To The High Council Of State, And To The
Provincial Governments.
It also looks as if Marco Polo himself had made
that very confusion with which Pauthier charges Neumann.
For whilst here
he represents the twelve Barons as forming a Council of State at the
capital, we find further on, when speaking of the city of Yangchau, he
says: "Et si siet en ceste cite uns des xii Barons du Grant Kaan; car
elle est esleue pour un des xii sieges," where the last word is probably
a mistranscription of Sciengs, or Sings, and in any case the reference
is to a distribution of the empire into twelve governments.
To be convinced that Sing was used by foreigners in the double sense
that I have said, we have only to proceed with Rashiduddin's account of
the administration. After what we have already quoted, he goes on: "The
Sing of Khanbaligh is the most eminent, and the building is very
large.... Sings do not exist in all the cities, but only in the capitals
of great provinces.... In the whole empire of the Kaan there are twelve of
these Sings; but that of Khanbaligh is the only one which has Ching-sangs
amongst its members." Wassaf again, after describing the greatness of
Khanzai (Kinsay of Polo) says: "These circumstances characterize the
capital itself, but four hundred cities of note, and embracing ample
territories, are dependent on its jurisdiction, insomuch that the most
inconsiderable of those cities surpasses Baghdad and Shiraz. In the number
of these cities are Lankinfu and Zaitun, and Chinkalan; for they call
Khanzai a Shing, i.e. a great city in which the high and mighty Council
of Administration holds its meetings." Friar Odoric again says: "This
empire hath been divided by the Lord thereof into twelve parts, each one
thereof is termed a Singo."
Polo, it seems evident to me, knew nothing of Chinese. His Shieng is no
direct attempt to represent any Chinese word, but simply the term that
he had been used to employ in talking Persian or Turki, in the way that
Rashiduddin and Wassaf employ it.
I find no light as to the thirty-four provinces into which Polo represents
the empire as divided, unless it be an enumeration of the provinces and
districts which he describes in the second and third parts of Bk. II., of
which it is not difficult to reckon thirty-three or thirty-four, but not
worth while to repeat the calculation.
[China was then divided into twelve Sheng or provinces: Cheng-Tung,
Liao-Yang, Chung-Shu, Shen-Si, Ling-Pe (Karakorum), Kan-Suh, Sze-ch'wan,
Ho-Nan Kiang-Pe, Kiang-Che, Kiang-Si, Hu-Kwang and Yun-Nan. Rashiduddin
(J. As., XI. 1883, p. 447) says that of the twelve Sing, Khanbaligh was
the only one with Chin-siang. We read in Morrison's Dict. (Pt. II.
vol. i. p. 70): "Chin-seang, a Minister of State, was so called under the
Ming Dynasty." According to Mr. E. H. Parker (China Review, xxiv. p.
101), Ching Siang were abolished in 1395. I imagine that the thirty-four
provinces refer to the Fu cities, which numbered however thirty-nine,
according to Oxenham's Historical Atlas. - H. C.]
(Cathay, 263 seqq. and 137; Mendoza, I. 96; Erdmann, 142; Hammer's
Wassaf, p. 42, but corrected.)
CHAPTER XXVI.
HOW THE KAAN'S POSTS AND RUNNERS ARE SPED THROUGH MANY LANDS AND
PROVINCES.
Now you must know that from this city of Cambaluc proceed many roads and
highways leading to a variety of provinces, one to one province, another
to another; and each road receives the name of the province to which it
leads; and it is a very sensible plan.[NOTE 1] And the messengers of the
Emperor in travelling from Cambaluc, be the road whichsoever they will,
find at every twenty-five miles of the journey a station which they call
Yamb,[NOTE 2] or, as we should say, the "Horse-Post-House." And at each
of those stations used by the messengers, there is a large and handsome
building for them to put up at, in which they find all the rooms furnished
with fine beds and all other necessary articles in rich silk, and where
they are provided with everything they can want. If even a king were to
arrive at one of these, he would find himself well lodged.
At some of these stations, moreover, there shall be posted some four
hundred horses standing ready for the use of the messengers; at others
there shall be two hundred, according to the requirements, and to what the
Emperor has established in each case. At every twenty-five miles, as I
said, or anyhow at every thirty miles, you find one of these stations, on
all the principal highways leading to the different provincial
governments; and the same is the case throughout all the chief provinces
subject to the Great Kaan.[NOTE 3] Even when the messengers have to pass
through a roadless tract where neither house nor hostel exists, still
there the station-houses have been established just the same, excepting
that the intervals are somewhat greater, and the day's journey is fixed at
thirty-five to forty-five miles, instead of twenty-five to thirty. But
they are provided with horses and all the other necessaries just like
those we have described, so that the Emperor's messengers, come they from
what region they may, find everything ready for them.
And in sooth this is a thing done on the greatest scale of magnificence
that ever was seen. Never had emperor, king, or lord, such wealth as this
manifests! For it is a fact that on all these posts taken together there
are more than 300,000 horses kept up, specially for the use of the
messengers. And the great buildings that I have mentioned are more than
10,000 in number, all richly furnished, as I told you. The thing is on a
scale so wonderful and costly that it is hard to bring oneself to describe
it.[NOTE 4]
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