Who resides there, and to prevent thieves from doing mischief
in the town.[NOTE 7]
NOTE 1. - + The history of the city on the site of Peking goes back to
very old times, for it had been [under the name of Ki] the capital of
the kingdom of Yen, previous to B.C. 222, when it was captured by the
Prince of the T'sin Dynasty. [Under the T'ang dynasty (618-907) it was
known under the name of Yu-chau.] It became one of the capitals of the
Khitans in A.D. 936, and of the Kin sovereigns, who took it in 1125, in
1151 under the name of Chung-tu. Under the name of Yenking, [given to this
city in 1013] it has a conspicuous place in the wars of Chinghiz against
the latter dynasty. He captured it in 1215. In 1264, Kublai adopted it as
his chief residence, and founded in 1267, the new city of TATU ("Great
Court"), called by the Mongols TAIDU or DAITU since 1271 (see Bk. I. ch.
lxi. note 1), at a little distance - Odoric says half a mile - to the
north-east of the old Yenking. Tatu was completed in the summer of 1267.
Old Yenking had, when occupied by the Kin, a circuit of 27 li (commonly
estimated at 9 miles, but in early works the li is not more than 1/5 of
a mile), afterwards increased to 30 li.
