Table Of ContentMarco Polo’s China
Marco Polo’s famous book about his journey to China, written in 1298,
continues to be a subject of considerable controversy. One recent work on
the subject argues that Marco Polo never went to China at all, and other
scholars have pointed out apparent mistakes and important omissions in
Marco’s writings, including his failure to mention the Great Wall, and his
apparently erroneous description of the course of the Yellow River.
This book re-examines Marco Polo’s writings. The main arguments against
his credibility have been negative, concentrating on things that it is argued
he should have seen and noted but did not. The most serious of these
supposed omissions are generally said to be his failure to describe theChinese
writing system, tea, foot-binding and the Great Wall of China. But the
author argues that what he does mention is impressive and argues strongly
for his veracity. For instance, Marco describes the new capital city of Dadu
built for Khubilai Khan on the site of modern Beijing. He also notes that
this new city was linked to the Yangtze River by canals. The building of
Dadu only began during the 1260s and the canal system linking it to the
River was not completed until after 1290, a few years before Marco dictated
his account to Rustichello of Pisa. If the great explorer was relying on
sources other than personal experience, then they were clearly very up-to-
date. This book clarifies Marco Polo’s itineraries in China and proposes
several new identifications of places mentioned, in addition to elucidating
many of his observations, especially those of plants and animals. Theresearch
has relied extensively on original Chinese sources and is supplemented by
the author’s wide knowledge of China.
Marco Polo’s China presents a convincing argument and concludes that
his work is an accurate, important and useful source from an extraordinary
period of Chinese history.
Stephen G. Haw read Chinese at the University of Oxford and has an MA
degree from the University of London. He first visited China in 1980 and
lived in the country for two years as a student and teacher at the University
of Shandong. He has since travelled extensively around the country. He is
the author of numerous articles and several books.
Routledge Studies in the Early History of Asia
1 Imperial Tombs in Tang China, 618–970
The politics of paradise
Tonia Eckfeld
2 Elite Theatre in Ming China, 1368–1644
Grant Guangren Shen
3 Marco Polo’s China
A Venetian in the realm of Khubilai Khan
Stephen G. Haw
Marco Polo’s China
A Venetian in the realm of
Khubilai Khan
Stephen G. Haw
First published 2006
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 2006 Stephen G. Haw
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Haw, Stephen G.
Marco Polo’s China : a Venetian in the realm of Khubilai Khan / Stephen G. Haw.
p. cm. — (Routledge studies in the early history of Asia ; 3)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. China—History—Yuan dynasty, 1260–1368—Sources. 2. Polo, Marco, 1254–1323?
Travels of Marco Polo. I. Title: Venetian in the realm of Khubilai Khan. II. Title.
III. Series.
DS752.3.H39 2005
951′.025′092—dc22
2005003567
ISBN10: 0–415–34850–1(Print Edition)
ISBN13: 9–78–0–415–34850–8
Contents
List of figures vi
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction: Lies or truth? 1
1 China before the Mongol conquest 8
2 The Mongols and their conquests 27
3 The journey and the writing of the book 40
4 No Great Wall? 52
5 Cities, canals and rivers 68
6 Marco’s journeys in China, part 1 – the route into China 82
7 Marco’s journeys in China, part 2 – Khanbalikh to
Caragian and Mien 94
8 Marco’s journeys in China, part 3 – Giogiu to Çaiton 108
9 Rhubarb, musk, cranes and other creatures 124
10 Wine, women and poison 147
11 Military affairs 159
12 A unique life and legacy 169
Notes 180
List of Chinese words and characters 181
Bibliography 195
Index 204
Illustrations
1.1 China in the early 1200s, showing approximate boundaries
between the states of the period 10
1.2 The three pagodas of the Chongsheng Temple at Dali 15
1.3 A general carved in stone stands respectfully to one side of
the approach to the tomb of the Song emperor Zhen Zong 19
1.4 Architecture of the Jin dynasty 23
2.1 A Mongol encampment 28
3.1 A statue of Buddha dating from the period of the late
Southern Song dynasty 44
4.1 A section of ruinous Great Wall built of compacted earth 53
4.2 A cormorant, as depicted in the official Song pharmacopoeia 58
5.1 The White Dagoba of the Miaoying Buddhist Temple 71
5.2 Plan of Yuan Dadu and Jin Zhongdu 73
5.3 The Grand Canal at Wuxi 76
5.4 A peasant boat 78
6.1 The Sunday Bazaar in Kashgar 86
6.2 Part of the ruins of Gaochang (Khara Khojo) 89
7.1 The Yangtze River or Jinsha Jiang in Yunnan 101
7.2 A view of part of the Dian Chi lake near Kunming in
Yunnan 102
8.1 The production of salt in salt-pans 109
8.2 The Iron Pagoda in Jining in Shandong province 112
8.3 Part of Liu Tianhe’s map of the Yellow River of 1535 113
8.4 An old stone bridge with a high arch at Suzhou 118
8.5 One of the pair of pagodas at the Kaiyuan Temple at
Quanzhou 122
9.1 Rhubarb root cut into chunks and drying 125
9.2 A pika or mouse-hare (Ochotona sp.) 131
9.3 Yaks in Tibet 135
9.4 Dragon-like ‘serpents’ with two legs 136
9.5 Gaoliang Jiang (Galangal) from two different places 139
9.6 Picking mulberry leaves for feeding silkworms 145
10.1 Grapes, as depicted in the official Song pharmacopoeia 150
Acknowledgements
The assistance of my wife, Wei Huixia (Lita), has been invaluable. Although
her knowledge of Classical Chinese is occasionally worse than mine, she is
able to read Chinese texts much faster than I can. She found a number of
useful references for me. Otherwise, although I am of course indebted to the
authors whose works are included in the bibliography, all the original re-
search for this book was undertaken personally, without consultation with
anyone else. I must take full responsibility for the contents, whetheraccurate
or not.
Introduction: Lies or truth? 1
Introduction: Lies or truth?
Marco Polo and his book have for a long time excited controversy. Writing
only a few years after Marco’s death, Jacopo d’Acqui related how, when he
was on his deathbed, Marco was asked to retract everything in his book that
was not factual, but retorted that ‘he had not told one half of what he had
really seen’ (Larner 1999: 115; MP/Yule-Cordier: i, 54). Although this must
surely have been absolutely true, doubts about his veracity persisted. At
some periods, he seems to have been generally believed, while at others he
was seriously questioned. His failure to mention the Great Wall of China
began to attract adverse comment from about the middle of the seventeenth
century and has continued to raise doubts ever since. It has been suggested
that Marco never went to China at all or that, if he did, he never went
beyond Khanbalikh (modern Beijing). Several heavily annotated editions of
Marco Polo’s book (often called TheTravels, though originally entitled The
Description of the World) have been produced at various periods and there
is an extensive literature about him. Yet much remains obscure. Many of
the places that he mentions have remained unidentified or very uncertainly
identified. Alongside his supposed omissions, it is these difficulties with his
place-names that seem to have given rise to the greatest suspicions about his
account. It was because so many unresolved questions about Marco and
his book still existed that I first began my researches in this area of study.
Many of the criticisms of Marco Polo have been highly ill-informed and
commonly totally anachronistic. During the seventeenth century, complaints
were voiced against him because he ignored latitude and longitude! At about
the same time, he was also condemned for stating that paper money existed
in China under the Mongols, although this was, of course, quite correct. In
the middle of the eighteenth century, it was first suggested that he might
never have visited China at all. This was despite the fact that, at that period,
European knowledge of China was scarcely more than minimal, so that this
suggestion was fundamentally based on ignorance. Marco also began to be
attacked because his book was ‘papist’, although again this should hardly
have been surprising as he lived long before Martin Luther (Larner 1999:
173–5). This kind of severely anachronistic approach to Marco and his
book was typical not only of his critics, but also of his admirers. Marsden
Description:Marco Polo’s famous book about his journey to China, written in 1298, continues to be a subject of considerable controversy. One recent work on the subject argues that Marco Polo never went to China at all, and other scholars have pointed out apparent mistakes and important omissions in Marco’s
