[China was then divided into twelve Sheng or provinces:  Cheng-Tung, Liao-Yang, Chung-Shu, Shen-Si, Ling-Pe (Karakorum), Kan-Suh, Sze-ch’wan, Ho-Nan Kiang-Pe, Kiang-Che, Kiang-Si, Hu-Kwang and Yun-Nan.  Rashiduddin (J.  As., XI. 1883, p. 447) says that of the twelve Sing, Khanbaligh was the only one with Chin-siang.  We read in Morrison’s Dict. (Pt.  II. vol. i. p. 70):  “Chin-seang, a Minister of State, was so called under the Ming Dynasty.”  According to Mr. E. H. Parker (China Review, xxiv. p. 101), Ching Siang were abolished in 1395.  I imagine that the thirty-four provinces refer to the Fu cities, which numbered however thirty-nine, according to Oxenham’s Historical Atlas.—­H.  C.]

(Cathay, 263 seqq. and 137; Mendoza, I. 96; Erdmann, 142; Hammer’s Wassaf, p. 42, but corrected.)

CHAPTER XXVI.

HOW THE KAAN’S POSTS AND RUNNERS ARE SPED THROUGH MANY LANDS AND PROVINCES.

Now you must know that from this city of Cambaluc proceed many roads and highways leading to a variety of provinces, one to one province, another to another; and each road receives the name of the province to which it leads; and it is a very sensible plan.[NOTE 1] And the messengers of the Emperor in travelling from Cambaluc, be the road whichsoever they will, find at every twenty-five miles of the journey a station which they call Yamb,[NOTE 2] or, as we should say, the “Horse-Post-House.”  And at each of those stations used by the messengers, there is a large and handsome building for them to put up at, in which they find all the rooms furnished with fine beds and all other necessary articles in rich silk, and where they are provided with everything they can want.  If even a king were to arrive at one of these, he would find himself well lodged.

At some of these stations, moreover, there shall be posted some four hundred horses standing ready for the use of the messengers; at others there shall be two hundred, according to the requirements, and to what the Emperor has established in each case.  At every twenty-five miles, as I said, or anyhow at every thirty miles, you find one of these stations, on all the principal highways leading to the different provincial governments; and the same is the case throughout all the chief provinces subject to the Great Kaan.[NOTE 3] Even when the messengers have to pass through a roadless tract where neither house nor hostel exists, still there the station-houses have been established just the same, excepting that the intervals are somewhat greater, and the day’s journey is fixed at thirty-five to forty-five miles, instead of twenty-five to thirty.  But they are provided with horses and all the other necessaries just like those we have described, so that the Emperor’s messengers, come they from what region they may, find everything ready for them.