Marco Polo - Laurence Bergreen [108]
There was a catch: a bounty had to be paid. “When the lost things are found, then men reverently and devoutly offer to the idols perhaps an ell of some fine cloth,” such as silk. This was exactly Marco’s case, and proudly he reports, “I, Marco, found in this way a certain ring of mine that was lost,” and he hastens to add, “not that I made them any offering or homage.”
WHEN MARCO RESUMED his travels throughout southwestern China, adventures awaited him at every turn, more than he could stuff into his comprehensive account. “Do not believe we have treated the whole province of China in order,” he warns his audience at this point in his account, “not indeed a twentieth part; but only as I, Marco, used to cross the province, so the cities that are on the way across are described, passing by those that are at the sides and through the middle, to tell of which would be too long.”
“THIS PROVINCE OF MANZI,™ says Marco, picking up where he left off, “is a very exceedingly strong place. All the cities of the kingdom are surrounded with ditches full of water broad”—the length of a crossbow shot, he estimates—“and deep.” By Manzi, Marco meant the realm of the wealthy and sophisticated Song dynasty, which even Kublai Khan had long avoided, preferring to conquer other, more vulnerable regions of China. But the men of Manzi were not the courageous warriors that Marco, or the Mongols, supposed them to be. In 1268, they scattered before Kublai’s forces, or quietly surrendered “because they were not valiant nor used to arms.”
After the defeat, Marco made it his business to find out exactly how the khan’s men had come to defeat the local king, a supposed tyrant named Facfur, “who took delight in nothing but war and conquest and making himself a great lord.”
In reality, Facfur had little stomach for fighting, preferring peaceful commercial pursuits; he was precisely the kind of enlightened, semi-divine monarch Kublai Khan aspired to be. And for that reason, Facfur was vulnerable to the rapacious Mongol forces. By coincidence, King Facfur’s astrologers had informed him that under no circumstances would he lose his kingdom unless he were attacked by a man “with one hundred eyes.” This prediction had comforted the king, “because he could not think that any natural man could have a hundred eyes.” He was destined to be proven wrong. As it happened, Kublai Khan’s forces included an exceptional officer by the name of Bayan Hundred Eyes, who would prove to be Facfur’s nemesis.
Born in 1236, Bayan was a young man at the time of the campaign. He had joined Kublai Khan’s household as a retainer, and in this capacity he exhibited formidable administrative skills, impressive bearing, and dynamic communication. Bayan was married, but Kublai terminated his marriage and gave him a new, highly placed wife named Besüjin. Profiting from his elevated social status, Bayan quickly rose through the allied Mongol-Chinese ranks, forming alliances with the Confucian faction; in 1260, he joined the military, serving first as an administrator, and then as a commander whose leadership ability favorably impressed his superiors and disarmed potential rivals. A statesman and soldier, Bayan mastered Chinese literary forms, and he dutifully wrote military poetry in honor of the Mongol forces. Kublai Khan bestowed the highest praise on him, confiding to one of his sons, “Bayan combines in his person the talents of a general and of a minister. He is trustworthy in everything.” He concluded, “You must not treat him as an ordinary person.” Bayan had become the indispensable man of the Yüan dynasty.
When Kublai Khan determined that the time was right to attack the Song, he placed Bayan in charge of 200,000 cavalry supplemented by the Chinese infantry, as well as a navy of 5,000 vessels manned by 70,000 sailors. Leading his massive force, Bayan circled one city in southern China after another—five in all—demanding that the people lay down their arms and surrender to the Great Khan, but everywhere he went, he met with stubborn, silent resistance from the resolute