National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

862   368. TUNDINFU

Although we have « Tundinfu » in F and Z, I have no doubt that the true form is « Tunpinfu ». From Polo's itinerary, it has been thought that the modern Yen-chou-fu in Shan-tung was meant. BENEDETTO (B', 447), labouring under that idea, has written « Tandinfu », and proposed a correction « Taidinfu », because the Mongols had given to the place the name of T'ai-ting-fu. But this is a mistake; a T'ai-ting-fu never existed. There was a military area (chün) of T'ai-ting under the Chin, and its centre was at Yen-chou; but when the Mongols, after calling it again Yen-chou, raised it in 1279 to the status of a tsung-kuan-fu, they renamed it Chi-ning (YS, 58, 11 b). Moreover, the distance between Yen-chou-fu and the modern Chi-ning (Polo's Singiu matu, q. v.) is too short for the three days' journey of the traveller. My theory is that Polo proceeded straight along the main road from Cho-chou to Ho-chien-fu (« Cacanfu »), Tundinfu, Singiu matu (= modern Chining) ; he did not have to pass through either Chi-nan-fu or later Yen-chou-fu. Tundinfu is r +' T Ï Tung-p'ing-fu, now the hsien of Tung-p'ing, which is on the main road from Ho-chien-fu to modern Chi-ning, and is precisely one of the places mentioned north of Singiu matu in the itinerary from Hang-chou to Shang-tu, dated 1276, which has been translated by MOULE in TP, 1915, 399 and 409.

The name of Tung-p'ing-fu goes back to the Northern Sung; it was maintained throughout the whole of the Chin and Yüan dynasties (cf. YS, 58, 10 a-b). It occurs twice in Rasidu-'d-Din,

as is confirmed by parallel Chinese texts, under the forms   , :u Täng-bing-fu (abnormal
for Oa;y; Tung) and ,; ,4 Tungbin-fu (Ber, III, text, 34, 47), but has been misread (Ber, III, transi. 21, 29) « Dan-byan-fu » and « Tun-kin-fu »; cf. PELLIOT, Sur un passage du Cheng-wou ts'in-tcheng lou, in Ts'ai Yüan P'ei Annivers. Volume, Peiping, 1934, 921, 922.

Polo attaches to Tung-p'ing-fu the story of Li T'an, but the fall of Li T'an really occurred in Chi-nan-fu (see « Liitan sangon »). It may be because Tung-p'ing-fu was the place nearest to Chinan-fu which Polo had to mention (his itinerary did not pass through Chi-nan-fu). On the other hand, it may have been a mere lapse of memory, as when he places the massacre of the Alans at Ch'ang-chou, south of the Yang-tzû, while it really occurred at Chên-ch'ao, north of that river (see « Ciangiu »).

Tung-p'ing-fu was much more important at the beginning of the Mongol period than it is now.