to “finish off” the southern provinces of China.  It may not be generally known, but it is a fact that Bayen himself, in the late autumn of 1273, had been originally destined for the Japanese expedition, and the prisoners captured at the first attack on Siaag-yang Fu (Marco Polo’s Sa-yan Fu) had already been handed over to him for service in Japan.  The Mongol history also gives a full copy of the letter sent to Japan on this occasion.  In it Kublai expresses his surprise at the persistent ignoring by Japan of his successive missions; he charitably suggests that “perhaps the fresh troubles and revolutions in Corea, which have now once more been settled, are more to blame than your own deliberate intentions.”  The menace of war was a little stronger than in the letter of 1266, but was still decently veiled and somewhat guarded.  Before starting, the Manchu had requested that the etiquette to be observed at his audience with the ruler might be laid down.  The cabinet council, to be on the safe side, advised:  “As the relative ranks prevailing in the country are unknown to us, we have no definite etiquette to specify.”  On the other hand, both Kublai and his ministers were much too sharp to believe in the power of the “guard-house west of the Dazai Fu,” and they came to the sensible conclusion that the Japanese “envoys” were simply war-spies sent by the supreme Japanese government itself.

Chinese history does not explain why, amid the conflicting counsels exposed above, and others mentioned in biographical chapters, Kublai decided to attack Japan at the very moment when Bayen was marching upon South China; but, anyway, during the year 1274, large numbers of Manchus were raised for service in Japan, and placed under General Hung. (Sani-chin may perhaps stand for the Chinese word Tsiang-chun, or “general.”) It appears that, toward the end of that year, fifteen thousand men in nine hundred ships made a raid upon some point in Japan; but, although “a victory” is claimed, no details whatever are given beyond the facts that “our army showed a lack of order; the arrows were exhausted; we achieved nothing beyond plundering.”  The three islands raided were Tsushima, Iki, and one I cannot identify, described in Chinese as I-man.

The Japanese annals confirm the attack upon Tsushima and Iki, adding that the enemy slew all the males and carried off all the females in the two islands, but were unsuccessful in their advance upon the Dazai Fu.  The enemy’s general, Liu Fu-heng, was slain; the enemy numbered thirty thousand.  The slain officer was, perhaps, a relative of Liu T’ung, who served again in China.

In the year 1275 two more envoys bearing Chinese names were sent with letters to Japan, “but they also got no reply.”  The Japanese annals confirm this, and add that “they came to discuss terms of peace, but their envoy, Tu Shi-chung—­whose name corresponds—­was decapitated.”  This is true, but he was not decapitated until 1280, and, as is well known to competent students, Japanese history is always open to suspicion when it conflicts with Chinese, and too often “touches up” from Chinese.