Marco Polo - Laurence Bergreen [119]
In the same spirit of protection and oppression, the Mongol guards detained anyone who ventured abroad late at night. They dispatched the poor and crippled to public shelters and hospitals, but if the object of their scrutiny was healthy, they compelled him “to do some work.”
THE MONGOLS insinuated themselves into Quinsai, as they did with other prize cities they had conquered, by replacing Chinese notes with their own paper money. Marco observed Mongol notes being minted. “One takes the innermost bark of the mulberry tree and lays it together and makes of it the same as one does with us, paper of which one makes sheets, as one does our paper,” he reports. “The sheets one tears after the shape of a penny on which one prints the stamp and mark of the Great Khan. The money is taken for everything that will buy and sell.”
Next, the Mongols constructed their own style of roadway through the heart of the city. “Because the couriers of the Great Khan could not travel quickly with horses over paved streets,” Marco explains, “a part of the street at the side is left without pavement for the sake of the couriers.” The couriers mingled with the city’s ordinary traffic, which consisted of “long carriages covered and furnished with hangings and cushions of silk, in which six people can sit.”
Even in occupied Quinsai, life continued as before. Military skills and technology mattered less than commerce, literature, drama, poetry, painting, crafts, or charitable pursuits. Here the Mongols, their lust for conquest for its own sake apparent to all, confronted a superior civilization, and their response was paradoxical yet predictable: they emulated those whom they conquered, hoping to rise to the level of their subjects. The result was the most civilized and elegant of war zones.
MARCO SAMPLED the temptations offered by the numerous “boats and barges” skimming across the surface of West Lake, “for enjoyment and to give one’s self pleasure; and in these there can stay ten, fifteen, and twenty, and more persons, because they are fifteen to twenty paces long with broad and flat bottoms, so that they sail without rocking on either side.”
The exquisite West Lake vista resulted from centuries of careful maintenance. Nine miles in circumference, and only nine feet deep, the lake served as the focal point for the city, the quintessential Chinese landscape, and the inspiration for countless works of art. It symbolized the soul of China, and was guarded like the national treasure that it was. Military patrols, unmentioned by Marco but noted in other sources, conducted constant surveillance of West Lake to maintain tranquility and hygiene, lest it become fouled with spoiled food and waste. It was strictly forbidden to deposit refuse in the lake, or even to attempt to cultivate common plants such as the lotus or water chestnut. As Marco, or any other pleasure seeker, floated out on the water of West Lake, the crowded city receded, and the surrounding mountains loomed ever larger, while the eye was constantly drawn to the striking pagoda erected on Thunder Point three hundred years before Marco’s arrival. This soaring octagonal tower, 170 feet high, seemed to connect Heaven and earth.
The idyllic setting served as the perfect backdrop for the women of Quinsai. “Every one who likes to enjoy himself with women or with his companions takes one of the boats,” Marco notes. And the boats are “always kept adorned with beautiful seats and tables and with all the other furniture necessary for making a feast.” In his description, they resemble the elegant gondolas plying the canals of Venice, only grander, and more luxurious. “Above, they are covered and flat, where men stand with poles that they stick into the ground (for the