The Prisoner's Gold

34

Maggie was stunned by the professor’s claim. In all of her years as a tour guide, this was the first time she had heard it mentioned. ‘Marco Polo had a woman in China?’

‘Not just a woman,’ Chu stressed, ‘Yangchen was the love of his life.’

He glanced at Cobb and smiled. ‘Her name means the sacred one — and she certainly was to him. Marco met the young Yangchen, a Chinese girl, on his way into China from the Silk Road. This was way out by the western end of the Wall near Lanzhou.’ The man pointed vaguely west, but it was understood he was talking about the other side of China.

‘Why have we never heard of this before?’ Cobb asked.

‘Why indeed, Mr Cobb. Western scholars are so fond of congratulating themselves for their accomplishments and so busy reinforcing their imperialistic viewpoints that they forget there was a “rest of the world” before they discovered it. The written histories in China go back more than thirty-five hundred years. Yet from the Middle Ages onwards, Western scholars interested in Marco Polo — and anything else for that matter — have been content to dig through musty libraries and monasteries in Europe while pretending that the Chinese and the Arabs were so underdeveloped that they couldn’t read or write. The truth, of course, is very different. While successive wars and invasions decimated libraries in the Middle East, China’s history has been preserved. Unfortunately, there is one major problem with it.’

‘And what is that?’ Cobb asked.

‘There is too bloody much of it,’ Chu said with a laugh.

Cobb smiled in understanding.

Compared to China, America was just a baby.

‘Too bloody much,’ Chu repeated. ‘Several thousand years of history recorded by several thousand bureaucrats, who note every little detail that happens in government on the national and local levels. Combine that with folklore, superstition, songs, poetry, and the like, and it quickly gets overwhelming.’ The old man stopped walking and turned to face them. ‘It’s just too much information for any one person to consume in a single lifetime.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Cobb admitted.

‘In the not-too-distant past, you had to study everything to be a scholar. But somewhere along the line, people began to specialize — just as I have with my studies of the Wall. But you see, the folly in that is you don’t see the big picture. Are you familiar with the story of the blind men describing an elephant? One touches its leg and says it feels like a tree stump. One touches its tail and says it feels like a rope. The last one touches its ear and says it feels like a fan. Eventually the three men come to blows over their wildly different perspectives, and yet none of them are technically wrong. The problem is they can’t see the whole animal.’

Cobb was familiar with the parable, but smiled nonetheless.

Chu continued. ‘Scholars are like that now. Polo specialists read the early editions of his book, and they argue over silly things like whether or not he came to China. But how many of them ever did so? How many of them took the time to track down imperial court records from the time of Kublai Khan to confirm Polo’s stories? Maybe a handful. And those that did were expecting Polo’s appearance to be likened to the arrival of a foreign king — described with pageantry and grandeur. When they found nothing matching their preconceived Western notions, they returned home and claimed that Polo never set foot in China.’

‘But …’ Cobb said.

‘But the truth was Marco was simply a merchant when he arrived; barely a footnote in the eyes of China. He was not the figure that he is today.’

‘But still a footnote, right? I mean, he was mentioned, wasn’t he?’

Chu smiled. ‘Yes, he was. Many times.’

‘In what context?’ Maggie asked.

‘In many contexts,’ Chu assured her, ‘though not always by name. To find evidence of him in China, a researcher would have to focus on Polo, and the time period, and the bureaucracy of the day. I only know about it from reading up on the Wall during that era.’

Maggie pressed the issue. ‘What can you tell us about his connection with the Wall? Or this woman?’

‘Only that the two were intertwined. Beyond that, I’m afraid the details escape me. I came across Polo several decades ago, but I wasn’t particularly interested in him at the time.’ He tapped his temple with his index finger. ‘Luckily for you, I do remember that the records I was looking at were from the court of Kublai Khan.’

‘Any records in particular?’ Cobb asked.

‘Unfortunately, no. But the time period you are concerned with is fairly small. Less than twenty years. And the other details were mostly dull observations. Ledgers declaring how much grain was being stored for the winter. That sort of thing. I suspect you’ll be able to find what you are after — if you can get to the records.’

‘If?’ Maggie asked.

‘The records passed from Peking University to the State Administration for Cultural Heritage sometime in the 1980s. They’re not on display at any museums, or I would have heard about it. Most likely they are in storage somewhere.’

‘Somewhere? Could you narrow that down for us at all?’ Cobb asked.

‘I’m afraid not,’ the old man said. ‘There are hundreds of storage facilities all over China, which is one of the biggest problems facing researchers today. Remember, we are talking about thousands of years of history packed away in boxes and crates. To know which documents are being kept where, you’d have to be a genius.’

‘Thankfully,’ Cobb said, ‘I have one of those on retainer.’