Marco Polo - Laurence Bergreen [15]
Outnumbered by their subjects, the Mongols had become heavily dependent on foreigners to administer sensitive aspects of running the empire, especially tax collection. The foreigners came from across Asia and Europe, and among their number were Genoese and Venetians, Jews and Muslims, Uighurs, Russians, and Persians. To lessen corruption, and to preserve their identity amid the overwhelming number of Chinese, the Mongols enforced segregation. The Chinese whom they ruled were not permitted to learn the Mongol tongue; nor could they bear arms or marry Mongols.
NATURAL HARDSHIPS made travel along the Silk Road an ordeal. Marco mentions snows and swollen rivers and floods impeding the expedition’s progress. But the Polo brothers recovered their poise and sense of purpose when they met the leader of the Mongols.
Everything about Kublai Khan took them by surprise: his elaborate courteousness, so unlike the savagery for which the Mongols were notorious; his curiosity concerning Italy and Christianity; and his receptiveness to doing business. And Kublai Khan, for his part, was pleased that these two representatives of a different culture were able to converse in his own language.
Marco insists that his father and uncle were the “first Latins”—that is, Christians—“to visit that country,” and as such “were entertained with feasts and other marks of distinction,” but this assertion has long been open to question. A handful of European travelers, including missionaries and knights, had preceded them to the Mongol court, and some left detailed records of their travels. The Polo brothers, cut off from the mainstream of commerce for years on end, were likely unaware of those who had come before, and believed they were, in fact, the first Europeans to meet the most powerful ruler alive.
During their feasts, Kublai Khan probed his exotic visitors for intelligence about the “western parts of the world, the Emperor of the Romans, and other Christian kings and princes.” In particular, the Mongol leader wished to be informed of those rulers’ “relative importance, their possessions, the manner in which justice was administered in their kingdoms, and how they conducted themselves in warfare. Above all, he questioned them about the pope, the affairs of the Church, and the religious worship and doctrine of the Christians.” The merchant brothers were hardly experts on such complex subjects, but according to Marco, they supplied “appropriate answers on all these points in the Mongol language, with which they were perfectly acquainted.” Kublai Khan was so gratified that he summoned them repeatedly for conferences on the state of Christendom.
Once he had debriefed Niccolò and Maffeo, and developed a close rapport with them, Kublai Khan decided to deploy them as double agents; henceforth, they would serve him as ambassadors to the West, and, in particular, to the pope. Skillful at diplomacy, the Great Khan couched his plan in flattery, or, as Marco puts it, “many kind entreaties that they should accompany one of his barons”—as the khans called their loyal vassals—“named Kogatal on a mission to the Pope.”
The brothers hesitated before accepting the overwhelming assignment. “It is a great while since we left those parts,” they reminded the Great Khan, “and we do not know what may have happened or been done, because conditions of those lands are changed, and we are much afraid that we cannot fulfill thy commandment.” Nevertheless, they agreed—or were made to do so.
In an official communiqué to the pope, Kublai Khan demanded the presence of “as many as a hundred wise men of learning in the Christian religion and doctrine, and who should know also the seven arts and be fitted to teach his