Marco Polo - Laurence Bergreen [133]
The kamikaze had done its work, destroying the Mongol fleet, and Kublai Khan’s bold plan ended in humiliation and defeat.
A FEW DAYS LATER, “when the violence of the wind and the fury of the stormy sea was stilled,” the Mongol leaders launched a large-scale operation to rescue “all the men who were of position, namely, captains of hundreds, thousands, and ten thousands.” Not everyone was saved, “there being so many,” and “afterward they departed and set their sails toward home.”
Those survivors who found safety on the island—Marco claims there were thirty thousand souls, but the actual number was but a fraction of that figure—realized they had been abandoned by their own army and they faced a gruesome ordeal. “When they saw themselves on that island in such danger, and they were so near to Çipingu, these all held themselves for dead, having no victuals, or little, saved from the ships, nor arms, nor any good plan, and had great vexation because although they escaped from the storm they were in no less peril, for they see they cannot escape [the island] and come to a safe port because their ships were all wrecked and broken up.” To drive home their desperation, “the ships that escaped the storms of the sea were going off without helping them, with great speed and as fast as they could toward their country, without making any show of turning back to the companions to save and help them.”
The survivors “all held themselves for dead because they did not see in any way how they could escape.”
Japan celebrated as the emperor and his subjects realized that the Divine Wind had destroyed their enemies. They regarded the event as Heaven’s assurance that their nation would remain inviolate, and the emperor’s reign intact.
AS THE STRANDED MONGOLS faced the prospect of a slow death by starvation, their immediate situation worsened. Patrolling the waters off Çipingu, Japanese sailors rescued several Mongols, who revealed that the remainder of their forces had taken refuge on the uninhabited island four miles from Japan’s coast. The Japanese proceeded “straight to the island with a vast number of ships well armed, and with a great multitude of men, and with little order and less wisdom all climb down immediately onto the land to take those remaining on the island. And when the thirty thousand saw their enemies come upon them, they went into a wood near the harbor.” From their hiding places, the Mongols watched the Japanese wander about the island “like those who feared nothing and knew little of such work.” Believing the Mongols were too weak to move or pose a threat, they did not even trouble to leave watchmen on their waiting ships.
There was a hill in the middle of the island, “and when their enemies came hastily to take them,” the Mongol warriors made a pretence of flight. They zigzagged their way across the island until “they came to the ships of their enemies and, not finding them occupied by any of the army, they climbed up there immediately.” To their astonishment, the ships were “empty and unguarded.” Once in possession of the ships, the Mongols “immediately hoisted the sails and left the island and like very valiant men went to the other great island of the enemies.” The desperate Mongols, once given up for dead, effected a stunning reversal of fortune.
ARRIVING AT ÇIPINGU, the Mongols quickly disembarked, as if they were Japanese soldiers; they carried with them “the standards and ensigns of the lord of the island.” In disguise, they marched directly for “the capital city,” where they were taken to be returning soldiers. “So they [the inhabitants] opened the gates and let them enter into the town.”
Once within the city gates, the disguised Mongols “found no men there but [only] old ones and women,” whom they “drove out.” Then they “took the fort as soon as they were in it and chase all people out…except only some