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Volume 3: A blow of destiny, the king appears Chapter 54 Documents

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    When the two brothers returned to Italy, the Eighth Crusade had just ended and the Ninth Crusade was being planned.  After receiving Pope Gregory X's reply to Kublai Khan, he set off to return to China in 1271.  This time Niccol¨° brought his son Marco.

    They took a boat from Venice to land on the southern shore of the Black Sea, and then traveled overland to reach Yuan Shangdu (Kaiping) in 1275, and then arrived at Dadu (Beijing).

    Marco Polo¡¯s intelligence has always been very popular with Kublai Khan, who granted him many official titles and sent him to various places as the envoy of the Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty.  Marco Polo visited many places in China and saw many cultural achievements that were more advanced than those in Europe.

    Before Marco Polo left for Europe, Franciscan Father Mengovino was sent by Pope Nicholas IV and arrived in Quanzhou, China by sea in 1291.

    In 1292, Marco Polo and his father and uncle were entrusted by Kublai Khan to escort the Mongolian princess Kokozhen by sea from Quanzhou to the Ilkhanate to get married.  Kublai Khan promised them that after completing their mission, they could return home.  In 1295, the Polo family returned to Europe.

    "The Travels of Marco Polo"

    After the Polo family returned to Europe, they settled in Venice.  Local people like to come and listen to their stories about their experiences in China, but most of them don't believe the strange people and strange things they say.

    In 1298, Marco Polo participated in the naval battle between Venice and Genoa.  He was defeated and captured, and spent several months in prison telling his fellow prisoners his experiences in China.

    Rustichen¡¯s book was in Proven?al and was quickly translated into other European languages ??after publication.  Because Marco Polo always talked about millions of this and millions of that when describing his experiences in China and other places to his fellow prisoners, he was called Mr. Millions, and this travelogue was also called (Millions).  .

    In China, Japan and other places, it is called "Marco Polo's Travels", "Oriental Sights and Sounds", etc.  The original book is now lost.  Several translated versions are not exactly the same.  The book was extremely popular and was rare to find in Europe where printing was not available at the time.

    Whether Marco Polo ever visited China has always caused major controversy.  Most modern historians believe that Marco Polo did reach China because he described many details of life in the Far East, such as paper money, the Grand Canal, the Mongol army, coal, liquor, asbestos, tigers, and the structure of the Royal Mail system.

    He mentioned that China¡¯s ancient name for Japan was the first time Japan appeared in Western literature; the bridge he described near Dadu also looked more like the Marco Polo Bridge.

    In the late Qing Dynasty, a British archaeological expedition team was influenced by Marco Polo's travel notes and went to Xinjiang to verify some villages that once existed somewhere in the Taklimakan Desert mentioned in the travel notes.  After many years.  The village had been buried by the desert sand, but the expedition team excavated at the approximate location described in the travel notes and unearthed roofs, tent equipment, clothing materials, daily utensils and other items, proving that Marco Polo's records and statements were correct.

    But some scholars believe that Marco Polo only met a number of Persian merchants in the Black Sea in the Middle East, and heard stories about China, Japan, the Mongol Empire and other places from their mouths.  In fact, I have never been to many countries in the Far East that are thousands of kilometers away from the Black Sea.

    Frances Wood, head of the Chinese Literature Department at the British Library, published "Did Marco Polo Go to China?" in 1995.  ¡±, pointed out that Marco Polo never mentioned Chinese things such as footbinding, chopsticks, and the Great Wall in his travel notes. There is no record of the Marco Polo family¡¯s direct connection with China in official Chinese documents. There is not even any items from China in his family property.  objects, so it is speculated that he has never been to China.

    In 2011, Professor Petrella of the University of Naples in Italy presented new evidence, pointing out that there were many unreasonable aspects in Marco Polo's travel notes.

    For example, the description of Kublai Khan¡¯s two attacks on Japan in 1274 and 1281.  There were many contradictions and errors, and the details of the two attacks were confused: Marco Polo said that after the fleet of the first attack left the Korean Peninsula, it was hit by a typhoon before reaching the coast of Japan.  But in fact the fleet encountered a typhoon during the second attack.

    Petrella questioned whether Marco Polo could have confused two events seven years apart if he had witnessed the incident in person.  Petrella also pointed out that Marco Polo's description of the Mongol fleet was inconsistent with the shipwrecks discovered by the archaeological team in Japan: Marco Polo said that the Mongols used five-masted sailing ships, but in fact the ships only had three-masted sailing ships.

    Xiangyang¡¯s artillery offering is a fabrication that is obviously contrary to historical facts.  He claimed that he offered trebuchets to help attack Xiangyang, and the cannons were offered by Ismayin and Alawadin of Persia.  Yuan history and other sources are supported by their biographies.

    In addition, Marco Polo repeatedly described place names and object names in Persian instead of using the language used there: for example, he said that the Mongols used asphalt called lipam to waterproof the hulls of ships, but lipam is actually Persian for asphalt, and Chinese  There is no such word in Mongolian.

    Hans Fu, a professor of Sinology at the University of T¨¹bingen in Germany, wrote in his book "Marco Polo"The book "Through China: New Evidence on Currency, Salt, and Taxation" explains: Many descriptions of China in Marco Polo's biography are unique and very accurate, which is enough to prove their authenticity.

    For example, there is a question about why he never mentioned the Great Wall. There is a consensus among Chinese and Western historical circles that the ancient Great Wall before the Yuan Dynasty was completely dilapidated and no longer attracted attention, and the world-famous Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty had not yet appeared.

    Another example is the question about why there are no records about Marco Polo in the existing Chinese documents. Fu Hansi believes that it is a serious misjudgment of the nature and density of ancient Chinese documents, because even during the same period, Pope Benedict XII sent to China  The special mission has never appeared in Chinese historical documents.

    Fu Hansi believes that Marco Polo's extensive and detailed descriptions of China's currency, salt production and taxation system at that time cannot be found in European, Arabic or Persian documents at the time. This shows that these exclusive descriptions are indeed  From his own experience.

    Marco Polo said in his travel notes that he knew four languages ??when he was in China, including their letters and writing methods, but he did not specify which four languages, thus causing speculation by later generations.  Modern French people believe that Marco Polo knew Chinese, Uighur, Phasi Mongolian and Persian written in Arabic letters.

    However, the famous annotators of "Marco Polo's Travels", the British Yu'er and the French Goldie, deny that Marco Polo knew Chinese.  It is believed that the four languages ??Marco Polo knew should be Mongolian, Persian, Arabic and Turkic (Uyghur), but no Chinese.

    Although Marco Polo's family was not the first Europeans to go to China (the papal envoy Bai Langgui arrived in Harahorin, the capital of the Mongolian Empire in 1246), he is famous for his travel notes, which were also the most detailed Asian travel records of Europeans at that time.  .

    His experiences inspired Columbus and many other travelers.  There are many literary works based on his travel notes.  Marco Polo also influenced map-making in Europe, leading to the Fra Mauro map.

    It is said that Marco Polo brought many things from China to Europe, such as ice cream, pizza, pasta, cheese fondue, glasses, harmonica, kites, and devil sticks.  Documentary and archaeological evidence proves that they existed in Europe before.

    The airport in Venice is now named Marco Polo International Airport.  British Broadcasting Satellite Corporation launched two satellites in 1989, Marco Polo 1 and 2.  The business collapsed and the satellite was sold and renamed.

    ?? 1979, Japanese Animated Animation Chronicle - The Adventures of Marco Polo.

    Hong Kong TV broadcasts "Marco Polo", which takes Marco Polo from 17 to 42 years old. It is a comprehensive broadcast of animations and documentaries. The narration tells the legendary life of Marco Polo which attractions he visited.

    In 1982, the United States and Italy collaborated on a TV series "Marco Polo".

    Michael Yamashita, the exclusive photographer for National Geographic magazine, published the "Marco Polo" photography book and produced three series of TV programs through Marco Polo's experience.
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