Marco Polo - Laurence Bergreen [137]
AHMAD’S INFLUENCE waned in 1264, when his followers became involved in a violent melee that, from a distance, resembled an insurrection. The resulting scandal shook the Yüan dynasty to its foundations. Ahmad was tried, found guilty of being unable to control his followers, and punished with a severe beating. In the khan’s uproarious court, corporal punishment in the form of canings and beatings was standard procedure for disciplining government officials, the Mongol equivalent of a censure or reprimand.
The irrepressible Ahmad rebounded from this humiliation to win an appointment as the chief of a new agency, the Office for Regulating State Expenditure. Once again he was in his element, issuing official complaints about the poor quality of linen produced in Manchuria and the inadequacy of the gold and silver foundries of Chen-ting and Shun-t’ien. Having learned of the production of asbestos, as reported by Marco Polo, the agency dispatched officials to nationalize the asbestos industry. Ahmad’s approach was stark: the Mongol government would take the lion’s share of everything. Indeed, no new source of potential revenue was too small to escape his notice. When he learned that silver was being mined in a remote location in the district of Shang-tu, he recommended that tin, an inexpensive by-product of the smelting process, should be sold, and the revenue paid directly to the government.
All the while, Ahmad schemed to consolidate his power. In 1270, Kublai appointed him director of political affairs for a new council directing the empire’s finances in the face of intense opposition from a coalition of respected Mongol and Chinese opponents, including Hsü Heng, a revered scholar and bureaucrat. Ahmad had his way again, and once he secured this post, he skillfully played on the divisions among his political enemies. Confronted with the prospect of another inquiry and beating, he deflected the blame to a lesser official, who became the scapegoat.
Wielding more influence than ever, he now presided over a growing ménage of four wives and forty concubines, not quite enough to overshadow his master’s retinue, but an impressive demonstration of the status he enjoyed. At the same time, he secured a prestigious post for his son Husain, as if laying the groundwork for a rival dynasty.
WHEN MARCO POLO first arrived at the Mongol court, all the elements of Ahmad’s financial control and Kublai Khan’s military conquests appeared to mesh flawlessly.
In January of 1275, Mongol forces ranged along the Yangtze River and put the remnants of the Song dynasty’s army to flight. Kublai Khan, his brain trust of Chinese scholars, and Ahmad met regularly to discuss the prospect of harvesting the wealth of the new additions to the empire. At issue was the matter of currency. Ahmad, renowned as a skillful debater, was in favor of replacing Song currency with the paper currency recently disseminated by the Yüan dynasty. Chinese officials argued that the Mongol commander, Bayan, had just promised the conquered region that Song currency would continue to circulate under Mongol control. They insisted that if Kublai Khan ordered otherwise, the Mongols would lose credibility. The Chinese wise men disagreed among themselves about the best course, and Ahmad, exploiting their dissension, prevailed. Yüan currency flooded the conquered Song territories, and to make matters worse, Ahmad imposed a punitive rate of exchange of fifty to one in favor of Yüan notes. At a stroke, the Chinese economy for the region was dismantled.
Once he had won this victory over Kublai Khan’s Chinese advisers, Ahmad maneuvered to reduce their influence at court. He ended the longstanding Mongol policy of free trade and local taxes in favor of imposing onerous central taxation. He replaced Chinese officials, whom he feared and distrusted, with Muslims. He took his lead from Kublai Khan, who relied on skilled foreigners to help administer the realm. Ahmad, for his part, made it seductively easy for Kublai Khan to rely on him to