[ { "id": 205099, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "50\n\nHERBERT FRANKE\n\nmonks, missionaries and translators of the holy scriptures came from Iranian Central Asia at a time when there was certainly no universal peace in Asia. But was there really something like a Pax Mongolica, even during a very short time? The Mongol rulers of China who had adopted the Chinese dynastic name of Yüan in 1271, regarded themselves, from Khubilai on, more as rulers of China than of a universal empire of which China was only a part. This is reflected, as we shall see, in the Yuan dynastic history which is usually vague and uninformed as soon as a geographical area outside of China proper is mentioned. Although Khubilai was the Great Khan of all Mongols, his rule was always threatened by dissatisfied pretenders who tried to set up their own kingdoms in the Northern and Western regions, and there are recorded, in Chinese historical sources at least, as many feuds, campaigns and full-scale wars with other Mongol rulers and pretenders as good-will embassies from the other Mongol ulus (dominions); those of Chagatai in Central Asia, the Ilkhans in Persia and the Golden Horde rulers of Southwestern Siberia and South Russia. The situation, at least in the fourteenth century, among the non-Chinese ulus was not much different. The Golden Horde rulers and the Persian Ilkhans were, to say the least, not friendly to each other and war was frequent. In short, it seems as if the Pax Mongolica is no more than one of those brilliant simplifications that can serve as chapter titles for world history books. There remains some doubt whether it was easier to get from, say, Venice or the Black Sea region or Persia to China under the Mongols than some centuries earlier.\n\nHowever that may be, there can be no doubt that there was a certain amount of cultural contact between China and the non-Chinese West under the rule of the Mongol emperors. But the fact remains that there was no Chinese Marco Polo, no Chinese Rubruk or Giovanni da Montecorvino. China, it seems, was not very much interested in learning more about the countries of the West; we have in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries no Chinese pilgrims like I-ching and Hsüan-tsang who had travelled to India in search of the Buddhist religion. There was no appeal and no challenge to learn more about the West. This relative indifference towards the civilization outside one's own geographical habitat and cultural background is to be seen in The Secret History of the Mongols, This fascinating book, the oldest", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205100, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 56, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n51\n\nsurviving specimen of a Middle Mongolian literary text, and an invaluable source on the customs and mores of the Mongols in their early formative period, has a lot to tell about the feuds and struggles of steppe tribes. But it remains singularly uninformative about the countries outside Mongolia. The campaigns against Russia, for example, are mentioned only in the most laconic terms. It is said in No. 274 \"they destroyed the towns of Ejil, Jayah and Meget\". Of these three only Meget, modern Mzcheti near Tiflis, is a town, whereas Ejil and Jayah are names of rivers—the Volga and the Ural respectively. And later similar confusion reigns between names of tribes and towns—the text mentions the \"population of towns like Asut, Sesut, Bolar and Man-Kerman Kiwa\". Asut are the As, the Ossetes; Sesut are probably the Saqsin; Bolar the Volga Bulgars; and Man-Kerman Kiwa means in Turkish the \"great town Kiwa\" which might refer to Sugdaq near Kaffa in the Crimea raided by the Mongols in 1223. All this shows a grandiose unconcern over countries that, after all, had become parts of the Mongol empire.\n\nThe situation is not very different if we turn to the Chinese sources. The dynastic history of the Yuan, Yuan-shih, compiled in 1368-1369 from existing records does not contain much on those parts of Asia that, at some time under Kublai Khan, had belonged to him who was also emperor of China. The compilers and historiographers whose work finally resulted in the Yuan-shih as we have it were mostly Chinese, and their attitude in writing a dynastic history was as a matter of course centered on China. It is perhaps significant that in the section reserved for foreign states in the Yuan-shih we find only entries of those countries which had always had ambassadorial contacts and so-called \"tribute\" relations with China, countries like North and South Korea, Japan, Annam, Burma and Champa. These were immediate neighbors of China. No special chapters were written on other Western states, even if they were dominated by Mongols—countries such as Persia or the Golden Horde or the Chagatai dominion of Central Asia. If they sent embassies or notifications the records must be looked for in the annalistic section (pen-chi). There are, it is true, a few data on Western Asia and even Russia scattered through the Yuan-shih, but they are extremely scanty. There is an appendix on the Western Regions to the section of political geography (YS ch. 63) where the kingdom of Uzbeg.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205101, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 57, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "52\n\nHERBERT FRANKE\n\nKhan of the Golden Horde (r. 1313-1340) is mentioned together with a very few notes on some nations which belonged to the Golden Horde, the Cherkess, the Alans and Ossetes, the Qipchaq Turks, the Russians (Wo-lo-ssu, from the Mongol Oros) and the Bulgars (Chinese Pu-li-a-êrh). Under the Qipchaq entry we find some data mentioning Russia and the Russians, such as Batus' conquest of Yeh-lieh-tsan which is the Chinese name for the ancient Russian town of Ryazan (1237), adorned with an Altaic prothetic vowel (like Oros from Ros, Rus). And in 1253 the Chinese annals record that a Mongol dignitary was dispatched to register the households of the Russians for taxation purposes. This was under the Great Khan Mongke (r. 1251-1259) under whom there was still a certain unity of command over the vast territories of the Mongol empire. But in later years the cohesion among the ulus was reduced more and more, and the Chinese official sources have little if anything to say of the West.\n\nThe multi-national auxiliaries of the Mongols included some Russians. These were mostly slaves, or prisoners of war, and repeatedly gifts to the Mongol rulers in China of Russian slaves are mentioned. In 1330 even a Russian guards regiment was established in Peking. There were other guards regiments in addition to the Mongol and Chinese soldiers at that time, consisting of Alans (i.e., Ossetes), Tanguts, Jurchen, Koreans, Qipchaq, and \"Western Regions People\", probably from Turkestan. And a Mohammedan (Hui-hui) artillery corps was equally a part of the Mongol armed forces. The Russians who served in the Peking guards regiment were given land north of Peking and settled there as military colonists. Their total number must have been something like 10,000 because the Yuan-shih mentions that figure in 1330. Other Russian troops were, together with Ossetes, dispatched to the Manchurian and Korean borders (Liao-yang Province), and to places in Northern China. As late as 1339 the Chancellor Bayan was appointed a commander of these Russian soldiers but after that date no more is heard of them. We do not know what became of these Europeans who had been a definitely Western element in the multi-national metropolis of Yüan China.\n\nIf official Chinese historiography as reflected in the dynastic annals did not display any great interest in the West, there are at least other fields where we find traces of broader world conception stimulated by a growing consciousness that the world did stretch", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205106, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 62, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS\n\n57\n\nwith Chinese technique and art forms. This stone is so far the \"sole material monument\" of the Franciscan mission in medieval China. It has been suggested that there might exist another one. Christian tombstones from Ch'üan-chou were published some years ago, and it has been thought that the language on one of them is Latin. It must be Christian because the inscription begins with the sign of the Cross, but the attempt to read it as Latin and to regard it as the tomb inscription for Andrew of Perugia, the third suffragan bishop of Zayton — modern Ch'üan-chou — does not seem convincing. The only thing that can be said with certainty is that the inscription is not in Syriac script.5\n\nThere is, however, another mission from the West that reached China and where even the dynastic history of the Yuan has recorded their arrival. It is that of the papal envoy Giovanni da Marignolli, Bishop of Bisignano. A medieval manuscript in Prague has recorded the Western part of the story. This embassy, if we may call it that, was occasioned by a letter from some Alan Christians in China dated 11th July 1336. Some of the senders can be identified with persons mentioned in Chinese sources of the period. The Pope, Benedict XII, answered with a letter dated 13th June 1338, and Giovanni da Marignolli left Avignon — the papal see in those years — in December 1338. He travelled first to Constantinople and proceeded from there to the Crimea and the court of Uzbeg, Khan of the Golden Horde. Another station was Almaliq in Central Asia. Finally the papal envoy reached Khanbaliq (Peking) and was presented to the Emperor, Shun-ti. Giovanni presented the emperor with gifts, among them a Western horse. After a few years in China the envoy went back to Europe via India and reached Avignon in 1353. The Chinese annals have recorded the exact date of the audience when Giovanni met Shun-ti, or, to call him by his Mongol name, Togon Temur; it was August 19, 1342. The Chinese dynastic history calls the country Fu-lang, another way of transcribing the name of the Franks, that is, the Europeans. However, Giovanni's name and that of the Pope, are not mentioned by the Yuan-shih. In any case, this embassy seemed so important to the compilers of the dynastic history that they recorded it, and this means something because the basic documents for Togon Temur's reign were already lost at the time of the compilation of the Yuan-shih so that the annals for his reign are notoriously incomplete. But even so it does not seem", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205117, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1966", "page_number": 73, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "68\n\nHERBERT FRANKE\n\nadministration of the local rulers of the Tun-huang region who were descended from the Chagatay branch of Chingis Khan's clan was still modelled after the Chinese prototypes. The names of offices mentioned in this Mongol letter written in the Mongol script are transcriptions from Chinese. The same applies to the feudal titles of these local rulers: they are Chinese and can be identified through Chinese sources. The document must have been written about 1355 or 1360, that is, rather late and at a time when the Tun-huang and Turfan regions were certainly not under direct control from Peking. Another document found in Turfan and dating from the same period has furnished evidence for another set of Chinese titles, in a context which is, linguistically, a strongly Turkicized Mongolian. The names of offices mentioned show that the administration of these Chagatay kings was a replica of the Chinese central and provincial government organization. Even the disposition of the Mongol documents found in Central Asia shows Chinese influence: wherever the name of a Khan occurs, a new line is begun.23 This same feature occurs also in the Mongolian letters written by the Ilkhans of Persia to the King of France and to the Pope. The presence of Chinese chancellery practices in Persia under the Ilkhans is further shown by the Chinese seals or rather stamps on these letters.24 We could even go one step further and ask how much of the government and taxation practices of the Golden Horde rulers in Southern Russia is of Chinese origin. It is generally recognized that medieval Russia, that is, the Muscovite kingdom of the Ruriks, was deeply influenced by the \"Tatar\" domination and took over some of the Tatar or Mongol patterns of government. The tendencies toward centralization in sixteenth century Russia can be explained by these Tatar influences which might eventually go back to Chinese administrative patterns.\n\nChinese art forms too have spread West under the Mongols. A good example is Persian miniature painting. It is not necessary to be a trained art historian or a specialist in Islamic art; even a layman would notice that thirteenth and fourteenth century Persian miniatures were deeply influenced by Chinese painting. On some early miniatures we find trees, rocks and clouds painted in the same way as Chinese painters did. Chinese painting must therefore have been known to the Persians under Mongol rule. Recently unassailable proof for the presence of Chinese art in Persia has", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212721, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 30, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "'Union'. There was no indication that either Mesny or Kahler realized the implication behind the extraordinary ugliness of the emperor nor that the print had anti-Manchu secret society connotations.\n\nThe only time Mesny refers to photography was when Pickerell, his friend in Hankow in about 1864/5 who knew something of the rudiments of the art, 'then very imperfectly understood,' added Mesny, had produced some very good negatives and positives on glass of his Chinese employers. This spread Pickerell's fame and brought him lots of business. The colodion gave out and none was to be obtained at any price. Mesny tells us in his Miscellany that he knew how to make it and produced some which served the purpose until a supply could be obtained from Hong Kong. This yet again highlights the enigma of how did Mesny keep abreast with European and American business and scientific advances whilst in remote parts of China, and how did he, at the age of 22 or 23, in the heart of China, having left Jersey some ten years earlier, know anything about photography and in particular the constituents of colodion and how to make it?\n\nThe illustrations provided by the Jersey Post Office on the commemorative stamps are interesting illustrations of how the present day artist imagined Mesny and his surroundings. They should therefore be regarded as fanciful representations rather than accurate depictions. Mesny, for example, at no time appears to have worn the square badge of the civil official as portrayed in the illustration with Governor Chang. Again, he was never a 'Mandarin first class', he was a 'military official second class.' Finally, at no stage did he ever refer to himself at 'the River Gate.' Every walled town down the Yangtze would have had one but Mesny, himself, never mentioned the term and again, to our knowledge, was not on the Yangtze in 1874.\n\nNOTES\n\nThe Manchu dynasty was actually descended from the Jürchen, the so-called Golden Horde. The Manchus in China were neither Mongol nor even, strictly speaking, autochthonous Manchus but Jürchen conquerors from Manchuria\n\n1 Balleine G R: A Biographical Dictionary of Jersey Staples Press: London\n\nReady O: Life and Sport in China London. 1904\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 } ]