Chapter LXX

CONCERNING THE VERY NOBLE CITY OF SAIANFU, AND HOW ITS
CAPTURE WAS EFFECTED.

Saianfu is a very great and noble city, and it rules over twelve other large and rich cities, and is itself a seat of great trade and manufacture. The people are Idolaters (and so forth). They have much silk, from which they weave fine silken stuffs; they have also a quantity of game, and in short the city abounds in all that it behoves a noble city to possess.

Now you must know that this city held out against the Great Kaan for three years after the rest of Manzi had surrendered. The Great Kaan’s troops made incessant attempts to take it, but they could not succeed because of the great and deep waters that were round about it, so that they could approach from one side only, which was the north. And I tell you they never would have taken it, but for a circumstance that I am going to relate.

You must know that when the Great Kaan’s host had lain three years before the city without being able to take it, they were greatly chafed thereat. Then Messer Nicolo Polo and Messer Maffeo and Messer Marco said: “We could find you a way of forcing the city to surrender speedily;” whereupon those of the army replied, that they would be right glad to know how that should be. All this talk took place in the presence of the Great Kaan. For messengers had been despatched from the camp to tell him that there was no taking the city by blockade, for it continually received supplies of victual from those sides which they were unable to invest; and the Great Kaan had sent back word that take it they must, and find a way how. Then spoke up the two brothers and Messer Marco the son, and said: “Great Prince, we have with us among our followers men who are able to construct mangonels which shall cast such great stones that the garrison will never be able to stand them, but will surrender incontinently, as soon as the mangonels or trebuchets shall have shot into the town.”{1}

The Kaan bade them with all his heart have such mangonels made as speedily as possible. Now Messer Nicolo and his brother and his son immediately caused timber to be brought, as much as they desired, and fit for the work in hand. And they had two men among their followers, a German and a Nestorian Christian, who were masters of that business, and these they directed to construct two or three mangonels capable of casting stones of 300 lbs. weight. Accordingly they made three fine mangonels, each of which cast stones of 300 lbs. weight and more.{2} And when they were complete and ready for use, the Emperor and the others were greatly pleased to see them, and caused several stones to be shot in their presence; whereat they marvelled greatly and greatly praised the work. And the Kaan ordered that the engines should be carried to his army which was at the leaguer of Saianfu.{3}

And when the engines were got to the camp they were forthwith set up, to the great admiration of the Tartars. And what shall I tell you? When the engines were set up and put in gear, a stone was shot from each of them into the town. These took effect among the buildings, crashing and smashing through everything with huge din and commotion. And when the townspeople witnessed this new and strange visitation they were so astonished and dismayed that they wist not what to do or say. They took counsel together, but no counsel could be suggested how to escape from these engines, for the thing seemed to them to be done by sorcery. They declared that they were all dead men if they yielded not, so they determined to surrender on such conditions as they could get.{4} Wherefore they straightway sent word to the commander of the army that they were ready to surrender on the same terms as the other cities of the province had done, and to become the subjects of the Great Kaan; and to this the captain of the host consented.

So the men of the city surrendered, and were received to terms; and this all came about through the exertions of Messer Nicolo, and Messer Maffeo, and Messer Marco; and it was no small matter. For this city and province is one of the best that the Great Kaan possesses, and brings him in great revenues.{5}

NOTE 1.—Pauthier’s MS. C. here says: “When the Great Kaan, and the
Barons about him, and the messengers from the camp ... heard this,
they all marvelled greatly; for I tell you that in all those parts
they know nothing of mangonels or trebuchets; and they were so far
from being accustomed to employ them in their wars that they had
never even seen them, nor knew what they were.” The MS. in question
has in this narrative several statements peculiar to itself,[1]
as indeed it has in various other passages of the book; and these
often look very like the result of revision by Polo himself. Yet
I have not introduced the words just quoted into our text, because
they are, as we shall see presently, notoriously contrary to fact.

NOTE 2.—The same MS. has here a passage which I am unable to
understand. After the words “300 lbs. and more,” it goes on: “Et
la veoit l’en voler moult loing, desquelles pierres _il en y avoit
plus de_ lx _routes qui tant montoit l’une comme l’autre_.” The Bern
has the same. [Perhaps we might read lx _en routes_, viz. on their
way.—H. C.]

NOTE 3.—I propose here to enter into some detailed explanation
regarding the military engines that were in use in the Middle
Ages.[2] None of these depended for their motive force on _torsion_
like the chief engines used in classic times. However numerous
the names applied to them, with reference to minor variations in
construction or differences in power, they may all be reduced
to two classes, viz. _great slings_ and _great crossbows_. And
this is equally true of all the three great branches of mediæval
civilisation—European, Saracenic, and Chinese. To the first class
belonged the _Trebuchet_ and _Mangonel_; to the second, the
_Winch-Arblast_ (Arbalète à Tour), _Springold_ etc.

Whatever the ancient _Balista_ may have been, the word in mediæval
Latin seems always to mean some kind of crossbow. The heavier
crossbows were wound up by various aids, such as winches, ratchets,
etc. They discharged stone shot, leaden bullets, and short,
square-shafted arrows called _quarrels_, and these with such force
we are told as to pierce a six-inch post (?). But they were worked
so slowly in the field that they were no match for the long-bow,
which shot five or six times to their once. The great machines
of this kind were made of wood, of steel, and very frequently of
horn;[3] and the bow was sometimes more than 30 feet in length.
Dufour calculates that such a machine could shoot an arrow of half
a kilogram in weight to a distance of about 860 yards.

The _Trebuchet_ consisted of a long tapering shaft or beam, pivoted
at a short distance from the butt end on a pair of strong pyramidal
trestles. At the other end of the shaft a sling was applied, one
cord of which was firmly attached by a ring, whilst the other hung
in a loop over an iron hook which formed the extremity of the
shaft. The power employed to discharge the sling was either the
strength of a number of men, applied to ropes which were attached
to the short end of the shaft or lever, or the weight of a heavy
counterpoise hung from the same, and suddenly released.

Supposing the latter force to be employed, the long end of the
shaft was drawn down by a windlass; the sling was laid forward in
a wooden trough provided for it, and charged with the shot. The
counterpoise was, of course, now aloft, and was so maintained by a
detent provided with a trigger. On pulling this, the counterpoise
falls and the shaft flies upwards drawing the sling. When a certain
point is reached the loop end of the sling releases itself from the
hook, and the sling flies abroad whilst the shot is projected in
its parabolic flight.[4] To secure the most favourable result the
shot should have acquired its maximum velocity, and should escape
at an angle of about 45°. The attainment of this required certain
proportions between the different dimensions of the machine and
the weight of the shot, for which, doubtless, traditional rules of
thumb existed among the mediæval engineers.

The ordinary shot consisted of stones carefully rounded. But
for these were substituted on occasion rough stones with fuses
attached,[5] pieces of red-hot iron, pots of fused metal, or casks
full of Greek fire or of foul matter to corrupt the air of the
besieged place. Thus carrion was shot into Negropont from such
engines by Mahomed II. The Cardinal Octavian, besieging Modena in
1249, slings a dead ass into the town. Froissart several times
mentions such measures, as at the siege of Thin l’Evêque on the
Scheldt in 1340, when “the besiegers by their engines flung dead
horses and other carrion into the castle to poison the garrison by
their smell.” In at least one instance the same author tells how a
living man, an unlucky messenger from the Castle of Auberoche, was
caught by the besiegers, thrust into the sling with the letters
that he bore hung round his neck, and shot into Auberoche, where
he fell dead among his horrified comrades. And Lipsius quotes
from a Spanish Chronicle the story of a virtuous youth, Pelagius,
who, by order of the Tyrant Abderramin, was shot across the
Guadalquivir, but lighted unharmed upon the rocks beyond. Ramon
de Muntaner relates how King James of Aragon, besieging Majorca
in 1228, vowed vengeance against the Saracen King because he shot
Christian prisoners into the besiegers’ camp with his trebuchets
(pp. 223–224). We have mentioned one kind of corruption propagated
by these engines; the historian Wassáf tells of another. When
the garrison of Dehli refused to open the gates to Aláuddin
Khilji after the murder of his uncle, Firúz (1296), he loaded his
mangonels with bags of gold and shot them into the fort, a measure
which put an end to the opposition.

Ibn Batuta, forty years later, describes Mahomed Tughlak as
entering Dehli accompanied by elephants carrying small _balistae_
(_ra’ádát_), from which gold and silver pieces were shot among the
crowd. And the same king, when he had given the crazy and cruel
order that the population of Dehli should evacuate the city and
depart to Deogir, 900 miles distant, having found two men skulking
behind, one of whom was paralytic and the other blind, caused the
former to be shot from a mangonel. (_I. B._ III. 395, 315.)

Some old drawings represent the shaft as discharging the shot
from a kind of spoon at its extremity, without the aid of a sling
(_e.g._ fig. 13); but it may be doubted if this was actually used,
for the sling was essential to the efficiency of the engine. The
experiments and calculations of Dufour show that without the sling,
other things remaining the same, the range of the shot would be
reduced by more than a half.

In some of these engines the counterpoise, consisting of a timber
case filled with stones, sand, or the like, was permanently
fixed to the butt-end of the shaft. This seems to have been the
_Trebuchet_ proper. In others the counterpoise hung free on a pivot
from the yard; whilst a third kind (as in fig. 17) combined both
arrangements. The first kind shot most steadily and truly; the
second with more force.

Those machines, in which the force of men pulling cords took the
place of the counterpoise, could not discharge such weighty shot,
but they could be worked more rapidly, and no doubt could be made
of lighter scantling. Mr. Hewitt points out a curious resemblance
between this kind of Trebuchet and the apparatus used on the Thames
to raise the cargo from the hold of a collier.

The Emperor Napoleon deduces from certain passages in mediæval
writers that the _Mangonel_ was similar to the Trebuchet, but
of lighter structure and power. But often certainly the term
Mangonel seems to be used generically for all machines of this
class. Marino Sanudo uses no word but _Machina_, which he appears
to employ as the Latin equivalent of _Mangonel_, whilst the machine
which he describes is a Trebuchet with moveable counterpoise. The
history of the word appears to be the following. The Greek word
μάγγανον, “a piece of witchcraft,” came to signify a juggler’s
trick, an unexpected contrivance (in modern slang “_a jim_”), and
so specially a military engine. It seems to have reached this
specific meaning by the time of Hero the Younger, who is believed
to have written in the first half of the 7th century. From the
form μαγγανικὸν the Orientals got _Manganíḳ_ and _Manjániḳ_,[6]
whilst the Franks adopted _Mangona_ and _Mangonella_. Hence the
verbs _manganare_ and _amanganare_, to batter and crush with such
engines, and eventually our verb “to mangle.” Again, when the use
of gunpowder rendered these warlike engines obsolete, perhaps their
ponderous counterweights were utilised in the peaceful arts of
the laundry, and hence gave us our substantive “the Mangle” (It.
_Mangano_)!

The Emperor Napoleon, when Prince President, caused some
interesting experiments in the matter of mediæval artillery to
be carried out at Vincennes, and a full-sized trebuchet was
constructed there. With a shaft of 33 feet 9 inches in length,
having a permanent counterweight of 3300 lbs. and a pivoted
counterweight of 6600 lbs. more, the utmost effect attained
was the discharge of an iron 24-kilo. shot to a range of 191
yards, whilst a 12½-inch shell, filled with earth, ranged to 131
yards. The machine suffered greatly at each discharge, and it
was impracticable to increase the counterpoise to 8000 kilos.,
or 17,600 lbs. as the Prince desired. It was evident that the
machine was not of sufficiently massive structure. But the
officers in charge satisfied themselves that, with practice in
such constructions and the use of very massive timber, even the
exceptional feats recorded of mediæval engineers might be realised.

Such a case is that cited by Quatremère, from an Oriental author,
of the discharge of stones weighing 400 _mans_, certainly not
less than 800 lbs., and possibly much more; or that of the Men
of Bern, who are reported, when besieging Nidau in 1388, to have
employed trebuchets which shot daily into the town upwards of 200
blocks weighing 12 cwt. apiece.[7] Stella relates that the Genoese
armament sent against Cyprus, in 1373, among other great machines
had one called _Troja_ (_Truia_?), which cast stones of 12 to 18
hundredweights; and when the Venetians were besieging the revolted
city of Zara in 1346, their Engineer, Master Francesco delle
Barche, shot into the city stones of 3000 lbs. weight.[8] In this
case the unlucky engineer was “hoist with his own petard,” for
while he stood adjusting one of his engines, it went off, and shot
him into the town.

With reference to such cases the Emperor calculates that a stone
of 3000 lbs. weight might be shot 77 yards with a counterpoise of
36,000 lbs. weight, and a shaft 65 feet long. The counterpoise,
composed of stone shot of 55 lbs. each, might be contained in a
cubical case of about 5½ feet to the side. The machine would be
preposterous, but there is nothing impossible about it. Indeed
in the Album of Villard de Honnecourt, an architect of the 13th
century, which was published at Paris in 1858, in the notes
accompanying a plan of a trebuchet (from which Professor Willis
restored the machine as it is shown in our fig. 19), the artist
remarks: “It is a great job to heave down the beam, for the
counterpoise is very heavy. For it consists of a chest full of
earth which is 2 great toises in length, 8 feet in breadth, and 12
feet in depth”! (p. 203).

Such calculations enable us to understand the enormous quantities
of material said to have been used in some of the larger mediæval
machines. Thus Abulfeda speaks of one used at the final capture of
Acre, which was entrusted to the troops of Hamath, and which formed
a load for 100 carts, of which one was in charge of the historian
himself. The romance of Richard Cœur de Lion tells how in the
King’s Fleet an entire ship was taken up by one such machine with
its gear:—

“Another schyp was laden yet
With an engyne hyghte Robinet,
(It was Richardys o mangonel)
And all the takyl that thereto fel.”

Twenty-four machines, captured from the Saracens by St. Lewis
in his first partial success on the Nile, afforded material for
stockading his whole camp. A great machine which cumbered the
Tower of St. Paul at Orléans, and was dismantled previous to the
celebrated defence against the English, furnished 26 cart-loads of
timber. (_Abulf. Ann. Muslem_, V. 95–97; _Weber_, II. 56; _Michel’s
Joinville_, App. p. 278; _Jollois, H. du Siège d’Orléans_, 1833, p.
12.)

The _number_ of such engines employed was sometimes very great. We
have seen that St. Lewis captured 24 at once, and these had been
employed in the field. Villehardouin says that the fleet which
went from Venice to the attack of Constantinople carried more than
300 perriers and mangonels, besides quantities of other engines
required for a siege (ch. xxxviii). At the siege of Acre in 1291,
just referred to, the Saracens, according to Makrizi, set 92
engines in battery against the city, whilst Abulfaraj says 300, and
a Frank account, of great and small, 666. The larger ones are said
to have shot stones of “a kantar and even more.” (_Makrizi_, III.
125; _Reinaud, Chroniques Arabes, etc._, p. 570; _De Excidio Urbis
Acconis_, in _Martène and Durand_, V. 769.)

How heavy a _mangonade_ was sometimes kept up may be understood
from the account of the operations on the Nile, already alluded
to. The King was trying to run a dam across a branch of the river,
and had protected the head of his work by “cat-castles” or towers
of timber, occupied by archers, and these again supported by
trebuchets, etc., in battery. “And,” says Jean Pierre Sarrasin, the
King’s Chamberlain, “when the Saracens saw what was going on, they
planted a great number of engines against ours, and to destroy our
towers and our causeway they shot such vast quantities of stones,
great and small, that all men stood amazed. They slung stones,
and discharged arrows, and shot quarrels from winch-arblasts, and
pelted us with Turkish darts and Greek fire, and kept up such a
harassment of every kind against our engines and our men working at
the causeway, that it was horrid either to see or to hear. Stones,
darts, arrows, quarrels, and Greek fire came down on them like
rain.”

The Emperor Napoleon observes that the direct or grazing fire of
the great arblasts may be compared to that of guns in more modern
war, whilst the mangonels represent mortar-fire. And this vertical
fire was by no means contemptible, at least against buildings of
ordinary construction. At the sieges of Thin l’Evêque in 1340,
and Auberoche in 1344, already cited, Froissart says the French
cast stones in, night and day, so as in a few days to demolish all
the roofs of the towers, and none within durst venture out of the
vaulted basement.

The Emperor’s experiments showed that these machines were capable
of surprisingly accurate direction. And the mediæval histories
present some remarkable feats of this kind. Thus, in the attack of
Mortagne by the men of Hainault and Valenciennes (1340), the latter
had an engine which was a great annoyance to the garrison; there
was a clever engineer in the garrison who set up another machine
against it, and adjusted it so well that the first shot fell
within 12 paces of the enemy’s engine, the second fell near the
box, and the third struck the shaft and split it in two.

Already in the first half of the 13th century, a French poet
(quoted by Weber) looks forward with disgust to the supercession of
the feats of chivalry by more mechanical methods of war:—

“Chevaliers sont esperdus,
Cil ont auques leur tens perdus;
Arbalestier et mineor
Et perrier et engigneor
Seront dorenavant plus chier.”

When Gházán Khan was about to besiege the castle of Damascus in
1300, so much importance was attached to this art that whilst his
Engineer, a man of reputation therein, was engaged in preparing
the machines, the Governor of the castle offered a reward of 1000
dinars for that personage’s head. And one of the garrison was
daring enough to enter the Mongol camp, stab the Engineer, and
carry back his head into the castle!

Marino Sanudo, about the same time, speaks of the range of these
engines with a prophetic sense of the importance of artillery in
war:—

“On this subject (length of range) the engineers and experts of the
army should employ their very sharpest wits. For if the shot of one
army, whether engine-stones or pointed projectiles, have a longer
range than the shot of the enemy, rest assured that the side whose
artillery hath the longest range will have a vast advantage in
action. Plainly, if the Christian shot can take effect on the Pagan
forces, whilst the Pagan shot cannot reach the Christian forces,
it may be safely asserted that the Christians will continually
gain ground from the enemy, or, in other words, they will win the
battle.”

The importance of these machines in war, and the efforts made
to render them more effective, went on augmenting till the
introduction of the still more “villanous saltpetre,” even then,
however, coming to no sudden halt. Several of the instances that
we have cited of machines of extraordinary power belong to a time
when the use of cannon had made some progress. The old engines were
employed by Timur; in the wars of the Hussites as late as 1422;
and, as we have seen, up to the middle of that century by Mahomed
II. They are also distinctly represented on the towers of Aden, in
the contemporary print of the escalade in 1514, reproduced in this
volume. (Bk. III. ch. xxxvi.)

(_Etudes sur le Passé et l’Avenir de l’Artillerie_, par _L. N.
Bonaparte_, etc., tom. II.; _Marinus Sanutius_, Bk. II. Pt. 4, ch.
xxi. and xxii.; _Kington’s Fred. II._, II. 488; _Froissart_, I. 69,
81, 182; _Elliot_, III. 41, etc.; Hewitt’s _Ancient Armour_, I.
350; _Pertz, Scriptores_, XVIII. 420, 751; _Q. R._ 135–7; _Weber_,
III. 103; _Hammer, Ilch._ II. 95.)

NOTE 4.—Very like this is what the Romance of Cœur de Lion tells
of the effects of Sir Fulke Doyley’s mangonels on the Saracens of
_Ebedy_:—

“Sir Fouke brought good engynes
Swylke knew but fewe Sarazynes—
* * *
A prys tour stood ovyr the Gate;
He bent his engynes and threw thereate
A great stone that harde droff,
That the Tour al to roff
* * *
And slough the folk that therinne stood;
The other fledde and wer nygh wood,
And sayde it was the devylys dent,” etc.—_Weber_, II. 172.

NOTE 5.—This chapter is one of the most perplexing in the whole
book, owing to the chronological difficulties involved.

SAIANFU is SIANG-YANG FU, which stands on the south bank of the
River Han, and with the sister city of Fan-ch’eng, on the opposite
bank, commands the junction of two important approaches to the
southern provinces, viz. that from Shen-si down the Han, and that
from Shan-si and Peking down the Pe-ho. Fan-ch’eng seems now to be
the more important place of the two.

The name given to the city by Polo is precisely that which
Siang-yang bears in Rashiduddin, and there is no room for doubt as
to its identity.

The Chinese historians relate that Kúblái 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 Kúblái 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 Kúblái 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 Wassáf 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 Uighúr 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 Kúblái
the place would speedily be taken. Kúblái sent to his nephew Ábáká
in Persia for such engineers, and two were accordingly sent post
to China, _Alawating_ of Mufali and his pupil Ysemain of Huli or
Hiulie (probably _Ala’uddin_ of _Miafaraḳain_ and _Ismael_ of
_Heri_ or Herat). Kúblái on their arrival gave them military rank.
They exhibited their skill before the Emperor at Tatu, and in the
latter part of 1272 they reached the camp before Siang-yang, and
set up their engines. The noise made by the machines, and the crash
of the shot as it broke through everything in its fall, caused
great alarm in the garrison. Fan-ch’eng was first taken by assault,
and some weeks later Siang-yang surrendered.

The shot used on this occasion weighed 125 Chinese pounds (if
_catties_, then equal to about 166 _lbs. avoird._), and penetrated
7 or 8 feet into the earth.

Rashiduddin also mentions the siege of Siang-yang, as we learn
from D’Ohsson. He states that as there were in China none of the
_Manjaníks_ or Mangonels called _Kumghá_, the Kaan caused a certain
engineer to be sent from Damascus or Balbek, and the three sons of
this person, Abubakr, Ibrahim, and Mahomed, with their workmen,
constructed seven great Manjaníks which were employed against
SAYANFU, a frontier fortress and bulwark of Manzi.

We thus see that three different notices of the siege of
Siang-yang, Chinese, Persian, and Venetian, all concur as to the
employment of foreign engineers from the West, but all differ as to
the individuals.

We have seen that one of the MSS. makes Polo assert that till this
event the Mongols and Chinese were totally ignorant of mangonels
and trebuchets. This, however, is quite untrue; and it is not very
easy to reconcile even the statement, implied in all versions of
the story, that mangonels of considerable power were unknown in the
far East, with other circumstances related in Mongol history.

The Persian History called _Tabaḳát-i-Násiri_ speaks of Aikah Nowin
the _Manjaníki Khás_ or Engineer-in-Chief to Chinghiz Khan, and his
corps of ten thousand _Manjaníkis_ or Mangonellers. The Chinese
histories used by Gaubil also speak of these artillery battalions
of Chinghiz. At the siege of Kai-fung fu near the Hwang-Ho, the
latest capital of the Kin Emperors, in 1232, the Mongol General,
Subutai, threw from his engines great quarters of millstones which
smashed the battlements and watch-towers on the ramparts, and
even the great timbers of houses in the city. In 1236 we find the
Chinese garrison of Chinchau (_I-chin-hien_ on the Great Kiang near
the Great Canal) repelling the Mongol attack, partly by means of
their stone shot. When Hulaku was about to march against Persia
(1253), his brother, the Great Kaan Mangku, sent to _Cathay_ to
fetch thence 1000 families of mangonellers, naphtha-shooters,
and arblasteers. Some of the crossbows used by these latter had
a range, we are told, of 2500 paces! European history bears some
similar evidence. One of the Tartar characteristics reported by a
fugitive Russian Archbishop, in Matt. Paris (p. 570 under 1244),
is: “_Machinas habent multiplices, recte et fortiter jacientes_.”

It is evident, therefore, that the Mongols and Chinese _had_
engines of war, but that they were deficient in some advantage
possessed by those of the Western nations. Rashiduddin’s expression
as to their having no _Kumghá_ mangonels, seems to be unexplained.
Is it perhaps an error for _Ḳarábughá_, the name given by the
Turks and Arabs to a kind of great mangonel? This was known also
in Europe as Carabaga, Calabra, etc. It is mentioned under the
former name by Marino Sanudo, and under the latter, with other
quaintly-named engines, by William of Tudela, as used by Simon de
Montfort the Elder against the Albigenses:—

“E dressa sos _Calabres_, et foi _Mal Vezina_
E sas autras pereiras, e _Dona_, e _Reina_;
Pessia les autz murs e la sala peirina.”[9]

(“He set up his _Calábers_, and likewise his _Ill-Neighbours_,
With many a more machine, this the _Lady_, that the _Queen_,
And breached the lofty walls, and smashed the stately Halls.”)

Now, in looking at the Chinese representations of their ancient
mangonels, which are evidently genuine, and of which I have
given some specimens (figs. I, 2, 3), I see none worked by
the counterpoise; all (and there are six or seven different
representations in the work from which these are taken) are shown
as worked by man-ropes. Hence, probably, the improvement brought
from the West was essentially the use of the counterpoised lever.
And, after I had come to this conclusion, I found it to be the view
of Captain Favé. (See _Du Feu Grégeois_, by MM. Reinaud and Favé,
p. 193.)

In Ramusio the two Polos propose to Kúblái to make “_mangani al
modo di Ponente_”; and it is worthy of note that in the campaigns
of Aláuddin Khilji and his generals in the Deccan, _circa_ 1300,
frequent mention is made of the _Western Manjaniks_ and their great
power. (See _Elliot_, III. 75, 78, etc.)

Of the kind worked by man-ropes must have been that huge mangonel
which Mahomed Ibn Kásim, the conqueror of Sind, set in battery
against the great Dagoba of Daibul, and which required 500 men to
work it. Like Simon de Montfort’s it had a tender name; it was
called “The Bride.” (_Elliot_, I. 120.)

Before quitting this subject, I will quote a curious passage from
the History of the Sung Dynasty, contributed to the work of Reinaud
and Favé by M. Stanislas Julien: “In the 9th year of the period
Hien-shun (A.D. 1273) the frontier cities had fallen into the hands
of the enemy (Tartars). The _Pao_ (or engines for shooting) of the
Hwei-Hwei (Mahomedans) were imitated, but in imitating them very
ingenious improvements were introduced, and _pao_ of a different
and very superior kind were constructed. Moreover, an extraordinary
method was invented of neutralising the effects of the enemy’s
_pao_. Ropes were made of rice-straw 4 inches thick, and 34 feet
in length. Twenty such ropes were joined, applied to the tops of
buildings, and covered with clay. In this manner the fire-arrows,
fire-_pao_, and even the pao casting stones of 100 lbs. weight,
could cause no damage to the towers or houses.” (_Ib._ 196; also
for previous parts of this note, _Visdelou_, 188; _Gaubil_, 34,
155 _seqq._ and 70; _De Mailla_, 329; _Pauthier in loco_ and
Introduction; _D’Ohsson_, II. 35, and 391; Notes by _Mr. Edward
Thomas_, F.R.S.; _Q. Rashid._, pp. 132, 136.) [See I. p. 342.]

[Captain Gill writes (_River of Golden Sand_, I. p. 148): “The word
‘P’ao’ which now means ‘cannon,’ was, it was asserted, found in old
Chinese books of a date anterior to that in which gunpowder was
first known to Europeans; hence the deduction was drawn that the
Chinese were acquainted with gunpowder before it was used in the
West. But close examination shows that in all old books the radical
of the character ‘P’ao’ means ‘stone,’ but that in modern books the
radical of the character ‘P’ao’ means ‘fire’; that the character
with the radical ‘fire’ only appears in books well known to have
been written since the introduction of gunpowder into the West; and
that the old character ‘P’ao’ in reality means ‘Balista.’”—H. C.]

[“Wheeled boats are mentioned in 1272 at the siege of Siang-yang.
Kúblái did not decide to ‘go for’ Manzi, _i.e._ the southern of
the two Chinese Empires, until 1273. Bayan did not start until
1274, appearing before Hankow in January 1275. Wuhu and Taiping
surrendered in April; then Chinkiang, Kien K’ang (Nanking), and
Ning kwoh; the final crushing blow being dealt at Hwai-chan. In
March 1276, the Manzi Emperor accepted vassaldom. Kiang-nan was
regularly administered in 1278.” (_E. H. Parker, China Review_,
xxiv. p. 105.)—H. C.]

Siang-yang has been twice visited by Mr. A. Wylie. Just before his
first visit (I believe in 1866) a discovery had been made in the
city of a quantity of treasure buried at the time of the siege. One
of the local officers gave Mr. Wylie one of the copper coins, not
indeed in itself of any great rarity, but worth engraving here on
account of its connection with the siege commemorated in the text;
and a little on the principle of Smith the Weaver’s evidence:—“The
bricks are alive at this day to testify of it; therefore deny it
not.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] And to the Bern MS. which seems to be a copy of it, as is also I think (in substance) the Bodleian.

[2] In this note I am particularly indebted to the researches of the
Emperor Napoleon III. on this subject. (_Études sur le passé et
l’avenir de l’Artillerie_, 1851.)

[3] Thus Joinville mentions the journey of Jehan li Ermin, the king’s
artillerist, from Acre to Damascus, _pour acheter cornes et glus
pour faire arbalestres_—to buy horns and glue to make crossbows
withal (p. 134).

In the final defence of Acre (1291) we hear of balistae _bipedales_
(with a forked rest?) and other _vertiginales_ (traversing on a
pivot?) that shot 3 quarrels at once, and with such force as to
_stitch_ the Saracens to their bucklers—_cum clypeis consutos
interfecerunt_.

The crossbow, though apparently indigenous among various tribes
of Indo-China, seems to have been a new introduction in European
warfare in the 12th century. William of Brittany in a poem called
the _Philippis_, speaking of the early days of Philip Augustus,
says:—

“Francigenis nostris illis ignota diebus
Res erat omnino quid balistarius arcus,
Quid balista foret, nec habebat in agmine toto
Rex quenquam sciret armis qui talibus uti.”
—_Duchesne, Hist. Franc. Script._, V. 115.

Anna Comnena calls it Τζάγρα (which looks like Persian _charkh_),
“a barbaric bow, totally unknown to the Greeks”; and she gives a
very lengthy description of it, ending: “Such then are the facts
about the _Tzagra_, and a truly diabolical affair it is.” (_Alex._
X.—Paris ed. p. 291.)

[4] The construction is best seen in Figs. 17 and 19. Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4,
5 in the cut are from Chinese sources; Figs. 6, 7, 8 from Arabic
works; the rest from European sources.

[5] Christine de Pisan says that when keeping up a discharge by night
lighted brands should be attached to the stones in order to observe
and correct the practice. (_Livre des faits_, etc., _du sage Roy
Charles_, Pt. II. ch. xxiv.)

[6] Professor Sprenger informs me that the first mention of the
_Manjanik_ in Mahomedan history is at the siege of Táyif by Mahomed
himself, A.D. 630 (and see _Sprenger’s Mohammed_ [German], III.
330). The _Annales Marbacenses_ in _Pertz_, xvii. 172, say under
1212, speaking of wars of the Emperor Otho in Germany: “Ibi tunc
cepit haberi usus instrumenti bellici quod vulgo _tribok_ appellari
solet.”

There is a ludicrous Oriental derivation of Manjanik, from the
Persian: “_Man chi nek_!” “How good am I!” Ibn Khallikan remarks
that the word must be foreign, because the letters j and ḳ (ج and
ق) never occur together in genuine Arabic words (_Notes_ by _Mr. E.
Thomas_, F.R.S.). It may be noticed that the letters in question
occur together in another Arabic word of foreign origin used by
Polo, viz. _Játhalíḳ_.

[7] Dufour mentions that stone shot of the mediæval engines exist at
Zurich, of 20 and 22 inches diameter. The largest of these would,
however, scarcely exceed 500 lbs. in weight.

[8] _Georg. Stellae Ann._ in _Muratori_, XVII. 1105; and _Daru_, Bk.
viii. § 12.

[9] Shaw, _Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages_, vol. i. No 21.