The International Writers Magazine - Our Tenth Year: History

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Silk • David Russell “..and the silk, a tenth part is applied to the Lord’s Government. And the duty on the Silk of which they have so great an abundance that it is a wonderful thing ... and the amount is in untold money.”.

So wrote 20-year old Marco Polo, encountering Silk for the first time in the court of Kublai Kahn and learning how important the revenue from its sale was to Kahn.

The Polo family, known as Pol in Venice, were international traders often venturing out on far-reaching selling and buying trips. Attempting to return from one such a trip in which Marco had been included, the family found their way blocked by both bandits and pirates. With the only route open to them being to the East, Marco’s father, Nicholai, made the decision to seize the opportunity to explore trade relations with the Chinese leader, Kublai Kahn, whose Mongol Golden Horde were, at that moment overwhelming both Asia and Europe.

However, when Marco, his father and uncle, turned towards China, they could never anticipate that their decision was prelude to a journey which would take four years to complete. They started the trip with a ship voyage across the Mediterranean, landing at Hormous, Persia, then overland to a Polo owned trading post at Bukara, now part of Uzbekistan.

Unbelievably, there, they were forced to remain three whole years, before finally being able to negotiate safe travel passage over Chinese Mongol-held lands. Finally, with approved papers in hand, they departed Bukara by camel train, on a route later to become known as the Silk Road. For months, they trekked over snow-packed mountains of great height, then across huge desert tracts with fierce daytime heat; a journey lasting almost a full year, before the Polos would reach Cambulac (Beijing), home of the great Kahn’s court.  

Overwhelmed by the riches of Kahn’s palaces, Marco was especially fascinated by how Kublai came about his fortune through a system of authoritarian taxes which not only grew him richer each day, but also funded the Golden Horde expeditions.   In his Travel diary, Marco described Cambulac and its riches, specifically, noting how it was the tax on the sale of silk, the trade in jewelry and other desired commodities that helped build the Kublai Kahn fortune:

“for this town is so good a market that the merchants ... come from all sides (more) than into any city of the world, and greater quantity of all things...precious stones pearls and silk and spicery and all other dear things are brought to this town.”

Though the origin of silk is believed to have begun with “the little goddess of Silk”, Lady Hsi-Ling-Shih, wife of the mythical Yellow Emperor, said to rule China in 3000 BC, silk was not widely known in Europe. So, with no previous knowledge of it’s existence or use, it was not surprising that the riches the sale of silk provided Kahn so impressed Marco.  

It was his interest in all the minute details at court plus a demonstrated expertise at mathematics, which in turn, impressed Khan. So much so, that he appointed Marco to the trusted role of “tax collector”, a role which pleased Marco–a born traveler--no end, since it provided him authority to go wherever he chose within the kingdom, with guaranteed safe passage. As official sign of this new authority, Kahn presented Polo a personally signed Golden “Piazza”, which not only guaranteed him safe passage on his travels, but the privilege to request assistance from any person at any time all along the way.

Polo described it in his diary:

“...a tablet of gold...(is) portrayed with the Lion or the image of a gerfalcon or different animals – and above the Lion...they have the great Kaan’s warrants of great authority...(anyone possessing the “piazza”) can take all the horses of any person...(and) thus in all things...be obeyed...and if any dared not obey In everything according to the will and command of those who who have their tablets, he must die as a rebel against the Great Kaan.”

While diligently applying himself to collecting taxes for the Kahn, Marco traveled the length and breadth of the Kingdom, describing in his diary those travels in great detail. Specifically describing peoples he meets, where and how they live, their unique habits and tribal rites.  This is part of his entry from Quinsai (Hangzhow) :“...the great revenue which the great Kaan has from Quinsai, I will tell you (yields from) the duty on silk...(merchants pay a tax of) three percent... (there is also) sugar...and of salt...because it is in so great a quantity ... five other kingdoms ...are supplied..(more than) is made in all  the rest of the world...many people say it is the truth...and is again a great source of revenue. And then the spicery...all spiceries pay three and a third percent to the king....(and) the wine which they make of rice and spices they have very great revenue also, and from charcoal ...and from... twelve crafts ...for these crafts have great revenue, each craft (has) 12000 stations (and) ...that you may know the sum of it, I Marc Polo..was sent by the great Kaan to see...the count of the annual revenue which the Lord had from all these things...quite one of the most great and incalculable amounts of revenue of money...ever heard tell....yet the great Kaan has all these revenues spent on the armies."

Quinsai (Hangzhow), then one of China’s largest cities, was home to arts and artisans, also attracting rich merchants who built great mansions complete with magnificently landscaped, grand gardens. One has been replicated in New York’s Metropolitan Museum. As an arts center, Quinsai fostered many different schools, some favoring an advanced style with a distinct sense of dimensional imagery.

  “They have houses very well built and richly worked and they take so great delight in ornaments, paintings and buildings, that the sums they spend...are a stupendous thing...They do their merchandise and arts with great sincerity and truth...Inside the city, is a lake very Beautiful...which is quite thirty miles round and all round this lake are built may very beautiful and great palaces and many beautiful houses so wonderfully made they could not be better devised.”

That is West Lake. Aside from palatial lake resorts,  the entire region is well known for growing a highly prized Black Tea. Polo continues:   “...(these homes) belong to gentle men...and they are marvelously adorned inside and outside...and men and woman are fair and handsome and always dress for the most part in silk because of the great abundance which they have of that materials which is produced in the whole territory of Quinsai, besides the great quantity which is continually brought in from other provinces by merchants...and they go to gardens where they are received by the gardeners...and there they stay to give themselves a good time all day with their ladies.”.

As he often does, Polo returns to Kahn’s fortune, citing another method employed to grow it, both startling and amazing to Marco as he learns: “..how the great lord can do much more and spend more than I have told you..how the great Kaan causes sheets to be spent for money.”

So taken with this was Marco, that he dedicated three full diary pages to the subject: “The Description Of The World; Paper Given For Gold”,  “All Debts And Wages Are Paid With Paper” and “Paper Sheets Are Made & Spent As  Money”.

“He takes the middle bark of the trees which are called gelus, that mulberries of which the worms that make silk eat their leaves – for there are many of them......and they take the skin which is the thick outer bark and the wood of the tree and they grind and pound it and of that thin skin he makes them...glue the sheets like those of cotton paper and they are all black. And when the sheets are made he has them cut up...in large portions and so they form money,(equal to different denominations of) ...silver...and gold. And all these monies are sealed with the mark...of the great lord, for otherwise (they could not) be spent. And they are made with as much authority and formality as they were of pure gold or silver... officials... deputed for this write their mark on every coin...(then) the Lord stains the seal...dipped in cinnabar...the money is authorized. And if anyone would counterfeit it he would be pained with that last penalty to the third generation...And in almost all kingdoms subject to his rule none is allowed to make or spend any other money. And...he has all the payments made with them, and has them distributed...through all the provinces and kingdoms... and none dare refuse them on pain of losing his life....And I tell you ...the merchants come many together,..with pearls...precious stones ...gold...silver...cloth of gold and of silk...(and) give all...to the great Lord...(who has) them paid ... with those sheets of which I have told you...which cost him little or nothing... (which is) the reason why the lord...has more treasure than any man of this world.”.

On Diary page 104 on through page 151, Polo’s travels take him to a vast number of tax-paying cities, where silk is grown and used, starting with the city of Catai: “...they go into the hall supposing that the lord asks for them, and they put on these white slippers and give the others to the servants; and this, so as not to soil the beautiful and cunningly made carpets of silk.”
In Giogiu: ..for many clothes of silk...are made there”.
In Quengianfu: “And again I tell you that all the country and the land is full of...a very great number of mulberries, these are the trees of which the worms that make silk live on their leaves...so that the whole land abounds very greatly in silk...For clothes of silk...are made there. All the equipments ...needed for the armies of the great Kaan are made there.”

The diary continues thru the cities of Tundinfu, Pingliu and Paughin, and the reader reaches that point where a sense of redundancy sets in as it seems also for Polo,for soon he begins to repeat the single phrase “Silk in great abundance.” which exactly appears in his entries for Paughlin, Namghin, Saianfu, the Churches of Cinghianu,Sigoi and Vughin.

From Page 151 of the diaries 232 pages, the story begins to transition to the Polo’s travel home to Venice, after release from their fealty by an (sort of) grateful Kublai Kahn just before his death on February 18, 1294.  The next portion of the diary is dedicated to their homeward voyage on one of the great ocean-going India trading ships. They visited many Indian Ocean ports, then Africa and finally, home to Venice.

Each port is lovingly detailed as to people, the way they lived and dressed, religious beliefs, tenets,  the local animals, the island’s unique fauna and flora, all very similar to how Marco described his visits to the cities in China, as the Kahn’s tax collector. On this home voyage, Silk is mentioned only once and or the last time, in Polo’s description of the Pirates of Melibar:

“And they carry also...cloth of silk...and take their ships to Aden and ...to Alexandrie..and the merchants come there with their ships loaded and they discharge them all and then they load them with the wares of the island, and being loaded, off they go, and they carry them to their home) countries.”

Finally, 24 years after leaving, the Polo’s returned to Venice. For them, a very different and strange Venice from what they remembered and  that Venetians remembering them. Not difficult to imagine as they trod the piazzas in their multi silk adorned Mongol dress, wearing their hair in long braided Mongol style.

Their arrival was also ill timed. During a feast in which they were hosting family and friends, broadly recounting stories of their travels, they seemed to have bragged a bit too much about how those travels had rewarded them with a vast fortune.  This, at a period when Venice was in an uproar,  blaming all it’s “elite” families with all the city’s ills.  

The Polos qualified as “elite”.  Add, that now 44-year old Marco, was on the wrong side of an on-going verbal todo, an overblown economic “battle” between the states of Venice and Genoa, and Marco found himself taken to  “jail, albeit a privileged, luxury “jail” apartment in the Piazza San Marco, where his every wish was met.

There Marco met another Piazza San Marco “guest”,  the writer Rustichello, who became his closest confident. Rustichello, from a family of notaries, had mastered the skill of shorthand writing.  Employing that skill, Rustichello made copious notes as day after day Marco detailed the contents of his diary, with perhaps more than a hint of his own flamboyant writing style,  the Polo-Rustichello collaboration resulted in the publication of a diary with the non-to-subtle title of  “The Description Of The World”.  

These are the final words written by Marco Polo, perhaps embellished by Rustichello:   “Here Ends The Book Of The Milion By Ser Marco Polo...You have heard of... how we left the great Kaan...and of the great fortune which we had at our departure. And know, that if the fortune had not been, we should...have never been able to leave him, so that I believe we should never have come back to our country.  But, I believe that our return was the pleasure of God, that the things which are in the world might be known. For...there was never any man, neither Christian nor Saracen nor Tartar nor pagan, who ever explored so much of the world as did Master Marc, son of Master Nicolau Pol noble and great citizen of the city of Venese.  
 
© David Russell Feb 2009
druss811@verizon.net

Poland - A Country of Doubts - David Russell
"Why are we here? Why, with a world of travel alternatives, had we picked Poland?"

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