1).
Europeans' Travel Records during the Yuan Dynasty
(1) Franciscans' Exploration of the
East
The most vivid, but not always reliable, records
on European societies in many Chinese cities were handed down from
the daring Franciscans' on-site investigation. Since the end
of the Middle ages, due to the discovery of new routes to the East,
the number of Europeans visiting various Asian countries increased,
and their domain expanded from Mongolia to China, not to mention
the Islamic world. Many people, including Carpini and Marco
Polo, were visiting the East one after another. Furthermore,
the vigorous trading due to the flourishing of the commercial cities,
such as many cities in the northern Hanseatic League, expanded the
Europeans' geographic knowledge on eastern and northern regions.
The Franciscans' monks became pioneers in geography.
"God sent the Tartars to the eastern region of the world
to kill and be killed, and in
those days, God sent His faithful
and blessed servants, Dominic and Francis, to ascertain, teach and
spread the faith," recorded a devout chronicle editor. The
name East Sea first appears in the world map inserted in this travel
record, also known as the Vinland Map.
(2) Mongol Routes
In the mind-thirteenth century the Mongol hordes turned their
attention to Europe, sowing terror in their wake. However, the horsemen
from the Steppes were responsible for rather more than just blind
destruction. For the first time the mysterious frontiers of Asia
were opened to European travelers.
The first to
venture in the direction of the court of the Great Kahn were the
missionaries. In the decade between 1246 and 1255 the Franciscans
Giovanni da Pian del Carpine and William of Rubruk reached Karakorum,
the capital of the Mongol empire. Their journeys paved the way for
Marco Polo's epic adventure. Departing in 1271, the Venetian remained
in Asia for no less than twenty-five years, in the service of the
omnipotent Kublai Kahn, the dominator of a territory extending from
Hungary to the Pacific. The memories of his travels, set down in
The Travels of Marco Polo, revealed a whole new world and a sophisticated
and powerful civilization to skeptical Europe. Cathay and its incredible
riches triggered one of the greatest explorations in recorded history.
The Mongol invasion fell upon Europe's eastern
frontiers like a hurricane. After having suddenly appeared out of
the endless Asian plains and having put Russia to the torch, the
"sons of hell" rode roughshod over the resistance put
up by Poland and Hungary, destroying everything that lay in their
path. By 1241 their advance parties were threatening Vienna and
the cities on the Dalmatian coast. It appeared that nothing could
stop them. Then, inexplicably, the surge faded and the Mongol armies
retreated eastward. The Great Kahn Ogodai had died, thereby saving
Europe from destruction. But for how long? One of the aims of the
Congress of Lyons, convened by Pope Innocent ¥³ in 1245, was that
of defending Europe against another invasion. At all costs contacts
had to be established with the Mongols, or Tartars as they were
known in the west, so as to commence negotiations for peace and,
if at all possible, convert them to Christianity. Suitably indoctrinated
and set on the road to salvation, the nomadic pagans could have
become welcome allies in the fight against Islam. It was thus that
in the April of 1246, at the age of sixty-three, the Franciscan
monk Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, left Lyons on his long and perilous
journey into the east. The monk carried with him a letter from the
Pope warning the Mongol kahn to cease his persecution of Christians
and to appease "with suitable penitence, the divine fury."
After a brief stay in Prague, Giovanni and his companions headed
towards Poland, and continued castward across the desolate Russian
Steppes as far as Kiev, a city which still bore the signs of its
recent sacking. Early in February, 1247, the group encountered the
first patrols of Mongol horsemen and were escorted to the banks
of the Dnepr, and the encampment of Batu, the Governor of the Khanate
of the Golden Horde. Batu welcomed them with benevolent condescension,
inviting them to continue their march toward Karakorum, the capital
of the empire. Weakened by their Lenten fast and tormented by the
cold and the privations of the journey, the monks followed the trial
used by the Mongol messengers. Changing their horses as many as
seven times a day, they rapidly covered the monotonous plain that
extended from the Volga to the Aral Sea. They left the Syr Darja
heading eastward and, skirting the northern buttresses of the Tien
Shan chain, penetrated the semidesert regions of Dzungaria. On the
22nd of June they reached the kahn's residence located not far from
the modern city of Ulaabaatar in Mongolia. The assembly that was
to ratify the nomination of Guyuk as the successor to Ogodai was
in full swing, and Giovanni was allowed to participate in the complex
ceremonies preceding the election of the Mongol emperor. Supplied
with food and lodgings, he remained in that vast city of tents for
four months before Guyuk deigned to receive him. The Franciscan
obtained permission to depart on the 13th of November. The Great
Kahn's reply to the Pope's requests left no room for doubt: Guyuk
declared himself to be invested with divine powers and ordered Innocent
¥³ to recognizc his authority. If not, ran the message, "we
will consider you our enemies." In November, 1247, Giovanni
was once again in Lyons. The diplomatic mission had failed, but
his observations, collected in the Historia Mongalorum, revealed
to the west for the first time the face of central Asia: apart from
a few digressions into the fantastic, the data gathered by the monk
was an inexhaustible mine of information on lands and people that
was previously unknown. Giovanni described with spy-like precision
the customs, social structure, shamanistic rituals, and military
tactics of the Mongols. There was no hope of converting them into
faithful servants of God he concluded bitterly. They therefore had
to be fought and in his report he suggested how. In spite of Giovanni's
pessimism, Western Christianity refused to be discouraged. Other
ambassadors, this time sent by the canonized French king Louis ¥¸,
departed for the East. Among the many rumors that filtered through
to Europe, passing by word of mouth, was one claiming that Huyuk
Kahn had been converted to Christianity. The rumor was of course
unfounded, but was sufficient to convince the French king to send
further emissaries to Karakorum. The mission of the Dominican monk
Andie de Longjumeau was unsuccessful: Guyuk was dead and his widow
claimed the right to demand weighty tributes in gold from all the
kings and princes of Europe. Negotiations were going nowhere, but
Louis ¥¸ was not yet ready to concede defeat. In 1252 he commissioned
a Franciscan monk, William of Rubruk, to undertake yet another journey
to the land of the Mongols. William was to have acted as a missionary
rather than an ambassador, thus protecting the king from further
diplomatic embarrassment. The small party left Constantinople the
following year. Their route was not significantly different to that
followed by Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, but William of Rubruk
was an acute observer and proved to have a taste for the new and
the exotic. His Journey through the Empire of the Mongols, pervaded
by a subtle vein of irony, is rightly considered a classic in the
literature of travel. Blessed with a healthy dose of realism, William
was the first to recognize that the Caspian Sea was landlocked and
not a gulf in some ocean, thereby flying in the face of the geographical
dogma of the times. The capital of the Mongol empire failed to impress
him: Karakorum, he wrote, "with the exception of the Kahn's
palace could not match even the borough of Saint-Denis"(a Parisian
quarter). A theological dcbate, organized by Mangu Kahn so as to
compare the Christian faith with the other religions practised (and
all tolerated) within his realm, was resolved without drama: "Everything
having been concluded, the Nestorians and the Saracens sang out
loud together and afterwards everybody drank copiously." William
of Rubruk's mission marked the beginning of a period of peaceful
relations between East and West. The physical and human geography
of Asia began to be better known. The road had been opened up and
was difficult but practicable. The time was ripe for the missionaries
to make way for the merchants.
2). Europeans' Travel
Records during the Ming Dynasty
Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) was an
Italian, Christian missionary. One of his journals produced
in China is "Kongyo MangookChondo," a world map with all
sorts of astronomic explanations on it. The name Japan Sea
first appears in this map.
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