Marco Polo’s City of Heaven

3 min read

When the famous Marco Polo entered Hangzhou, it was a different place-not just different from where he had been, different from what it once was. Thirty years previous, the child emperor of the Southern Song was smuggled out in the night as Hangzhou fell to the Mongol hordes of Kublai Khan. Whether or not he was aware of the complexities of the generation-long battle of the Khan against the remnants of the Song is up for debate, but he did indeed en joy the beauty of what remained:”The king who fled(the Song child emperor)[ had] the greatest palace in the world.. It is all painted in gold, with many histories and representations of beasts and birds, of knights and dames, and many marvelous things.

It forms a really magnificent spectacle, for over all the walls and all the ceiling you see nothing but paintings in gold.”Referred to as Kinsay in the Travels of Marco Polo, MarcoPolo said,”Inside the city there is a Lake which has a compass of some 30 miles and all round it are erected beautiful palaces and mansions, of the richest and most exquisite structure that you can imagine, belonging to the nobles of the city.”Of the people, he called the “men and women fair and comely”, remarking on the bridges, sugar, and silk of this Asian land of plenty. It is in Coleridge that Kublai Khan is remembered most vividly in the West, but to hear Marco Polo tell it, Hangzhou was the home of what remained of imperial Chinese gentility,a bedrock of civility and pleasure, expressing a sentiment held by many of Hangzhou’s visitors:”Hence it comes to pass that when they return home they say they have been to Kinsay or the City of Heaven, and their only desire is to get back thither as soon as possible.”

Polo and Prosperity

Now, it must be said of Marco Polo that he is far from a trusted source-omitting as hedoes large swathes of both history and landmarks(the Great Wall not even the least of these) in his travels, and claiming at one point that Hangzhou had pears in excess of ten pounds. His Venetian cultural filter is also on full view:”You must know they eat every kind of flesh, even that of dogs and other unclean beasts, which nothing would induce a Christian to eat.”In the end, however, this wasn’t a vacation; Marco Polo was sent by the Great Khan to inspect the revenue brought in by the territories south of the Yellow River.

The salt alone caused the Venetian traveler to gush:”[ Salt makes] fourscore tomans of gold.. In sooth,a vast sum of money!”He also remarked that the whole of the rest of the territories he visited did not grow as much sugar, speaking of the various items that came through that great port of industry and trade with glowing alacrity-of the rice wine, the Indian traders, the tradesmen, the silk. The business Marco Polo saw in the late 12thcentury might be something entrepreneurs from overseas today might want to keep in mind:”They also treat the foreigners who visit them for the sake of trade with great cordiality, and entertain them in the most winning manner, affording them every help and advice on their business.”