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.
