Asia -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Mongols -- History; Polo, Marco, 1254-1323?; Voyages and travels
[“The inventory, records, etc., of Kinsai, mentioned by Marco Polo,
as also the letter from the old empress, are undoubted facts:
complete stock was taken, and 5,692,656 souls were added to the
population (in the two Chêh alone). The Emperor surrendered in
person to Bayan a few days after his official surrender, which
took place on the 18th day of the 1st moon in 1276. Bayan took the
Emperor to see Kúblái.” (_E. H. Parker, China Review_, XXIV. p.
105.)—H. C.]
In 1293, enemies tried to poison the emperor’s ear against Bayan,
and they seemed to have succeeded; for Kúblái despatched his heir,
the Prince Teimur, to supersede him in the frontier command.
Bayan beat Kaidu once more, and then made over his command with
characteristic dignity. On his arrival at court, Kúblái received
him with the greatest honour, and named him chief minister of state
and commandant of his guards and the troops about Cambaluc. The
emperor died in the beginning of the next year (1294), and Bayan’s
high position enabled him to take decisive measures for preserving
order, and maintaining Kúblái’s disposition of the succession.
Bayan was raised to still higher dignities, but died at the age of
59, within less than a year of the master whom he had served so
well for 30 years (about January, 1295). After his death, according
to the peculiar Chinese fashion, he received yet further accessions
of dignity.
The language of Chinese historians in speaking of this great man
is thus rendered by De Mailla; it is a noble eulogy of a Tartar
warrior:—
“He was endowed with a lofty genius, and possessed in the highest
measure the art of handling great bodies of troops. When he marched
against the Sung, he directed the movements of 200,000 men with
as much ease and coolness as if there had been but one man under
his orders. All his officers looked up to him as a prodigy; and
having absolute trust in his capacity, they obeyed him with entire
submission. Nobody knew better how to deal with soldiers, or to
moderate their ardour when it carried them too far. He was never
seen sad except when forced to shed blood, for he was sparing even
of the blood of his enemy.... His modesty was not inferior to his
ability.... He would attribute all the honour to the conduct of
his officers, and he was ever ready to extol their smallest feats.
He merited the praises of Chinese as well as Mongols, and both
nations long regretted the loss of this great man.” De Mailla gives
a different account from Rashiduddin and Gaubil, of the manner in
which Bayan first entered the Kaan’s service. (_Gaubil_, 145, 159,
169, 179, 183, 221, 223–224; _Erdmann_, 222–223; _De Mailla_, IX.
335, 458, 461–463.)
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