It is a very curious circumstance that the historian Wassáf also appears to represent Saianfu (see note 5, ch. lxv.) as holding out after all the rest of Manzi had been conquered. Yet the Chinese annals are systematic, minute, and consequent, and it seems impossible to attribute to them such a misplacement of an event which they represent as the key to the conquest of Southern China. In comparing Marco’s story with that of the Chinese, we find the same coincidence in prominent features, accompanying a discrepancy in details, that we have had occasion to notice in other cases where his narrative intersects history. The Chinese account runs as follows:— In 1271, after Siang-yang and Fan-ch’eng had held out already nearly three years, an Uighúr General serving at the siege, whose name was Alihaiya, urged the Emperor to send to the West for engineers expert at the construction and working of machines casting stones of 150 lbs. weight. With such aid he assured Kúblái the place would speedily be taken. Kúblái sent to his nephew Ábáká in Persia for such engineers, and two were accordingly sent post to China, _Alawating_ of Mufali and his pupil Ysemain of Huli or Hiulie (probably _Ala’uddin_ of _Miafaraḳain_ and _Ismael_ of _Heri_ or Herat). Kúblái on their arrival gave them military rank. They exhibited their skill before the Emperor at Tatu, and in the latter part of 1272 they reached the camp before Siang-yang, and set up their engines. The noise made by the machines, and the crash of the shot as it broke through everything in its fall, caused great alarm in the garrison. Fan-ch’eng was first taken by assault, and some weeks later Siang-yang surrendered. The shot used on this occasion weighed 125 Chinese pounds (if _catties_, then equal to about 166 _lbs. avoird._), and penetrated 7 or 8 feet into the earth. Rashiduddin also mentions the siege of Siang-yang, as we learn from D’Ohsson. He states that as there were in China none of the _Manjaníks_ or Mangonels called _Kumghá_, the Kaan caused a certain engineer to be sent from Damascus or Balbek, and the three sons of this person, Abubakr, Ibrahim, and Mahomed, with their workmen, constructed seven great Manjaníks which were employed against SAYANFU, a frontier fortress and bulwark of Manzi. We thus see that three different notices of the siege of Siang-yang, Chinese, Persian, and Venetian, all concur as to the employment of foreign engineers from the West, but all differ as to the individuals. We have seen that one of the MSS. makes Polo assert that till this event the Mongols and Chinese were totally ignorant of mangonels and trebuchets. This, however, is quite untrue; and it is not very easy to reconcile even the statement, implied in all versions of the story, that mangonels of considerable power were unknown in the far East, with other circumstances related in Mongol history.