IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
UNDER THE MONGOLS. 263
ninth villages and hamlets. Ports and landing places are called Batu.1
A similar classification of governors according to the rank of their cities does not exist anywhere else, but the empire of Cathay is quite remarkable for the system with which it is organised.
NOTICE OF THE PRINCES, MINISTERS, AND SECRETARIES OF CATHAY, OF THEIR GRADATIONS IN RANK, OF THE RULES AND CUSTOMS AFFECTING THEM, AND OF THE NAMES THEY BEAR IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE COUNTRY.
The great princes who have the rank of Wazirs among those people have the title of Chingsang ;2 commanders in chief of the army have that of Thaifu ; and chiefs of ten thousand soldiers are called Wanshi.3
Those Princes Wazirs and chief officers of the council who are either T ijiks,4 native Cathayans, or Ightirs, have the title of Fanchan.5 Strictly speaking, the council of state is com-
1 Mongolopronunciation of Mathew, a jetty, and hence a port. See supra, p. 126.
2 This title Chingsang represents the Chinese Ching-slang, a minister of state. The name of Pulad Chingsang, the Great Khan's ambassador to the court of the Persian Khan, occurs frequently in D'Ohsson, who also mentions that the title of Chingsang was conferred on Bucai, the minister of the Persian Khan Argun, by Kublai (iv, 13) . It is also the title which Marco Polo applies to Kublai's great general Bayam (or Baian) Cinqsan, though he strangely alleges this to mean Bayam with the Hundred Eyes (i. 62). Full particulars regarding the imperial cabinet in the time of the Mongols will be found in Pauthier's Marc Pol, p. 329 seq. The number of the Chingsiang or chief ministers varied from two to four, and on one occasion there was but one.
3 Wangshi, from Wan, ten thousand. The termination is Mongol according to Klaproth. Thaifu looks like a genuine Chinese title, though I do not find it in the books on China. It is mentioned by the merchant Suleiman (Daifv) as the title of the governor of a first-rate city (Relation des Voyages, i, 37). In the late wars against the Taeping I have seen the title Fu-tai applied to the Imperial commander.
4 Of Persian race.
This word is read by Klaproth Kabjdn, and by Von Hammer Tenjccn. Pauthier says it should be read Minjccn, as the Mongol pronunciation of
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