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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
MARCO POLO BOOK II.
154
f
Y
the south-east, and at the end of your journey you arrive
at the very great and noble city of VANJU, which has
seven-and-twenty other wealthy cities under its administra-
tion ; so that this Yanju is, you see, a city of great im-
portance.2 It is the seat of one of the Great Kaan's
Twelve Barons, for it has been chosen to be one of the
Twelve Sings. The people are Idolaters and use paper-
money, and are subject to the Great Kaan. And Messer
Marco Polo himself, of whom this book speaks, did
govern this city for three full years, by the order of the
Great Kaan.3 The people live by trade and manu-
factures, for a great amount of harness for knights and
men-at-arms is made there. And in this city and its
neighbourhood a large number of troops are stationed by
the Kaan's orders.
There is no more to say about it. So now I will tell
you about two great provinces of Manzi which lie
towards the west. And first of that called Nanghin.
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*• J NOTEZ I.—Though the text would lead us to look for Tiju on the direct line
between Kao-yu and Yang-chau, and like them on the canal bank (indeed one MS., C. of Pauthier, specifies its standing on the same river as the cities already passed, i.e. on the canal), we seem constrained to admit the general opinion that this is TAI-CHAU, a town lying some 25 miles at least to the eastward of the canal, but apparently connected with it by a navigable channel.
Tinju or Chinju (for both the G. T. and Rainusio read Cin« ui) cannot be identified with certainty. But I should think it likely, from Polo's "geographical style," that when he spoke of the sea as three days distant he had this city in view, and that it is probably TUNG-CHAU, near the northern shore of the estuary of the Yang-tzii, which might be fairly described as three days from Tai-chau. Mr. Kingsmill identifies it with I-chin hien, the great port on the Kiang for the export of the Yang-chau salt. This is possible ; but I-chin lies west of the canal, and though the form Chinju would really represent I-chin as then named, such a position seems scarcely compatible with the way, vague as it is, in which Tinju or Chinju is introduced. Moreover, we shall see that I-chin is spoken of hereafter. (Kingsmill in N. and Q. Ch. and Japan,
I. 53.)
NOTE 2.—happily, there is no doubt that this is YANG-CHAU, one of the oldest and most famous great cities of China. [Abulfeda (Guyard, II. ii. 122) says that Yang-chau is the capital of the Faghf tr of China, and that he is called 'I'amghâdjkhan. --H. C.] Some five-and-thirty years after Polo's departure from China, Friar Odoric found at this city a House of his own Order (Franciscans), and three Nestorian churches. The city also appears in the Catalan Map as Lang io. Yang-chau suffered greatly in the T'aï-P'ing rebellion. but its position is an " obligatory point" for
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