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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
| CHAP. XLIX. TIZE CITY OF TA-LI FU | 79 | ||
| torture, to avoid this they swallow the poison and so die speedily. But princes who are aware of this keep ready dog's dung, which they cause the criminal in- stantly to swallow, to make him vomit the poison. And thus they manage to cure those scoundrels.] I will tell you of a wicked thing they used to do before the Great Kaan conquered them. If it chanced that a man of fine person or noble birth, or some other quality that recommended him, came to lodge with those people, then they would murder him by poison, or other- wise. And this they did, not for the sake of plunder, but because they believed that in this way the goodly favour and wisdom and repute of the murdered man would cleave to the house where he was slain. And in this manner many were murdered before the country was conquered by the Great Kaan. But since his conquest, some 35 years ago, these crimes and this evil practice have pre- vailed no more ; and this through dread of the Great Kaan who will not permit such things.5 | |||
| NOTE 1.—There can be no doubt that this second chief city of Carajan is TALI-FU, which was the capital of the Shan Kingdom called by the Chinese Nan-Chao. This kingdom had subsisted in Yun-nan since 738, and probably had embraced the upper part of the Irawadi Valley. For the Chinese tell us it was also called Muung, and it probably was identical with the Shan Kingdom of Muang Maorong or of Pong, of which Captain Pemberton procured a Chronicle. [In A.D. 650, the Ai-Lao, the most ancient name by which the Shans were known to the Chinese, became the Nan-Chao. The Me'ng family ruled the country from the 7th century ; towards the middle of the 8th century, P'i-lo-ko, who is the real founder of the Thai kingdom of Nan-Chao, received from the Chinese the title of King of Yun-Nan and made T'ai-ho, 15 lis south of Ta-li, his residence he died in 748. In A.D. 938, Twan Sze-ying, of an old Chinese family, took Ta-li and established there an independent kingdom. In 1115 embassies with China were exchanged, and the Emperor conferred (1119) upon Twan Chêng-yn the title of King of Ta-li (Ta-li Kwo Wang). Twan Siang-hing was the last king of Ta-li (1239-1251). In 1252 the Kingdom of Nan-Chao was destroyed by the Mongols ; the Emperor She Tsu (Kúblái) gave the title of Maháraja (1í10-ho Lo-tso) to Twan Hing-che (son of Twan Siang-hing), who had fled to Yun-Nan fu and was captured there. Afterwards (1261) the Twan are known as the eleven TsungKwan (governors) ; the last of them, Twan Ming, was made a prisoner by an army sent by the Ming Emperors, and sent to Nan-King (1381). (E. H. Parker, Early Laos and China, China Review, XIX. and the Old Thai or Shan Empire of Western Yun-Nan, Ibid., XX. ; E. Rocher, Hist. des Princes du Yunnan, T'oung Pao, 1899 E. Chavannes, Une Inscription du roy. de Nan Tchao, J.A., November-December, 1900 ; Tchang, Tableau des Souverains de Nan- Tcliao, Bul. Ecole F;-anf. d'Ext, | |||
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