Chapter XXXVII: The Kingdom of Taianfu

After riding then those ten days from the city of Juju, you find yourself in a kingdom called TAIANFU, and the city at which you arrive, which is the capital, is also called Taianfu, a very great and fine city. [But at the end of five days’ journey out of those ten, they say there is a city unusually large and handsome called ACBALUC, whereat terminate in this direction the hunting preserves of the Emperor, within which no one dares to sport except the Emperor and his family, and those who are on the books of the Grand Falconer. Beyond this limit any one is at liberty to sport, if he be a gentleman. The Great Kaan, however, scarcely ever went hunting in this direction, and hence the game, particularly the hares, had increased and multiplied to such an extent that all the crops of the Province were destroyed. The Great Kaan being informed of this, proceeded thither with all his Court, and the game that was taken was past counting.]{1}

Taianfu{2} is a place of great trade and great industry, for here they manufacture a large quantity of the most necessary equipments for the army of the Emperor. There grow here many excellent vines, supplying great plenty of wine; and in all Cathay this is the only place where wine is produced. It is carried hence all over the country.{3} There is also a great deal of silk here, for the people have great quantities of mulberry-trees and silk-worms.

From this city of Taianfu you ride westward again for seven days, through fine districts with plenty of towns and boroughs, all enjoying much trade and practising various kinds of industry. Out of these districts go forth not a few great merchants, who travel to India and other foreign regions, buying and selling and getting gain. After those seven days’ journey you arrive at a city called PIANFU, a large and important place, with a number of traders living by commerce and industry. It is a place too where silk is largely produced.{4}

So we will leave it and tell you of a great city called Cachanfu. But stay—first let us tell you about the noble castle called Caichu.

NOTE 1.—Marsden translates the commencement of this passage, which
is peculiar to Ramusio, and runs “_E in capo di cinque giornate
delle predette dieci_,” by the words “At the end of five days’
journey _beyond_ the ten,” but this is clearly wrong.[1] The place
best suiting in position, as halfway between Cho-chau and T’ai-yuan
fu, would be CHENG-TING FU, and I have little doubt that this
is the place intended. The title of _Ak-Báligh_ in Turki,[2] or
_Chaghán Balghásun_ in Mongol, meaning “White City,” was applied
by the Tartars to Royal Residences; and possibly Cheng-ting fu
may have had such a claim, for I observe in the _Annales de la
Prop. de la Foi_ (xxxiii. 387) that in 1862 the Chinese Government
granted to the R. C. Vicar-Apostolic of Chihli the ruined _Imperial
Palace_ at Cheng-ting fu for his cathedral and other mission
establishments. Moreover, as a matter of fact, Rashiduddin’s
account of Chinghiz’s campaign in northern China in 1214, speaks of
the city of “Chaghan Balghasun which the Chinese call _Jintzinfu_.”
This is almost exactly the way in which the name of Cheng-ting fu
is represented in ’Izzat Ullah’s Persian Itinerary (_Jigdzinfu_,
evidently a clerical error for _Jingdzinfu_), so I think there
can be little doubt that Cheng-ting fu is the place intended. The
name of Hwai-luh’ien (see Note 2), which is the first stage beyond
Cheng-ting fu, is said to mean the “Deer-lair,” pointing apparently
to the old character of the tract as a game-preserve. The city of
Cheng-ting is described by Consul Oxenham as being now in a decayed
and dilapidated condition, consisting only of two long streets
crossing at right angles. It is noted for the manufacture of images
of Buddha from Shan-si iron. (_Consular Reports_, p. 10; _Erdmann_,
331.)

[The main road turns due west at Cheng-ting fu, and enters Shan-si
through what is known among Chinese travellers as the Ku-kwan,
Customs’ Barrier.—H. C.]

Between Cheng-ting fu and T’ai-yuan fu the traveller first crosses
a high and rugged range of mountains, and then ascends by narrow
defiles to the plateau of Shan-si. But of these features Polo’s
excessive condensation takes no notice.

The traveller who quits the great plain of Chihli [which terminates
at Fu-ch’eng-i, a small market-town, two days from Pao-ting.—H. C.]
for “the kingdom of Taianfu,” _i.e._ Northern Shan-si, enters a
tract in which predominates that very remarkable formation called
by the Chinese _Hwang-tu_, and to which the German name _Löss_ has
been attached. With this formation are bound up the distinguishing
characters of Northern Interior China, not merely in scenery but
in agricultural products, dwellings, and means of transport.
This _Löss_ is a brownish-yellow loam, highly porous, spreading
over low and high ground alike, smoothing over irregularities of
surface, and often more than 1000 feet in thickness. It has no
stratification, but tends to cleave vertically, and is traversed in
every direction by sudden crevices, almost glacier-like, narrow,
with vertical walls of great depth, and infinite ramification.
Smooth as the löss basin looks in a bird’s-eye view, it is thus
one of the most impracticable countries conceivable for military
movements, and secures extraordinary value to fortresses in
well-chosen sites, such as that of Tung-kwan mentioned in Note 2 to
chap. xli.

Agriculture may be said in N. China to be confined to the alluvial
plains and the löss; as in S. China to the alluvial plains and
the terraced hill-sides. The löss has some peculiar quality which
renders its productive power self-renewing without manure (unless
it be in the form of a surface coat of fresh löss), and unfailing
in returns if there be sufficient rain. This singular formation is
supposed by Baron Richthofen, who has studied it more extensively
than any one, to be no subaqueous deposit, but to be the
accumulated residue of countless generations of herbaceous plants
combined with a large amount of material spread over the face of
the ground by the winds and surface waters.

[I do not agree with the theory of Baron von Richthofen, of the
almost exclusive Eolian formation of _loess_; water has something
to do with it as well as wind, and I think it is more exact to say
that loess _in China_ is due to a double action, Neptunian as well
as Eolian. The climate was different in former ages from what it
is now, and rain was plentiful and to its great quantity was due
the fertility of this yellow soil. (Cf. _A. de Lapparent, Leçons de
Géographie Physique_, 2ᵉ éd. 1898, p. 566.)—H. C.]

Though we do not expect to find Polo taking note of geological
features, we are surprised to find no mention of a characteristic
of Shan-si and the adjoining districts, which is due to the _löss_;
viz. the practice of forming cave dwellings in it; these in fact
form the habitations of a majority of the people in the löss
country. Polo _has_ noticed a similar usage in Badakhshan (I. p.
161), and it will be curious if a better acquaintance with that
region should disclose a surface formation analogous to the _löss_.
(_Richthofen’s Letters_, VII. 13 _et passim_.)

NOTE 2.—Taianfu is, as Magaillans pointed out, T’AI-YUAN FU, the
capital of the Province of Shan-si, and Shan-si is the “Kingdom.”
The city was, however, the capital of the great T’ang Dynasty for a
time in the 8th century, and is probably the _Tájah_ or _Taiyúnah_
of old Arab writers. Mr. Williamson speaks of it as a very pleasant
city at the north end of a most fertile and beautiful plain,
between two noble ranges of mountains. It was a residence, he
says, also of the Ming princes, and is laid out in Peking fashion,
even to mimicking the Coal-Hill and Lake of the Imperial Gardens.
It stands about 3000 feet above the sea [on the left bank of the
Fen-ho.—H. C.]. There is still an Imperial factory of artillery,
matchlocks, etc., as well as a powder mill; and fine carpets like
those of Turkey are also manufactured. The city is not, however,
now, according to Baron Richthofen, very populous, and conveys no
impression of wealth or commercial importance. [In an interesting
article on this city, the Rev. G. B. Farthing writes (_North China
Herald_, 7th September, 1894): “The configuration of the ground
enclosed by T’ai-yuan fu city is that of a ‘three times to stretch
recumbent cow.’ The site was chosen and described by Li Chun-feng,
a celebrated professor of geomancy in the days of the T’angs, who
lived during the reign of the Emperor T’ai Tsung of that ilk. The
city having been then founded, its history reaches back to that
date. Since that time the cow has stretched twice.... T’ai-yuan
city is square, and surrounded by a wall of earth, of which the
outer face is bricked. The height of the wall varies from thirty to
fifty feet, and it is so broad that two carriages could easily pass
one another upon it. The natives would tell you that each of the
sides is three miles, thirteen paces in length, but this, possibly,
includes what it will be when the cow shall have stretched for the
third and last time. Two miles is the length of each side; eight
miles to tramp if you wish to go round the four of them.”—H. C.]
The district used to be much noted for cutlery and hardware, iron
as well as coal being abundantly produced in Shan-si. Apparently
the present Birmingham of this region is a town called Hwai-lu, or
Hwo-luh’ien, about 20 miles west of Cheng-ting fu, and just on the
western verge of the great plain of Chihli. [Regarding Hwai-lu,
the Rev. C. Holcombe calls it “a miserable town lying among the
foot hills, and at the mouth of the valley, up which the road into
Shan-si lies.” He writes (p. 59) that Ping-ting chau, after the
Customs’ barrier (Ku Kwan) between Chih-li and Shan-si, would,
under any proper system of management, at no distant day become
the Pittsburg, or Birmingham, of China.—H. C.] (_Richthofen’s
Letters_, No. VII. 20; _Cathay_, xcvii. cxiii. cxciv.; _Rennie_,
II. 265; _Williamson’s Journeys in North China; Oxenham_, u.s.
11; _Klaproth_ in _J. As._ sér. II. tom. i. 100; _Izzat Ullah’s
Pers. Itin._ in _J. R. A. S._ VII. 307; _Forke, Von Peking nach
Ch’ang-an_, p. 23.)

[“From Khavailu (Hwo-luh’ien), an important commercial centre
supplying Shansi, for 130 miles to Sze-tien, the road traverses
the loess hills, which extend from the Peking-Kalgan road in a
south-west direction to the Yellow River, and which are passable
throughout this length only by the Great Central Asian trade
route to T’ai-yuan fu and by the Tung-Kwan, Ho-nan, _i.e._ the
Yellow River route.” (_Colonel Bell, Proc. R. G. S._ XII. 1890, p.
59.) Colonel Bell reckons seven days (218 miles) from Peking to
Hwo-lu-h’ien and five days from this place to T’ai-yuan fu.—H. C.]

NOTE 3.—Martini observes that the grapes in Shan-si were very
abundant and the best in China. The Chinese used them only as
raisins, but wine was made there for the use of the early Jesuit
Missions, and their successors continue to make it. Klaproth,
however, tells us that the wine of T’ai-yuan fu was celebrated
in the days of the T’ang Dynasty, and used to be sent in tribute
to the Emperors. Under the Mongols the use of this wine spread
greatly. The founder of the Ming accepted the offering of wine
of the vine from T’ai-yuan in 1373, but prohibited its being
presented again. The finest grapes are produced in the district
of Yukau-hien, where hills shield the plain from north winds,
and convert it into a garden many square miles in extent. In the
vintage season the best grapes sell for less than a farthing a
pound. [Mr. Theos. Sampson, in an article on “Grapes in China,”
writes (_Notes and Queries on China and Japan_, April, 1869, p.
50): “The earliest mention of the grape in Chinese literature
appears to be contained in the chapter on the nations of Central
Asia, entitled _Ta Yuan Chwan_, or description of Fergana, which
forms part of the historical records (_Sze-Ki_) of Sze-ma Tsien,
dating from B.C. 100. Writing of the political relations instituted
shortly before this date by the Emperor Wu Ti with the nations
beyond the Western frontiers of China, the historian dwells at
considerable length, but unluckily with much obscurity, on the
various missions despatched westward under the leadership of Chang
K’ien and others, and mentions the grape vine in the following
passage:—‘Throughout the country of Fergana, wine is made from
grapes, and the wealthy lay up stores of wine, many tens of
thousands of _shih_ in amount, which may be kept for scores of
years without spoiling. Wine is the common beverage, and for horses
the _mu-su_ is the ordinary pasture. The envoys from China brought
back seeds with them, and hereupon the Emperor for the first time
cultivated the grape and the mu-su in the most productive soils.’
In the Description of Western regions, forming part of the History
of the Han Dynasty, it is stated that grapes are abundantly
produced in the country of K’i-pin (identified with Cophene, part
of modern Afghanistan) and other adjacent countries, and referring,
if I mistake not, to the journeys of Chang K’ien, the same work
says, that the Emperor Wu-Ti despatched upwards of ten envoys to
the various countries westward of Fergana, to search for novelties,
and that they returned with grape and mu-su seeds. These references
appear beyond question to determine the fact that grapes were
introduced from Western—or, as we term it, Central—Asia, by Chang
K’ien.”

Dr. Bretschneider (_Botanicon Sinicum_, I. p. 25), relating the
mission of Chang K’ien (139 B.C. Emperor Wu-Ti), who died about
B.C. 103, writes:—“He is said to have introduced many useful plants
from Western Asia into China. Ancient Chinese authors ascribe to
him the introduction of the Vine, the Pomegranate, Safflower, the
Common Bean, the Cucumber, Lucerne, Coriander, the Walnut-tree, and
other plants.”—H. C.] The river that flows down from Shan-si by
Cheng-ting-fu is called “Putu-ho, or the Grape River.” (_J. As._
u.s.; _Richthofen_, u.s.)

[Regarding the name of this river, the Rev. C. Holcombe (_l.c._ p.
56) writes: “Williamson states in his _Journeys in North China_
that the name of this stream is, properly _Poo-too Ho_—‘Grape
River,’ but is sometimes written Hu-t’ou River incorrectly. The
above named author, however, is himself in error, the name given
above [_Hu-t’o_] being invariably found in all Chinese authorities,
as well as being the name by which the stream is known all along
its course.”

West of the Fan River, along the western border of the Central
Plain of Shan-si, in the extreme northern point of which lies
T’aï-yuan fu, the Rev. C. Holcombe says (p. 61), “is a large
area, close under the hills, almost exclusively given up to the
cultivation of the grape. The grapes are unusually large, and of
delicious flavour.”—H. C.]

NOTE 4.—✛In no part of China probably, says Richthofen, do the
towns and villages consist of houses so substantial and costly
as in this. Pianfu is undoubtedly, as Magaillans again notices,
P’ING-YANG FU.[3] It is the _Bikan_ of Shah Rukh’s ambassadors.
[Old P’ing yang, 5 _lis_ to the south] is said to have been the
residence of the primitive and mythical Chinese Emperor Yao. A
great college for the education of the Mongols was instituted at
P’ing-yang, by Yeliu Chutsai, the enlightened minister of Okkodai
Khan. [Its dialect differs from the T’aï-yuan dialect, and is more
like Pekingese.] The city, lying in a broad valley covered with
the yellow löss, was destroyed by the T’aï-P’ing rebels, but it
is reviving. [It is known for its black pottery.] The vicinity is
noted for large paper factories. [“From T’ai-yuan fu to P’ing-yang
fu is a journey of 185 miles, down the valley of the Fuen-ho.”
(Colonel Bell, _Proc. R. G. S._ XII. 1890, p. 61.) By the way, Mr.
Rockhill remarks (_Land of the Lamas_, p. 10): “Richthofen has
transcribed the name of this river _Fuen_. This spelling has been
adopted on most of the recent maps, both German and English, but
_Fuen_ is an impossible sound in Chinese.” (Read _Fen ho_.)—H.
C.] (_Cathay_, ccxi.; _Ritter_, IV. 516; _D’Ohsson_, II. 70;
_Williamson_, I. 336.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] And I see Ritter understood the passage as I do (IV. 515).

[2] _Báligh_ is indeed properly Mongol.

[3] It seems to be called _Piyingfu_ (miswritten Piying_ku_) in Mr.
Shaw’s _Itinerary_ from Yarkand (_Pr. R. G. S._ XVI. 253.) We often
find the Western modifications of Chinese names very persistent.