Marco Polo - Laurence Bergreen [130]
Coveting Çipingu’s treasure, Kublai Khan “wished to have it taken and subjected to his rule,” no matter how difficult that would be to accomplish. At first he tested the resolve of the Japanese by dispatching emissaries to the shogun regent, Hojo Tokimune, to demand that the Japanese pay taxes to the distant, unseen Kublai Khan. Not surprisingly, the incredulous Japanese court spurned them. Redoubling his efforts, Kublai Khan launched an invasion—in 1274, but the sea posed hazards for which the Mongols were not equipped. The fleet made landfall on Kyushu Island; the warriors disembarked and set about destroying villages and a holy shrine. After the Mongol forces returned to their ships, a devastating storm assaulted the fleet, claiming thirteen thousand lives.
Kublai Khan responded to the loss by stubbornly sending another delegation, demanding peaceful surrender. This time, the Japanese executed the entire delegation. Expecting the worst, they then dispatched an army of samurai to Kyushu. The samurai spent five years building a stone wall to repel the next Mongol invasion, should it ever come.
DESPITE ALL THE SETBACKS, Kublai remained determined to conquer Çipingu. In keeping with his practice of sharing authority with various ethnic groups in his empire, he relied on three military leaders, one Mongol, Hsin-tu; one Chinese, Fan Wen-hu; and one Korean, Hong Tagu, the commander in chief. He committed 100,000 warriors representing a coalition of Mongol, Chinese, and Korean forces, as well as paper money and armor. He amplified these resources with still more arms and with ships in such quantities that his demands drew complaints from suppliers, who strained to fill his orders for weaponry.
The triumvirate of leaders adopted a sophisticated strategy for the assault, relying on two separate forces, which would eventually merge into one army of conquest. At the same time, the Chinese became preoccupied with premonitions that the heavens opposed the expedition. Omens proliferated; there were reports of a sea serpent, and of seawater reeking of sulphur. Amid the insecurity, the commanders disagreed with one another, and the Chinese fleet failed to appear as scheduled. Unwilling to wait any longer, the Mongol invasion force began its attack on June 10, 1281.
TWO WEEKS LATER, the fleet approached Kyushu and made landfall close to the wall built by the Japanese to repel invaders. The Chinese arrived late, planning to join forces with the Mongols and Koreans. During the ensuing weeks, the Japanese confidently fought the invaders to a standstill. The wall frustrated the Mongol armies, as intended, and Japanese troops killed as many members of the disorganized invading force as they could before retreating to safety. The Mongol and Chinese military leaders became embroiled in distracting disputes; by some accounts, the Chinese, who had little sympathy for the Mongol invasion of Japan, failed to muster a properly warlike attitude.
All of these events were known to Marco, at least in their rough outlines, and he narrates them molto agitato.
Kublai Khan dispatched “two of his most famous barons with a very great number of ships and men on horses and on foot” on a naval expedition that quickly came to grief, as Marco explains. The barons sailed from Hangzhou, and after “many days” at sea, their fleet reached the island nation. Disembarking, the barons and their men explored the plain stretching before them, and then ravaged defenseless hamlets in the name of Kublai Khan. “They took many men in a castle that they took by storm on that island, and because they [the Japanese forces] had not been willing to give themselves up, the two barons commanded that they all be killed and that the heads of all should be cut off…except those of eight men…who, being in the hands of the Tartars and being struck with many blows of the sword, there was no way that they could kill them.”
The Mongols paused in amazement at their captives’ defiant