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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
4
CHAP. LXXVIII. TIZE REVENUE FROM KINSAY
217
NOTE I.—Pauthier's text seems to be the only one which says that Marco was sent by the Great Kaan. The G. Text says merely : " Si qe jeo March Pol qe plusor foies Izoï faire le conte de la rende de tous cestes couses,"—" had several times heard the calculations made."
NOTE 2.—Toman is 10,000. And the first question that occurs in considering the statements of this chapter is as to the unit of these tomans, as intended by Polo. I believe it to have been the tael (or Chinese ounce) of gold.
We do not know that the Chinese ever made monetary calculations in gold. But the usual unit of the revenue accounts appears from Pauthier's extracts to have been the ling, i.e. a money of account equal to ten taels of silver, and we know (supra, ch. 1. note 4) that this was in those days the exact equivalent of one tael of gold.
The equation in our text is io,000 x = 70,000 saggi of gold, giving x, or the unit sought, = 7 saggi. But in both Ramusio on the one hand, and in the Geog. Latin and Crusca Italian texts on the other hand, the equivalent of the toman is 8o,000 saggi ; though it is true that neither with one valuation nor the other are the calculations consistent in any of the texts, except Ramusio's.* This consistency does not give any greater weight to Ramusio's reading, because we know that version to have been edited, and corrected when the editor thought it necessary : but I adopt his valuation, because we shall find other grounds for preferring it. The unit of the toman then is= 8 saggi.
The Venice saggio was one-sixth of a Venice ounce. The Venice mark of 8 ounces I find stated to contain 3681 grains troy ; t hence the sags io = 76 grains. But I imagine the term to be used by Polo here and in other Oriental computations, to express the Arabic miskál, the real weight of which, according to Mr. Maskelyne, is 74 grains troy. The nziskál of gold was, as Polo says, something more than a ducat or sequin, indeed, weight for weight, it was to a ducat nearly as 1.4 : 1.
Eight saggi or nzis' dls would be 592 grains troy. The tael is 580, and the approximation is as near as we can reasonably expect from a calculation in such terms.
Taking the silver tael at 6s. 7d., the gold tael, or rather the ting, would be=3l. 5s. sod. ; the toman = 32,916l. 135. 4d. ; and the whole salt revenue (8o tomans) = 2,633,3331. ; the revenue from other sources (210 tomans)=6,912,5001.; total revenue from Kinsay and its province (290 tomans)=9,545,833/. A sufficiently startling statement, and quite enough to account for the sobriquet of Marco M ilioni.
Pauthier, in reference to this chapter, brings forward a number of extracts regarding Mongol finance from the official history of that dynasty. The extracts are extremely interesting in themselves, but I cannot find in them that confirmation of Marco's accuracy which M. Pauthier sees.
First as to the salt revenue of Kiang-Ché, or the province of Kinsay. The facts given by Pauthier amount to these : that in 1277, the year in which the Mongol salt department was organised, the manufacture of salt amounted to 92,148 yin, or 22, 115,520 kilos. ; in 1286 it had reached 450,000 yin, or '08,000,00o kilos.; in 1289 it fell off by 1oo,000 yin.
The price was, in 1277, 18 liar or taels, in chao or paper-money of the years 1260-64 (see vol. i. p. 426) ; in 1282 it was raised to 22 taels ; in 1284 a permanent and reduced price was fixed, the amount of which is not stated.
M. Pauthier assumes as a mean 400,000 yin, at 18 taels, which will give 7,200,000 taels; or, at 6s. 7d. to the tael, 2,370,0001. But this amount being in chao or paper-currency, which at its highest valuation was worth only 5o per cent. of the nominal
* Pauthier's MSS. A and B are hopelessly corrupt here. His MS. C agrees with the Geog. Text in making the toman=70,000 saggi, but 210 tomans=15,700,000, instead of 14,700,000. 'l'he Crusca and Latin have 8o,coo saggi in the first place, but 15,700,000 in the second. Ramusio alone has 80,00o in the first place, and 16,800,000 in the second.
t Eng. Cyclop., " Weights and Measures."
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