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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
i68
MARCO POLO BOOK II.
Rashiduddin also mentions the siege of Siangyang, as we learn from D'Ohsson. He states that as there were in China none of the Manjaníks or MangoneF called Rz'în Izá, 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 Manjaníks hich 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 7abakát-i-Násiri speaks of Aikah Nowin the Man janíki Khás or Engineer-in-Chief to Chinghiz Khan, and his corps of ten thousand Man-/angels or Mangonellers. The Chinese histories used by Gaubil also speak of these artillery battalions of Chinghiz. At the siege of Kai-fung fu near the Hwang-Ho, the latest capital of the Kin Emperors, in 1232, the Mongol General, Subutai, threw from his engines great quarters of millstones which smashed the battlements and watchtowers on the ramparts, and even the great timbers of houses in the city. In 1236 we find the Chinese garrison of Chinchau (I-chin-hien on the Great Kiang near the Great Canal) repelling the Mongol attack, partly by means of their stone shot. When Hulaku was about to march against Persia (1253), his brother, the Great Kaan Mangku, sent to Cathay to fetch thence woo families of mangonellers, naphtha-shooters, and arblasteers. Some of the crossbows used by these latter had a range, we are told, of 2500 paces ! European history bears some similar evidence. One of the Tartar characteristics reported by a fugitive Russian Archbishop, in Matt. Paris (p. 57o under 1244), is : " Machinas habent zzzultiplices, recte et fortiter jacientes."
It is evident, therefore, that the Mongols and Chinese had engines of war, but that they were deficient in some advantage possessed by those of the Western nations. Rashiduddin's expression as to their having no h'umghá mangonels, seems to be unexplained. Is it perhaps an error for Karáhughd, the name given by the Turks and Arabs to a kind of great mangonel ? This was known also in Europe as Carabaga, Calabra, etc. It is mentioned under the former name by Marino Sanudo, and under the latter, with other quaintly-named engines, by William of Tudela, as used by Simon de Montfort the Elder against the Albigenses :—
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" E dressa sos Calabres, et foi Mal Vezina E sas autras pereiras, e Dona, e Reina; Pessia les autz murs e la sala peirina."
(" He set up his Calábers, and likewise his Ill-Neighbours, With many a more machine, this the Lady, that the Queen,
And breached the lofty walls, and smashed the stately Halls.")
Now, in looking at the Chinese representations of their ancient mangonels, which are evidently genuine, and of which I have given some specimens (figs. I, 2, 3), I see none worked by the counterpoise ; all (and there are six or seven different representations in the work from which these are taken) are shown as worked by man-ropes. Hence, probably, the improvement brought from the West was essentially the use of the counterpoised lever. And, after I had come to this conclusion, I found it to be the view of Captain Favé. (See Du Feu Grégeois, by MM. Reinaud and Favé,
P. 193.)
In Ramusio the two Polos propose to Kúblái to make " mangani al modo dz
* Shaw, Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages, vol. i. No. nx.
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