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| 0267 |
The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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NOTE 1.—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 ge jeo March Pol qe
plusor foies hoi 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 ting, i.e. a money of account equal to ten taels of silver, and we know (supra, ch. l.
note 4) that this was in those days the exact equivalent of one tael of gold.
The equation in our text is 10,000 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
80,000 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;† hence the saggio=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 miskál of gold was, as Polo says, something more than a ducat
or sequin, indeed, weight for weight, it was to a ducat nearly as 14 : 1.
Eight saggi or miskáls 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. 10d.; the toman=32,916l. 13s. 4d.; and the whole salt revenue (80 tomans)=
2,633,333l.; the revenue from other sources (210 tomans)=6,912,500l.; total
revenue from Kinsay and its province (290 tomans)=9,545,833l. A sufficiently
striking statement, and quite enough to account for the sobriquet of Marco
Milioni.
Pauthier, in reference to this chapter, brings forward a number of extracts regard-
ing 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 108,000,000 kilos.; in
1289 it fell off by 100,000 yin.
The price was, in 1277, 18 liang 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, 2,370,000l. But this amount being in chao or paper-
currency, which at its highest valuation was worth only 50 per cent. of the nominal
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731
732
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