[
    {
        "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": 205574,
        "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-1968",
        "page_number": 116,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "SUN YAT-SEN AND CHINESE HISTORY\n\n111\n\nOne day, a fellow student picked one of the volumes at random and questioned Sun on its contents. It is reported that the student was surprised to discover that young Sun Yat-sen had read the work thoroughly. In this fashion then, is built the image of the revolutionary whose knowledge of his own nation's past was firmly grounded.\n\nYet if anything at all is clear about Sun Yat-sen's career, it should be that he had no real proclivity toward history. Aside from the required Chinese part of his curriculum at Queen's College in Hong Kong, an interest in history seems to be lacking completely in Sun's formal education, which in any case eventuated in a medical degree. But even if there was some interest in Chinese history, as manifested in his hiring of the tutor, it is even more evident that his historical curiosity was not matched by an equal amount of critical acumen as he internalized what he read of it. These then are basic considerations to be taken in hand from the beginning. Any question of the influence of nationalism momentarily aside, Sun's lack of interest in history led to a ready and unquestioning acceptance of the Chinese schoolboy's idealistic self-image of Chinese history, as taught among Western subjects in colonial Hong Kong. This left him without the slightest concern for the possibility of alternative interpretations of questionable historical points or problems, and also led to unabashed carelessness with respect to the accuracy of historical references.\n\nOnly in this way can one explain the surprising and numerous overly-facile historical generalizations and outright errors to be found even in the most cursory reading of Sun's writings. Perhaps the simple comment by Sun that Marco Polo “occupied an official post under Genghis-Khan, of the Yuan dynasty,” might be overlooked even though it contains a double error (since Marco Polo served under Kubilai Khan, and there was as yet no Yuan dynasty in the time of Genghis Khan), because it is of such little importance. But Sun's claim that Cheng Ho visited all the islands of the ocean (ostensibly the Pacific) \"and even reached San Francisco\" certainly merits some notice. Incidentally, Sun was amiss on the date for this supposed expedition as well. Sun was much taken with the pat concept of China's irresistible assimilatory capability, and on more than one occasion referred to it. He noted that China was never \"enslaved\" by foreign invaders but on the contrary the latter “were assimilated by the Chinese as easily as the moving of",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205947,
        "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-1970",
        "page_number": 27,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "22\n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH\n\nLibrary of Peiping reported on its copy of the local history of Shao-hsing-fu, Chekiang (YLTT ch. 7963). One must also mention the excellent use made by Professor Jao Tsung-i of chüan 11,907 (preserved in Peking) in his article on \"Some place-names in the South Seas in the Yung-lo ta-tien.\"8 Finally, because everyone is interested in Marco Polo and the authenticity of his record of travel, let us mention the discovery in chüan 19,418 of the YLTT by two Chinese scholars of the names of the three envoys from the Mongol court of Persia who were dispatched in 1290 to Kubilai in Cambaluc to convey the Lady Kukachin (Marco's Cocachin) to Tabriz to become the bride of Argon. Their names, rendered in Chinese transcription, correspond fairly closely with those preserved in Marco's account. His name and the names of his father and uncle, unfortunately, were not considered of sufficient importance to receive mention. Hopefully we may expect more enlightenment on China's past as these rare volumes are further explored.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 For example, Leonard Aurousseau in Bull. de l'Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient XII: 9 (1912), and both Walter Swingle and Arthur W. Hummel in Reports of the Library of Congress, 1922-23, 1935-36, 1940, etc.\n\n2 Wang Chung-min1 has recently identified 246 of these individuals, including the three principals, in an article entitled \"Yung-lo ta-tien tsuan-hsiu jen k'ao,”†^#, Wên-shih★★ 4 (June 1965), 17 ff. (Mrs. Lienche Tu Fang kindly drew this to my attention.)\n\n3 Bull. de l'Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient IX (1909), 828, n.3.\n\n4 Communication to the author, dated 15th Oct., 1969, from the curator, D. Zichy.\n\n5 I owe this to Mrs. Delano Young (née Yang Chin-yi) who received the information from a member of the staff of the Library.\n\n6 Extracts of books were distributed under different tone groups.\n\n7 A Study of Chiang-su and Che-chiang gazetteers of the Ming Dynasty (Canberra 1969), p. 5.\n\n8 Symposium on Historical, Archaeological and Linguistic Studies of Southern China, South-east Asia, and the Hong Kong Region (Hong Kong 1967), 191-7.\n\n9 Yang Chih-chiu and Ho Yung-chi, \"Marco Polo quits China,\" Harvard Jo. of Asiatic Studies IX (1945), 51. See also Yule-Cordier, The Book of Ser Marco Polo (London 1903), I, p. 32.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241",
        "rank": 0
    }
]