Asia -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Mongols -- History; Polo, Marco, 1254-1323?; Voyages and travels
[In the _Yuen-shi_ (ch. 94), _Shi po_, Maritime trade regulations,
it “is stated, among other things, that in 1277, a superintendency
of foreign trade was established in Ts’uän-chou. Another
superintendency was established for the three ports of K’ing-yüan
(the present Ning-po), Shang-hai, and Gan-p’u. These three ports
depended on the province of Fu-kien, the capital of which was
Ts’üan-chou. Farther on, the ports of Hang-chou and Fu-chou are
also mentioned in connection with foreign trade. Chang-chou (in
Fu-kien, near Amoy) is only once spoken of there. We meet further
the names of Wen-chou and Kuang-chou as seaports for foreign
trade in the Mongol time. But Ts’üan-chou in this article on the
sea-trade seems to be considered as the most important of the
seaports, and it is repeatedly referred to. I have, therefore,
no doubt that the port of Zayton of Western mediæval travellers
can only be identified with Ts’uän-chou, not with Chang-chou....
There are many other reasons found in Chinese works in favour of
this view. Gan-p’u of the _Yuen-shi_ is the seaport Ganfu of Marco
Polo.” (_Bretschneider, Med. Res._ I. pp. 186–187.)
In his paper on _Changchow, the Capital of Fuhkien in Mongol
Times_, printed in the _Jour. China B. R. A. Soc._ 1888, pp. 22–30,
Mr. Geo. Phillips from Chinese works has shown that the Port of
Chang-chau did, in Mongol times, alternate with Chinchew and
Fu-chau as the capital of Fuh-kien.—H. C.]
Further, Zayton was, as we see from this chapter, and from the
2nd and 5th of Bk. III., in that age the great focus and harbour
of communication with India and the Islands. From Zayton sailed
Kúblái’s ill-fated expedition against Japan. From Zayton Marco
Polo seems to have sailed on his return to the West, as did John
Marignolli some half century later. At Zayton Ibn Batuta first
landed in China, and from it he sailed on his return.
All that we find quoted from Chinese records regarding
_T’swan-chau_ corresponds to these Western statements regarding
_Zayton_. For centuries T’swan-chau was the seat of the Customs
Department of Fo-kien, nor was this finally removed till 1473.
In all the historical notices of the arrival of ships and
missions from India and the Indian Islands during the reign of
Kúblái, T’swan-chau, and T’swan-chau almost alone, is the port of
debarkation; in the notices of Indian regions in the annals of the
same reign it is from T’swan-chau that the distances are estimated;
it was from T’swan-chau that the expeditions against Japan and Java
were mainly fitted out. (See quotations by Pauthier, pp. 559, 570,
604, 653, 603, 643; _Gaubil_, 205, 217; _Deguignes_, III. 169, 175,
180, 187; _Chinese Recorder_ (Foochow), 1870, pp. 45 _seqq._)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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