand combat wielding swords, lances and maces shod with iron. Such was the slaughter that men and horses were piled in vast heaps and neither side could advance. For a long time the outcome was undecided and victory wavered between the contestants from morning until noon. Nayan, who had the reputation of a liberal and indulgent leader, commanded such zealous devotion from his troops that they were all prepared to die rather than turn their backs on the enemy.

Finally, Nayan realised he was completely surrounded and attempted to save himself by flight. He was soon captured, however, and brought before the Grand Khan who ordered that he be put to death. The actual execution was bizarre. Kublai believed that the sun and the air should not witness the death of a prince of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Map showing Marco Polo’s Journeys
• General Introduction: Marco Millione
• The Prologue
• Book One
• Book Two
• Book Three
• Postscript