Marco polo was in china new evidence from currencies, salts and revenues

Marco Polo Was in China


Monies, Markets, and Finance
in East Asia, 1600–1900
Edited by

Hans Ulrich Vogel

VOLUME 2

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/mmf


Marco Polo Was in China
New Evidence from Currencies,
Salts and Revenues
By

Hans Ulrich Vogel

Leiden • boston
2013


Cover illustration: Detail from Tranquillo Cremona (1837–1878), Marco Polo davanti al Gran Khan
dei Tartari, 1863. For the complete picture see Fig. 34 in this book. The illustration was provided
by Photoservice Electa/anelli by courtesy of Ministro per i Beni e le Attività Culturali and Galleria
Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vogel, Hans Ulrich.

 Marco Polo was in China : new evidence from currencies, salts and revenues / by Hans Ulrich
Vogel.
  p. cm. — (Monies, markets, and finance in East Asia, 1600–1900, ISSN 2210–2876 ; v. 2)
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ISBN 978-90-04-23193-1 (hbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-23698-1 (e-book)
1. Money—China—History 2. Taxation—China—History. 3. Salt—Taxation—China—History.
4. Polo, Marco, 1254–1324 I. Title.
 HG1282.V64 2013
 332.4’51—dc23

2012035046

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters
covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the
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ISSN 2210-2876
ISBN 978-90-04-23193-1 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-23698-1 (e-book)
Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing,
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Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.

This book is dedicated
to
my wife

Beatriz Puente-Ballesteros

medical doctor and historian of intercivilisational encounters in medicine
between Jesuits, Chinese and Manchus
for her love, encouragement and support
and
in memory of

Herbert Franke (1914–2011)

the great German sinologist and specialist on Yuan economic,
social, political and cultural history



CONTENTS
List of Figures, Maps and Tables .................................................................
Preface from Mark Elvin ................................................................................
Préface de Philippe Ménard .........................................................................
Preface from the Author ................................................................................
Acknowledgments ...........................................................................................
Transliteration and Conventions ................................................................

xi
xvii

xxi
xxiii
xxvii
xxxi

I.Introduction ..............................................................................................
1. Structure and Contents of this Book ...........................................
2. Approaches and Methods ...............................................................
3. Cons and Pros for Marco Polo’s Stay in China .........................

3.1. Authorship of the Book ........................................................

3.2. Complexities of Manuscript Transmission ....................

3.3. Nature, Style, Intentions and Receptions of the
Book ...........................................................................................

3.4. Itinerary and Data ..................................................................

3.5. Persian Rendering of Chinese Place Names ..................

3.6. Aspects of Chinese and Mongol Civilization and
Culture .......................................................................................

3.7. “Latins” at Khubilai’s Court .................................................

3.8. Participation in the Xiangyang Siege ...............................

3.9. Governorship in Yangzhou .................................................

3.10. Missions of the Polos ............................................................

3.11. The Polos and Chinese Sources .........................................

3.12. Return from China .................................................................

3.13. Golden Tablets of Authority ...............................................

1
2
8
11
14
17
22
36
39
43
67
67
68
69
74
80
84

II. Paper Money in Yuan China ................................................................ 89
1. Marco Polo on Yuan Paper Money (1275–1291) .................... 106
2. Other Western, Persian and Arabic Mediaeval Authors
on Yuan Paper Money ...................................................................... 109

3. The Short-lived Issue of Yuan-style Paper Money in Persia
in 1294 .................................................................................................. 113


viii





contents
4. Chinese Sources on Paper Money during the Yuan Period
(1271–1368) ........................................................................................
4.1. Aspects of Production .............................................................
4.2. Aspects of Circulation .............................................................
5. Yuan Paper Money: Comparing Marco Polo’s Account
and Chinese Sources .........................................................................

118
120
159
212

III. Cowry Monies Circulating in Yunnan and Southeast Asia .........
1. Marco Polo on Cowry Currencies (1275–1291) ......................
2. Chinese Sources on Yunnan Cowry Currencies during the
Yuan Period (1271–1368) ...............................................................

2.1. Exchange Rates .........................................................................

2.2. Denominations ..........................................................................

2.3. Cowry Imports ...........................................................................

2.4. Cowry Currency in Private Transactions ..........................

2.5. Cowry Money in Public Revenue and Finance ...............
3. Yunnan Cowry Currencies: Comparing Marco Polo’s
Account and Chinese Sources .......................................................

227
230

IV. Salt Production and Salt Monies in Yunnan and Tebet ..............

1. Marco Polo on Salt Production in Yunnan (1275–1291) ....

2. Marco Polo on Salt Currencies in Tebet and Caindu
(1275–1291) .......................................................................................

3. Chinese Sources on Salt Currencies (Late Eighth to
Mid-Twentieth Centuries) ..............................................................

3.1. Nanzhao Kingdom (Late Eighth Century) .......................

3.2. Yuan Period (Early Fourteenth Century) .........................

3.3. Ming Period (Mid-Fifteenth Century) ...............................

3.4. Qing Period (Eighteenth to Nineteenth Centuries) ......

3.5. Republican Period (Mid-1930s) ..........................................

3.6. People’s Republic of China (1950s) ...................................

4. Salt Forms Produced by Yunnan Saltworks
(Early Eighteenth Century) ............................................................

4.1. Dry-boiled Salt Forms ............................................................

4.2. Salt Forms Made by Hand or Moulds ...............................

5. Salt Currencies: Comparing Marco Polo’s Perceptions and
Chinese Sources ................................................................................

5.1. Weight of Salt Currencies .....................................................

5.2. Value of Salt Currencies ........................................................

271
272

234
236
238
239
258
262
267

285
297
298
299
299
301
307
307
309
311
312
315
315
317







contents

ix

5.3. Salt Prices in Caindu and Other Regions of China ....... 318
5.4. Circulation and Monetary Functions of Salt
Currencies .................................................................................. 324
5.5. Salt Monies, Governments and Markets .......................... 328

V.Production, Revenue and Trade of Salt in Changlu
and Lianghuai ..........................................................................................

1. Marco Polo on Salt Production Techniques in Changlu ......

2. Marco Polo on the Salt Production and Distribution Zone
of Lianghuai ........................................................................................

3. Did Marco Polo Hold an Office in Yangzhou? .........................
VI. Tax Revenue of Hangzhou and Its Territory ...................................

1. Marco Polo’s Millions: The Salt Tax Revenue ..........................

2. Total Annual Revenue as Reported by the Venetian ............

3. Commercial Taxes in Le devisament dou monde ....................

4. Marco Polo on Levies in Overseas Trade in Quanzhou ........

331
332
339
348
365
366
379
391
394

VII. Administrative-Geographical Divisions in Yuan China ............ 399

VIII. Conclusions ............................................................................................. 419
Appendices
Appendix 1: Compilation of Passages on the Production and Use
of Paper Money in the Yuan Empire from Selected Manuscript
and Print Versions of Marco Polo’s Account .....................................
Appendix 2: Compilation of Passages on the Production and Use
of Chinese Paper Money and Salt Revenue in the Accounts
of Other Western, Persian and Arabic Authors .................................
Appendix 3: Coins of Venice ........................................................................
Appendix 4: The Weight Measures libbra and saggio of Venice ......
Appendix 5: The Weight of the miskal .....................................................
Appendix 6: Relationship between the Persian System of balish,
sum and miskal, the Chinese System of ding, liang and qian,
and Marco Polo’s saggi and grossi ........................................................
Appendix 7: Compilation of Passages on Chinese Salt Money, Salt
Production and Salt Revenue from the Most Important
Manuscript and Print Versions of Marco Polo’s Account ..............
Appendix 8: Tables 3 and 27 .......................................................................

429
439
471
474
475
477
491
529


x

contents

Bibliography
1. Marco Polo Editions ............................................................................. 547
2. Other Primary Sources ........................................................................ 554
3. Secondary Literature ............................................................................ 562
Index .................................................................................................................... 629


List of Figures, Maps and Tables
Figures
 1. The Great Khan carried by elephants, as illustrated in
Glazemaker’s Dutch version (1664) of Marco Polo’s book .........
 2. The story of the Polos escorting Princess Kökechin to Persia
from 1291 to 1295, as depicted by Withold Gordon in 1926 ........
 3. Front side of an early Zhongtong 10 wen paper note
discovered 1982 in the Wanbu Huayanjing 万部华严经塔
or White Pagoda 白塔 in Huhehot, Inner Mongolia ...................
 4. Front side of a Zhiyuan 1 guan paper note excavated
in 1983/1984 in Heicheng 黑城 (Khara Khoto), Inner
Mongolia ....................................................................................................
 5. Front and reverse side of a late Zhongtong 500 wen paper
note discovered 1965 in Xianyang City 咸阳市, Shaanxi
Province ......................................................................................................
 6. Chinese seals in a letter of the Persian Ilkhan Arghun
(ca. 1258–1291) to Philip IV of France (1268–1314)—called
“the Fair”—from the year 1289 ............................................................
 7. Production of paper money in the Great Khan’s empire,
French mediaeval illustration of the early sixteenth century ......

 8. Legend areas on the front side of Yuan paper notes ...................
 9. Phags-pa inscriptions on Yuan paper notes after 1269 ................
10. Legend in area F on Zhongtong paper notes before 1269 ..........
11. Legend in area F on Zhongtong paper notes from 1269
onwards ......................................................................................................
12. Legend in area F on Zhiyuan paper notes issued from 1287
onwards ......................................................................................................
13. Explanation of the seals on the early Zhongtong
10 wen paper note found in 1982 in the White Pagoda
of Huhehot ................................................................................................
14. Split-edge seal on an early Zhongtong 500 wen note found
in 1988 in a Yuan tomb in Huarong 华容 in Hunan ....................
15. Explanation of the seals on Zhiyuan 2 guan paper notes
excavated in 1983 and 1984 in Heicheng (Khara Khoto)
in Inner Mongolia ...................................................................................

54
83
97
103
104
117
125
132
135
138
139
139
147
150

153


xii

list of figures, maps and tables

16. Merchants bringing precious goods to the Great Khan in
exchange for paper money, French mediaeval illustration
of ca. 1412 ....................................................................................................
17. Printing plate made of clay for counterfeiting Zhiyuan 1 guan
paper notes found in Shandong in the 1910s ..................................
18. Bronze seal of the Storehouse for Burning [Worn-out] Notes
of the Jiangxi 江西 Branch Secretariat, 1293 ..................................
19. Seals used for marking worn-out paper notes of Jiangdong
Circuit 江東道, Zhejiang, 1288 ............................................................
20. Cowries found in Yunnan, Tang to Ming Periods .........................
21. Hoisting of brine at the deep-drilled wells of Zigong 自貢
(Ziliujing 自流井 and Gongjing 貢井), Sichuan, ca. 1880 .........
22. The Langjing 琅井 saltworks in Chuxiong Prefecture 楚雄府,
Yunnan Province, about 1712 ...............................................................
23. Salt production at the Big Well (Dajing 大井) of the
Yunlongjing 雲龍井 salt works in Yunlong Department
雲龍州, Yunnan, about 1707 ................................................................
24. Mouth of an inclined salt well in the saltworks of Ho-boung
Village, near Pu’er 普洱, Yunnan Province, late 1860s ................
25. A bar of salt used as currency in Ethiopia ......................................
26. The Alou-Houjing 阿陋猴井 saltworks in Yunnan, early
eighteenth century ..................................................................................
27. A salt boiling house (zaofang 灶房) at the Langjing 琅井

saltworks in Chuxiong Prefecture 楚雄府, Yunnan,
about 1707 ..................................................................................................
28. Inside of a boiling house in the saltworks of Ho-boung
Village, near Pu’er 普洱, Yunnan Province, late 1860s ................
29. Shape of a gui jade and thus the form of salt produced
at the Yunlongjing saltworks, Yunlong Department of Dali
Prefecture ...................................................................................................
30. Carrying the ashes and pouring them into the leaching basin,
Xiasha saltworks 下沙場 of Huating District 華亭縣 in
Zhexi 浙西, about 1334 ..........................................................................
31. Straining and removing salt from the large iron pan, Xiasha
saltworks of Huating District in Zhexi, about 1334 .......................
32. The salt production process in Changlu, French illustration
of the early sixteenth century .............................................................
33. Production of salt by basin solar evaporation at the Salt Lake
of Xiezhou 解州, Shanxi, twelfth to thirteenth centuries ..........

172
175
177
178
228
281
283
284
285
287
310
311
312

314
335
336
337
338




list of figures, maps and tables

34. Tranquillo Cremona’s (1837–1878) Marco Polo davanti al
Gran Khan dei Tartari, 1863 ..................................................................
35. The collection of large revenues in Kinsay, French mediaeval
illustration of about 1412 .......................................................................
36. Venetian grosso, piccolo and ducato of the thirteenth
century ........................................................................................................
37. A Yuan sliding weight of 2 jin for a 55-jin-steelyard, 1304 ..........
38. Silver ingot of 1 ding or 50 liang from the Mongol era ................

xiii
352
366
473
481
485

Maps
 1. Places in China with paper money as mentioned by
Marco Polo, 1275–1291, compared with relevant references

to paper money institutions in Chinese sources, ca. 1303 ........
 2. The Southwest Silk Road during the late thirteenth to
nineteenth centuries ..............................................................................
 3. Production of gold, silver, copper and tin in Yunnan,
ca. first century BC to fourteenth century AD ...............................
 4. Places with cowry and cowry currencies, Yunnan,
late thirteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries .................................
 5. Salt production places in Yunnan, eighth to fourteenth
centuries .....................................................................................................
 6. Saltworks in Yunnan, seventeenth to early twentieth century ..
 7. Sources of salt in Ming China, 1368–1644 ........................................
 8. Locations with mentioning of salt money or salt barter in
Southwest China, late eighth to mid-twentieth centuries ..........

208
240
247
254
277
278
279
302

Tables
 1. Denominations of main Yuan paper currencies in Chinese
sources as well as the denominations mentioned by
Marco Polo ................................................................................................. 98
 2. Coverage of paper money topics by Marco Polo and other
mediaeval Western, Persian and Arabic authors .......................... 119
 3. Measures of surviving specimens of Yuan paper notes or

paper money printing plates ............................................................... 529
 4. Number of Yuan Stabilisation Storehouses and Circulation
Storehouses by region, ca. 1303 ........................................................... 186


xiv

list of figures, maps and tables

 5. Uses of silver, copper cash, paper money and paper money
denominations in North China as mentioned on Yuan stele
inscriptions, organised by period and social classes ....................
 6. Uses of silver, copper cash, paper money and paper money
denominations in Jiangnan as mentioned on Yuan stele
inscriptions, organised by period and social classes ....................
 7. Places in China with paper money as mentioned by
Marco Polo, 1275–1291, compared with relevant references to
paper money institutions in Chinese sources, ca. 1303 ...............
 8. Amounts of issued paper money and estimates of the total and
per capita values of paper money in circulation in Mongol
China, 1260–1324, according to Peng Xinwei’s approach ............
 9. Amounts of issued paper money and estimates of the total
and per capita values of paper money in circulation in Mongol
China, 1260–1324, according to Wu Qi’s parameters ....................
10. Hypothetical estimates for the mean annual inflation rate of
prices expressed in Yuan paper money, 1260–1287 .......................
11. Chinese and East Asian regions with cowry currency
mentioned by Marco Polo ....................................................................
12. Yunnan salt production places mentioned for the Tang and
Nanzhao periods, eighth to ninth centuries ...................................

13. Yunnan salt production places mentioned for the Yuan
dynasty ........................................................................................................
14. Production and taxation of the Yunnan saltworks, second half
of the seventeenth century ...................................................................
15. Liangzhe 兩浙 annual salt production quotas, general official
price per yin of salt, and Liangzhe total salt revenue as well
as amount of salt received per 1 g of gold at government
saltworks, 1261–1343 ................................................................................
16. Annual salt production quotas (in yin) especially of
Lianghuai 兩淮 and Liangzhe 兩浙, 1277–1330 .............................
17. The salt production quotas of Huaidong Route 淮東路 based
on the Zhongxing huiyao 中興會要 (State Regulations
of the First Two [Southern Song] Reign-periods),
about 1127–1162 .........................................................................................
18. The administrative organisation of the Salt Distribution
Commission ( yanyunsi 鹽運司) of Lianghuai 兩淮 in the
early Yuan period up to 1294 ...............................................................
19. Administrative structure of the Pacification Commission
of Huaidong Circuit 淮東道 in the 1280s and 1290s ....................

194
197
199
218
221
224
232
274
275
276

320
332

345
348
355




list of figures, maps and tables

20. Approximate average salt revenues of Kinsay in gold and
paper money according to the exchange rates of 1282–1286
and from 1287 onwards ..........................................................................
21. Lowest possible salt revenues of Kinsay in gold and paper
money according to the exchange rates of 1282–1286
and from 1287 onwards ..........................................................................
22. Highest possible salt revenues of Kinsay in gold and paper
money according to the exchange rates of 1282–1286 and
from 1287 onwards ..................................................................................
23. The revenue of Kinsay, except salt, in selected Marco Polo
versions .......................................................................................................
24. Approximate average revenues of Kinsay (except salt) in gold
and paper money according to the exchange rates of
1282–1286 and from 1287 onwards ......................................................
25. Highest possible revenues of Kinsay (except salt) in gold and
paper money according to the exchange rates of 1282–1286
and from 1287 onwards ..........................................................................

26. Lowest possible revenues of Kinsay (except salt) in gold and
paper money according to the exchange rates of 1282–1286
and from 1287 onwards ..........................................................................
27. Preserved data of annual revenues of various tax categories
in monies, metals and kinds and expenditures in paper
money in Mongol China, 1263–1329 ..................................................
28. Share of Jiangzhe 江浙 in various tax items in 1328 ....................
29. Annual salt production and salt tax revenues of the Yuan
dynasty, about 1285–1330 ......................................................................
30. Estimate of the Jiangzhe and empire-wide paper money tax
revenue on the basis of the lower saggi figures mentioned
by Marco Polo ..........................................................................................
31. Estimate of the Jiangzhe and empire-wide paper money tax
revenue on the basis of the higher saggi figures mentioned
by Marco Polo ..........................................................................................
32. Average weight of a Venician groat (grosso), 1205–1311 ...............
33. Average weight of a Venetian ducat (ducato), 1343–1400 ...........
34. Weights of Venetian weight measures according to various
sources ........................................................................................................
35. System of imperial monetary units-of-account in the Mongol
empire .........................................................................................................
36. Weights of weight measures of the Yuan period, 1295–1306 .....
37. Weights of silver ingots of the Yuan period ....................................

xv

375
375
375
381

382
382
382
542
385
386
387
388
472
473
474
477
479
481



Preface from Mark Elvin
Authenticity of evidence has become the bedrock of distinctively modern
history. The event that best symbolizes this aspect of modernity, though I
suspect not necessarily its first appearance, is probably the well-known De
falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione declamatio written in 1440
by the great Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla. Several of the key words in his
title have multiple connotations, most likely deliberately, but perhaps the
translation that best conveys its tone at the time would be A notification of
protest concerning the erroneously trusted but forged Gift of Constantine.1 In
his polemic Valla showed that it was extremely implausible that the celebrated alleged donation of temporal power over most of western Europe,
and many other privileges for the Catholic Church, to Pope Sylvester by
the Emperor Constantine, was authentic. In addition to a rhetoric that at
times more resembled the outburst of a human Vesuvius than civilized

scholarly discourse as we now understand it, he nonetheless used the dexterity of a master to mobilize historical philology, historical plausibility,
and the need to respect the consistent pattern conveyed by the majority
of well-regarded close-to-contemporary late-imperial sources, and indeed
even the evidence of physical objects, such as the total absence of coins
asserting or implying papal secular suzerainty over the western half of the
old empire, to reveal that the donation was virtually certainly a forgery
made in the eighth century.2 Above all, though, the Declamatio was an
innovation in methodology. It was the first master-class that showed how
such a demolition could be done.
Yet for all the difficulty of his enterprise—and, we should add, the personal danger he risked in such a seemingly sacrilegious assault—Valla
still had a relatively simple task in the intellectual sense. The present
volume by Professor Hans Ulrich Vogel of the University of Tübingen,
with its cautious erudite sobriety, massive detail and informational density, and its multilingual and multicultural maîtrise, undertakes the even
more demanding positive inverse. That is to say it demonstrates by specific

1  On the term declamation see Jan Frederik Niermeyer and C. van de Kieft, revised by
J. Burgers, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Brill: Leiden, 2002, p. 404.
2 See Christopher Coleman, The Treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine: Text and Translation into English, Yale University Press: New Haven CT, 1922.


xviii

preface from mark elvin

example after specific example the ultimately overwhelming probability
of the broad authenticity of the greatest of all works joining premodern
European and Chinese history, Marco Polo’s late medieval Le devisament
dou monde3 on his travels in East Asia, and above all China, in the later
years of the thirteenth century. It is a work with often significantly differing versions: the coverage given by the manuscripts is not always the
same; there are some critical divergences in terms used—for example

did Marco exert at least a measure of political authority for a time in the
city of Yangzhou (seignora) or merely sojourn (séjourna) there a while;
and there are at least a few apparent gaps in descriptions, though most
of these turn out to be easily explicable. Care is manifestly needed, and
those who have in the past, and even recently, raised fundamental doubts
of various sorts about the book, though mistaken, were not always being
casual or foolish.
Vogel uses, where appropriate, all the analytical techniques deployed
by Valla, while sparing us the rhetoric, but his core method is to compare,
item by item, what is in the main Polo manuscripts with the contents
of the most authoritative Chinese official and privately authored texts
dealing with the same matters, the majority of them put into the public domain some years after Polo had dictated his text in Europe, and so
broadly independent as far as can be told. Polo did not, in any case, read
Chinese. In many cases the precision of fit is to all intents and purposes
perfect, rarely anything but good. In some of those items to do with statistics, Vogel is at times obliged to be circumspect, and restricts himself to
showing that in nearly every case the general magnitude is the same. In a
handful of exceptionally complex cases, notably those involving multiple
translations of long-extinct units of value and weight, at least the ranges
of estimated maximum and minimum magnitudes virtually all overlap.
In other words, differences are usually more sensibly seen as discrepancies than exaggerations either up or down. A further major feature is that
Vogel shows how accurately Polo, in the broad majority of cases, described
physical objects, such as Mongol-dynasty printed paper money notes, that
have often only quite recently been discovered by archaeologists. While
great respect is owed to some shrewd pioneering observations by Igor
de Rachewiltz, the doyen of Western Mongolists, in the journal Zentralasiatische Studien (above all, issue 26 in 1997), notably on Marco’s startlingly accurate knowledge of the matrimonial diplomatic policy of the
3 The Franco-Italian form of the title.

preface from mark elvin

xix

Mongol rulers, no study other than the present one else drives home so
remorselessly the point that, when the available material, which is gathered and presented in these pages, is evaluated as a whole, it is incontestable that most of the Venetian traveler’s knowledge must either have
been first-hand or come to him from informants personally very close to
Chinese events and Chinese realities. The case as a whole has now been
closed.
Speaking personally, as an economic and environmental historian of
China, the key service that this work does for those of us who have worked
or are still working in these two fields, is to strengthen our confidence
that Polo’s book is, in essence, authentic, and, when used with care, in
broad terms to be trusted as a serious, though obviously not always final,
witness. The second, and only marginally less important, service is that it
puts at our disposal an unprecedented wealth of detail, much of it new,
about the currencies circulating in the Mongol economy and fiscal system,
the production of salt in this period and its prices and areas of sale, and in
addition gives us a picture of the revenues of the Mongol state analyzed
to a new sharpness of resolution.
Written with clarity and great care, it is a well of information from
which serious students of the past who care profoundly about reconstructing both the broader expanses of mediaeval Chinese history, and
the significant minutiae that sustain their reconstructions, right, will—
necessarily—be drawing on with grateful appreciation for a long time to
come.
And, I would add, it is a new master-class in historical method that, if I
am permitted for a moment to engage in an exercise of the imagination,
would surely have impressed even Valla himself had he been still with us
to see it.
Mark Elvin

St. Antony’s College
Oxford



Préface de Philippe Ménard
M. Hans Ulrich Vogel, Professeur à l’université de Tübingen, s’est déjà
signalé à l’attention des médiévistes par beaucoup d’articles sur l’économie
et les monnaies de la Chine impériale, et aussi par un important travail
Salt Production Techniques in Ancient China (Leiden, Brill, 1992). Le présent ouvrage Marco Polo Was in China: New Evidence from Currencies, Salts
and Revenues, apporte des éléments d’information nouveaux et considérables pour l’interprétation du livre de Marco Polo. Il est excellent pour les
médiévistes qu’un sinologue confirmé reprenne l’examen du Devisement
du monde et nous apporte une masse de faits et de réflexions sur ce texte
célèbre. En 2006 Stephen G. Haw, qui connaît la langue chinoise, a publié
une étude Marco Polo’s China, portant surtout sur les régions traversées,
les produits du sol et les animaux évoqués par le voyageur. Mais il utilise
deux traductions (celle de Cordier et celle de Hambis), sans se reporter aux
versions originales, et ses remarques s’avèrent brèves. Elles ne concernent
nullement les problèmes financiers. Il faut féliciter M. Vogel d’avoir pris la
peine d’examiner les versions authentiques du texte de Marco Polo.
Dans cet ouvrage d’environ 600 pages M. Vogel enrichit singulièrement notre connaissance des réalités économiques à l’époque de Marco
Polo. On n’avait jamais exploré dans plusieurs versions du Devisement du
monde avec autant de soin et de science les références faites à la monnaie
de papier, mais aussi au sel et aux coquillages nommés porcelaine, qui servent également de monnaie d’échange dans certains endroits reculés de la
province du Yunnan et dans des régions limitrophes. Le voyageur vénitien
fournit des précisions remarquables sur la production et la circulation de
ces diverses monnaies. Il a été surpris et admiratif en assistant à la fabrication du papier monnaie à partir de l’écorce de murier. M. Vogel démontre
que tous les détails donnés dans le texte sont parfaitement vrais.
Le présent livre nous offre, dans une vaste section intitulée “Paper
Money in Yuan China,” une très large étude sur l’emploi du papier monnaie entre 1275 et 1291, c’est-à-dire à l’époque de Marco Polo. Les billets de

banque constituaient une invention chinoise plus ancienne, déjà attestée
à l’époque Song, mais l’empereur Khoubilai Khan l’a encore perfectionnée
en édictant une prohibition absolue de l’usage de toute monnaie métallique. Les marchands étrangers devaient s’y plier. L’empereur détenait seul
l’or et l’argent.


xxii

préface de philippe ménard

Ce livre est enrichi d’appendices nombreux et utiles: publication des
pages de Marco Polo concernant le papier monnaie, compilation des passages relatifs aux questions monétaires chez divers écrivains occidentaux
(les textes de Jordan Catala de Severac et d’Odoric de Pordenone sont
justement mentionnés), répertoire des monnaies propres à Venise, équivalences entre les systèmes monétaires persan et chinois, informations
sur le sel et les coquillages employés comme monnaie. De nombreuses
illustrations, presque toujours peu connues, voire inconnues, complètent
les analyses. Elles constituent un apport nouveau et considérable. L’examen des revenus perçus par le Grand Khan et mentionnés de manière
assez détaillée par Marco Polo montre que le voyageur vénitien est parfaitement informé. Il a peut-être été inspecteur et contrôleur (c’était une
idée de Luciano Petech), ayant eu entre les mains des documents officiels
sur les redevances payées au Khan pour le commerce du sel, des épices
et de la soie. Nul ne peut inventer des chiffres pour étayer ses dires, sans
avoir eu, au préalable, les comptes financiers sous les yeux. Il faut avoir
eu connaissance des relevés établis par l’administration concernant les
grandes villes du sud de la Chine (notamment Hangzhou) pour pouvoir
en donner un aperçu.
L’ouvrage de M. Vogel n’est pas seulement utile aux spécialistes de
Marco Polo. Il apporte beaucoup aux historiens de la Chine et de l’Orient
en général. Il permet de mieux connaître certaines transactions commerciales. Il donne des informations de première main sur la production du
sel, produit de première nécessité dans les civilisations anciennes, à l’intérieur de la province du Yunnan et sur la monnaie de sel au Tibet. L’auteur
ne se contente pas de procéder à un examen approfondi des questions

monétaires évoquées dans le Devisement du monde. Il a opéré aussi des
dépouillements considérables à travers plusieurs versions du texte de
Marco Polo et il publie, en outre, une bibliographie très importante, qui
inclut non seulement les recherches faites dans les grandes langues de
l’Europe, mais aussi les travaux réalisés par des érudits chinois et japonais.
Il est important de savoir qu’au plan monétaire le texte de Marco Polo est
en parfait accord avec les sources conservées et les documents officiels
chinois. Comme l’auteur le déclare justement, à n’en pas douter, Marco
Polo est bien allé en Chine.
Philippe Ménard
Université de Paris-Sorbonne
Paris


Preface from the Author
Le père Martini qui donne le détail de ce fourni à chaque province au Trésor Royal faire monter ces revenus
à de plus grandes sommes. Les exagérations ont autre
fois attire a M. Polo le surnom de le mesme Marco
Millioni.1

Because this book deals with currencies, salts and revenues and thus, as
we will see, with huge amounts of money, it is appropriate to start with
a remark on the origin of Marco Polo’s (1254–1324) nickname “il Milione.”
Several explanations have been offered for it. In the early nineteenth century Giovanni Battista Baldelli Boni (1766–1831) derived it from the name
of the province of Emilia and hence from “Emilione,” a nickname that
served to distinguish Marco Polo from many other Marcos among his relatives.2 Boleslaw Szceśniak thought that the nickname belonged to one
of the uncles of the traveller Marco Polo, namely Marco Polo lo grando
of Soldachia, and was transferred from this Marco to his son Nicolo lo
grando. Moreover, he held that the nickname was attributed wrongly by
Jacopo d’Acqui and others to Marco Polo the traveller.3 In a recent article

Marco Pozza could, however, show that the nickname “Milion” was indeed
used for Marco Polo the traveller, namely in a list of the confraternity
of Santa Maria della Misericordia already in August 1, 1319. While indeed
both Marco Polo lo grando as well as his son Nicolo lo grando carried this
sobriquet, the mentioning of “Marco Polo Milion” in the confraternity list
of 1319 could only refer to Marco Polo himself, because his uncle, Marco
Polo lo grando, had already died in 1305 or 1306.4
1  Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Nouvelles Acquisitions (NAF), 7482, Collection
Renaudot Sinica (unknown author(s) of Jesuit testimonies from the seventeenth to the
eighteenth centuries), Fol. 91v. I am indebted to Beatriz Puente-Ballesteros for bringing
this passage to my attention.
2 Cf. Boleslaw Szceśniak, “Marco Polo’s Surname ‘Milione’ According to Newly Discovered Documents,” T’oung Pao, 48.4/5 (1960), pp. 447–449; Folker E. Reichert, Begegnungen
mit China: Die Entdeckung Ostasiens im Mittelalter, Sigmaringen: Thorbecke Verlag, 1992,
p. 143.
3 Szcesniak (1960), p. 452, and also Igor de Rachewiltz, “Marco Polo Went to China,”
Zentralasiatische Studien, 27 (1977), p. 69.
4 See Marco Pozza, “Marco Polo Milion: An Unknown Source Concerning Marco Polo,”
Mediaeval Studies, 68 (2006): 285–301, especially pp. 288–289. The paper of Marco Pozza
was pointed out to me again by Beatriz Puente-Ballesteros.


xxiv

preface from the author

Apart from these more sober explanations, there exists a probably
parallel tradition of a more denigrating nature, which relates “Milione”
to the aspects of wealth and money. For instance, Fra Jacopo d’Acqui,
an obscure author of the chronicle Imago mundi, thought that it arose
because the Polos that had travelled to the East (Matteo, Niccolò, Marco)

were millionaires. Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485–1577) explained it as
coming from the incredibly huge revenues of the Great Khan which were
so vividly described by Marco Polo.5 As is made clear by the anonymous
quotation above, “Milione” was indeed used as a not very flattering surname for Marco Polo, because he was believed to have exaggerated the
amounts of revenues levied and collected by Khubilai (1215–1294), the
Great Khan.6
In this book dealing with the specific topics of currencies, salts and
revenues I will show, among other things, that Marco Polo did not earn
this denigrating sobriquet. As a matter of fact, one important issue to be
clarified in this work was indeed Marco Polo’s indications of the Great
Khan’s revenues derived from the territory of Hangzhou (Kinsay). By making use of data derived both from textual sources and physical relics and
by conversions carried out between different currencies I am able to demonstrate that Marco Polo’s figures make sense and are not the product of
fantasy prone to exaggerate the revenue of the Great Khan and to blow
it up to “millions.”
This book is the result of some side-line research started a few years
ago. While originally planned to be published as a paper dealing “only”
with the aspects of salt administration, salt production, salt money and
salt revenue as mentioned in Le devisament dou monde,7 its content grew
in volume over the years when it became more and more clear that for a
more complete and more convincing picture, other currencies―cowries
and Yuan paper money—and other types of revenue had to be taken into
5 See Giovanni Battista Ramusio, Navigazioni e viaggi, ed. by Marica Milanesi, Torino:
Giulio Einaudi, 1980, vol. 3, p. 30: “E perché nel continuo raccontare ch’egli faceva piú e
piú volte della grandezza del gran Cane [. . .] riferiva tutte a milioni, lo cognominarono
messer Marco Millioni.”
6 See also Marina Münkler, Erfahrung des Fremden: Die Beschreibung Ostasiens in
den Augenzeugenberichten des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2000,
pp. 123–124.
7 Le devisament dou monde is the name of the Franco-Italian manuscript, usually
abbreviated as F. It is considered to be the oldest and in many respect most complete

version of Marco Polo’s account. Because the arguments brought forward for this conclusions are convincing to me, I basically refer in this book to the Franco-Italian manuscript,
if not otherwise indicated.




preface from the author

xxv

account. Fuelled by a growing fascination for, and feverish enthusiasm
about, the topic, the original outlay of the investigation was considerably
expanded, thanks to a one-month research stay in Beijing in August 2009
and by dedicating part of my sabbatical in Leuven in 2010 to the expansion and completion of this book. To achieve this was, no doubt, facilitated
by my long-standing research work in the history of monies, finance, salt
and metrology in imperial China. Experience gathered in these fields over
many years allowed me to take a fresh look at Marco Polo passages related
to the complex topics of Yuan monetary and fiscal history. The result is
presented in this book, which is intended not only to be a contribution to
Marco Polo research and thus, more generally, intercivilisational encounters in a historical perspective, but which hopefully will also stimulate
further critical investigations that will incorporate both data provided by
textual sources and physical relics and research achievements obtained
in Japan, China and the West. The fruitfulness of such a comprehensive
approach based on a solid mastery in working with primary sources and
secondary literature of different origins and cultural backgrounds will no
doubt yield novel and surprising results even in a field as time-honoured
as Marco Polo research.