The Chinese historians relate that Kublai was strongly advised to make the capture of Siang-yang and Fan-ch’eng a preliminary to his intended attack upon the Sung.  The siege was undertaken in the latter part of 1268, and the twin cities held out till the spring [March] of 1273.  Nor did Kublai apparently prosecute any other operations against the Sung during that long interval.

Now Polo represents that the long siege of Saianfu, instead of being a prologue to the subjugation of Manzi, was the protracted epilogue of that enterprise; and he also represents the fall of the place as caused by advice and assistance rendered by his father, his uncle, and himself, a circumstance consistent only with the siege’s having really been such an epilogue to the war.  For, according to the narrative as it stands in all the texts, the Polos could not have reached the Court of Kublai before the end of 1274, i.e. a year and a half after the fall of Siang-yang, as represented in the Chinese histories.

The difficulty is not removed, nor, it appears to me, abated in any degree, by omitting the name of Marco as one of the agents in this affair, an omission which occurs both in Pauthier’s MS. B and in Ramusio.  Pauthier suggests that the father and uncle may have given the advice and assistance in question when on their first visit to the Kaan, and when the siege of Siang-yang was first contemplated.  But this would be quite inconsistent with the assertion that the place had held out three years longer than the rest of Manzi, as well as with the idea that their aid had abridged the duration of the siege, and, in fact, with the spirit of the whole story.  It is certainly very difficult in this case to justify Marco’s veracity, but I am very unwilling to believe that there was no justification in the facts.

It is a very curious circumstance that the historian Wassaf 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 Uighur 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 Kublai the place would speedily be taken.  Kublai sent to his nephew Abaka in Persia for such engineers, and two were accordingly sent post to China, Alawating