honorary titles of "Left and Right Governors of Japan province"; and
when they and the other generals took leave of Kublai, the Emperor
said: "As they had sent us envoys first, we also sent envoys thither;
but then they kept our envoys, and would not let them go; hence I send
you, gentlemen, on this errand. I understand the Chinese say that when
you take another people's country, you need to get both the people and
the land. If you go and slay all the people, and only secure the land,
what use is that? There is another matter, upon which I feel truly
anxious--that is, I fear want of harmony among you, gentlemen! If the
natives of that country come to discuss any matter with you,
gentlemen, you should join your minds for one common plan, and reply
as though one mouth only had to speak."
When the army, after a week's sail from Tinghai, reached the islands
of Ku-tsi (off Masanpho) and Tsushima, some Japanese stranded
fishermen were caught and forced to sketch a map of the localities;
and meanwhile it had been agreed that the island of Iki was a better
rendezvous than "Kin Chou in Corea," on account of the then prevailing
winds. From the Japanese sailors' sketch it appeared that a little
west of the Dazai Fu was the island of Hirado, which, being surrounded
on all sides with plenty of water, afforded a good anchorage for the
ships. It was decided--subject, apparently, to Kublai's approval--to
occupy Hirado first, and then summon General Hung, etc., from Iki, to
join in a general attack. Kublai replied by the messenger in effect:
"I cannot judge here of the situation there. I presume Alouhan and his
colleagues ought to know, and they must decide for themselves."
Meanwhile Alouhan--written also Alahan--had fallen sick, and died at
Ningpo, and another Mongol, named Atahai--written also Antahai--was
sent to replace him. Now comes the sudden collapse of the whole
expedition, recorded, unfortunately, in most laconic and
unsatisfactory terms.
I give the various extracts _in extenso_:
1. _Chapter on Japan_.--"Eighth moon. The generals, having before
coming in sight of the enemy lost their entire force, got back. They
said that, 'having reached Japan, they wished to attack Dazai Fu, but
that a violent wind smashed the ships. That they were still bent on
discussing operations, when three of the commanders [Chinese names]
declined to accept their orders any more, and made off. The provincial
staff conveyed the rest of the army to Hoh P'u [probably = Masanpho],
whence they were dismissed back to their homes.' But one of the
defeated soldiers, who succeeded in escaping home, gave the following
account: 'The imperial armies in the 6th moon put to sea. In the 7th
moon they reached Hirado Island, and then moved to Five Dragon
Mountains [the Japanese pronunciation would be Go-riu Shima, or Yama,
and perhaps it means the Goto Islands]. On the 1st of the 8th moon the
wind smashed the ships. On the 5th day Fan Wen-hu and the other
generals each made selection of the soundest and best boats, and got
into them, and abandoned the soldiers, to the number of over one
hundred thousand, at the foot of the hills. The soldiers then agreed
to select the centurion Chang as general in command, and styled him
'General Chang,' submitting themselves to his orders. They were just
engaged in cutting down trees to make boats to come back in, when, on
the 7th day, the Japanese came and gave battle. All were killed except
20,000 or 30,000 who were carried off prisoners. On the 9th day these
got to the Eight Horn Islands [the Japanese pronunciation would be
Hakkaku Shima], where all the Mongols, Coreans, and men of Han
[--North China] were massacred. As it was understood that the newly
recruited army consisted of men of T'ang [= Cantonese, etc.], they
were not killed, but turned into slaves, of whom deponent was one. The
trouble arose from want of harmony and subordination in the general
staff, in consequence of which they abandoned the troops and returned.
After some time two other stragglers got back; that is out of a host
of 100,000 only three ever returned.'"
2. _Chapter on the Ouigour General, Siang-wei._--"In 1281 the
sea-force of 100,000 men under Fan Wen-hu, etc., took seven days and
nights to reach Bamboo Island [the Japanese pronunciation would be
Chikushima; perhaps is another form of Tsushima], where they effected
a junction with the forces of the provincial staff from Liao-yang. It
was the intention to first attack the Dazai Fu, but there was
vacillation and indecision. On the 1st day of the 8th moon a great
typhoon raged, and 60 or 70 per cent. of the army perished. The
Emperor was furious, etc."
3. _Chapter on Li T'ing, a Shan Tung man, who was on Fan Wen-hu's
staff._--"In 1281 the army encamped on Bamboo Island, but, a storm
arising, the vessels were all smashed. Li T'ing escaped ashore on a
piece of wreckage, collected the remains of the host, and returned via
Corea to Peking. Only 10 to 20 per cent. of the soldiers escaped alive
[apparently referring to the 40,000, not to the 100,000]."
4. _Chapter on the Chih-Li-man-Chang-Hi._--"He accompanied Fan Wen-hu
and Li T'ing with the naval force which crossed the sea against Japan.
Chang Hi, on arrival, at once left his boats, and set to work
intrenching on the island of Hirado. He also kept his war-ships at
anchor at a cable's length from each other, so as to avoid the
destructive action of wind and waves. When the great typhoon arose in
the 8th moon, the galleons of Fan and Li were all smashed; only Chang
Hi's escaped uninjured. When Fan Wen-hu, etc., suggested going back,
Chang Hi said: 'Half the soldiers are drowned, but those who have
escaped death are all sturdy troops. Surely it is better for us to
take advantage of this moment, before they have begun to think
regretfully of home, to live on the enemy's country and advance?' Fan
Wen-hu, etc., would not agree to this and said: 'When we see the
Emperor, we will bear all the blame; you have no share in it.' Chang
Hi gave them a number of his boats. At that instant there were 4,000
soldiers encamped on Hirado Island without any boats. Chang Hi said,
'How can I bear to leave them?' And then he jettisoned all the seventy
horses in the boats in order to enable them to get back. When they got
to Peking, Fan Wen-hu, etc., were all disgraced. Only Chang Hi escaped
punishment."
5. _Chapter on Ch'u Ting, an An Hwei man._--"He was with Fan Wen-hu's
force when the sudden storm arose. His craft was smashed, but Ch'u
Ting got hold of a piece of wreckage, and drifted about for three days
and three nights, until he fell in with Fan Wen-hu's ship at a certain
island, and was thus able to get to Kin Chou in Corea. The soldiers
encamped in the Hoh P'u bay also drifted in, and were collected and
taken home by him."
_Chapter on Hung Tsun-k'i, alias Hung Ts'a-k'iu, a Corean of ancient
Chinese descent_.--"[After recounting how Kublai placed him in charge
of the well-disposed Corean troops, how he served in the Corean and
Quelpaert campaigns, and against Japan in 1274 and 1277, the Mongol
History goes on:] In 1281, in company with Hintu [a Ouigour], he led a
naval force of 40,000 men via Kin Chou and Hoh-P'u in Corea to join
the 100,000 men coming by sea from Ningpo under Fan Wen-hu. Forces
were joined at the Iki, Hirado, and other islands of Japan; but before
the hostile forces were encountered, in the 8th month, a storm smashed
the ships, and he returned."
_Extract from Japanese Riokuji, or Historical Handbook_.--"In the 5th
moon of 1281 the Mongols raided us on a wholesale scale. Our troops
were unsuccessful in resisting them at Iki and Tsushima. The enemy
advanced and occupied Five Dragon Mountains in Hizen. The Hojo-tandai
led the troops bravely to the fight. The enemy retired upon Takashima.
In the intercalary 7th moon a great wind blew. The enemy's war-ships
were all broken to pieces. Our troops energetically attacked and cut
them up, the sea being covered with prostrate corpses. Of the Mongol
army of 100,000 only three men got back alive. Henceforward the
Mongols were unable to pry about our coasts again."
MARCO POLO
Of so great celebrity was the wealth of Cipango (Japan), that a desire
was excited in the breast of the grand khan Kublai, now reigning, to
make the conquest of it, and to annex it to his dominions. In order to
effect this, he fitted out a numerous fleet, and embarked a large body
of troops, under the command of two of his principal officers, one of
whom was named Abba-catan, and the other Vonsancin.[76]
The expedition sailed from the ports of Zaitun and Kinsai,[77] and,
crossing the intermediate sea, reached the island in safety; but in
consequence of a jealousy that arose between the two commanders, one
of whom treated the plans of the other with contempt and resisted the
execution of his orders, they were unable to gain possession of any
city or fortified place, with the exception of one only, which was
carried by assault, the garrison having refused to surrender.
Directions were given for putting the whole to the sword, and in
obedience thereto the heads of all were cut off, excepting of eight
persons, who, by the efficacy of a diabolical charm, consisting of a
jewel or amulet introduced into the right arm, between the skin and
the flesh, were rendered secure from the effects of iron, either to
kill or wound, Upon this discovery being made, they were beaten with a
heavy wooden club, and presently died.[78]
It happened, after some time, that a north wind began to blow with
great force, and the ships of the Tartars, which lay near the shore of
the island, were driven foul of each other. It was determined
thereupon, in a council of the officers on board, that they ought to
disengage themselves from the land; and accordingly, as soon as the
troops were re-embarked, they stood out to sea. The gale, however,
increased to so violent a degree that a number of the vessels
foundered. The people belonging to them, by floating upon pieces of
the wreck, saved themselves upon an island lying about four miles from
the coast of Cipango.
The other ships, which, not being so near to the land, did not suffer
from the storm, and in which the two chiefs were embarked, together
with the principal officers, or those whose rank entitled them to
command a hundred thousand or ten thousand men, directed their course
homeward, and returned to the Grand Khan.
Those of the Tartars who remained upon the island where they were
wrecked, and who amounted to about thirty thousand men, finding
themselves left without shipping, abandoned by their leaders, and
having neither arms nor provisions, expected nothing less than to
become captives or to perish; especially as the island afforded no
habitations where they could take shelter and refresh themselves. As
soon as the gale ceased and the sea became smooth and calm, the people
from the main island of Cipango came over with a large force, in
numerous boats, in order to make prisoners of these shipwrecked
Tartars, and, having landed, proceeded in search of them, but in a
straggling, disorderly manner. The Tartars, on their part, acted with
prudent circumspection, and, being concealed from view by some high
land in the centre of the island, while the enemy were hurrying in
pursuit of them by one road, made a circuit of the coast by another,
which brought them to the place where the fleet of boats was at
anchor. Finding these all abandoned, but with their colors flying,
they instantly seized them, and, pushing off from the island, stood
for the principal city of Cipango, into which, from the appearance of
the colors, they were suffered to enter unmolested.[79]
Here they found few of the inhabitants besides women, whom they
retained for their own use, and drove out all others. When the King
was apprised of what had taken place, he was much afflicted, and
immediately gave directions for a strict blockade of the city, which
was so effectual that not any person was suffered to enter or to
escape from it during six months that the siege continued. At the
expiration of this time the Tartars, despairing of succor, surrendered
upon the condition of their lives being spared.
These events took place in the course of the year 1264.[80] The Grand
Khan having learned some years after that the unfortunate issue of the
expedition was to be attributed to the dissension between the two
commanders, caused the head of one of them to be cut off; the other he
sent to the savage island of Zorza,[81] where it is the custom to
execute criminals in the following manner. They are wrapped round both
arms, in the hide of a buffalo fresh taken from the beast, which is
sewed tight. As this dries, it compresses the body to such a degree
that the sufferer is incapable of moving or in any manner helping
himself, and thus miserably perishes.
THE SICILIAN VESPERS
A.D. 1282
MICHELE AMARI[82]
Under Frederic II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Sicily
had been governed wisely. His son Conrad succeeded him as
King of Sicily in 1250, but went to Germany, where his crown
was being contested by William of Holland, leaving his
illegitimate brother Manfred to administer Sicily. Conrad
and his brother Henry died in 1254. Manfred continued to
rule Sicily as regent for his nephew Conradin, son of
Conrad, but in 1258, upon a rumor of Conradin's death,
assumed the crown.
Pope Alexander IV and his successor Urban IV, a Frenchman,
would not recognize Manfred as ruler. Urban offered the
Sicilian crown to a brother of Louis IX of France, Charles,
Count of Anjou, who promised to hold Sicily as a fief of the
holy see. Charles was compelled to conquer his new kingdom,
and with a large army of Frenchmen invaded Sicily. Manfred
was defeated and slain in a sanguinary battle at Grandella,
near Benevento, and Charles soon made himself master of the
kingdom. Young Conradin was still living, but was defeated
at Tagliacozzo in 1268, and was beheaded at Naples by order
of Charles.
The French earned the scarcely veiled hatred of the
Sicilians by their tyranny and cruelties, and a conspiracy
arose to give the crown to Pedro, King of Aragon, who had
married Constance, daughter of Manfred. Charles of Anjou was
not ignorant of the fact that his throne was in danger, nor
was he totally unprepared. The overthrow of the French power
in Sicily, however, was precipitated by an incident at
Palermo on Easter Monday, the 30th of March, 1282, which led
to the wholesale massacre known to history as the "Sicilian
Vespers," because of its commencement at the hour of
vespers.
The Sicilians endured the French yoke--though cursing it--until the
spring of 1282. The military preparations of the King of Aragon were
not yet completed, nor, even if partially known in Sicily, could they
inspire any immediate hope. The people were overawed by the immense
armaments of Charles destined against Constantinople; and forty-two
royal castles, either in the principal cities or in situations of
great natural strength, served to keep the island in check. A still
greater number were held by French feudatories; the standing troops
were collected and in arms; and the feudal militia, composed in great
part of foreign subfeudatories, waited only the signal to assemble. In
such a posture of affairs, which the foresight of the prudent would
never have selected for an outbreak, the officers of Charles continued
to grind down the Sicilian people, satisfied that their patience would
endure forever.
New outrages shed a gloom over the festival of Easter at Palermo, the
ancient capital of the kingdom, detested by the strangers more than
any other city as being the strongest and the most deeply injured.
Messina was the seat of the King's viceroy in Sicily, Herbert of
Orleans; Palermo was governed by the Justiciary of Val di Mazzara,
John of St. Remigio, a minister worthy of Charles. His subalterns,
worthy both of the Justiciary and of the King, had recently launched
out into fresh acts of rapine and violence. But the people submitted.
It even went so far that the citizens of Palermo, seeking comfort from
God amid their worldly tribulations, and having entered a church to
pray, in that very church, on the days sacred to the memory of the
Saviour's passion, and amid the penitential rites, were exposed to the
most cruel outrages. The ban-dogs of the exchequer searched out among
them those who had failed in the payment of the taxes, dragged them
forth from the sacred edifice, manacled, and bore them to prison,
crying out, insultingly, before the multitude attracted to the spot,
"Pay, _faterini_, pay!" And the people still submitted.
The Monday after Easter, which fell on the 30th of March, there was a
festival at the Church of Santo Spirito. On that occasion a heinous
outrage against the liberties of the Sicilians afforded the impulse,
and the patience of the people gave way.
Half a mile from the southern wall of the city, on the brink of the
ravine of Oreto, stands a church dedicated to the Holy Ghost,
concerning which the Latin fathers have not failed to record that on
the day on which the first stone of it was laid, in the twelfth
century, the sun was darkened by an eclipse. On one side of it were
the precipice and the river; on the other, the plain extending to the
city, which in the present day is in great part divided by walls and
dotted with gardens; while a square enclosure of moderate size, shaded
by dusky cypresses, honeycombed with tombs, and adorned with urns and
other sepulchral monuments, surrounds the church. This is a public
cemetery, laid out toward the end of the eighteenth century, and
fearfully filled in three weeks by the dire pestilence which
devastated Sicily in 1837. On the Tuesday following Easter, at the
hour of vespers, religion and custom drew crowds of people to this
cheerful plain, then carpeted with the flowers of spring. Citizens,
wending their way toward the church, divided into numerous groups.
They walked, sat in clusters, spread the tables, or danced upon the
grass; and--whether it were a defect or a merit of the Sicilian
character--threw off, for the moment, the recollection of their
sufferings.
Suddenly the followers of the Justiciary appeared among them, and
every bosom thrilled with a shudder of disgust. The strangers came
with their usual insolent demeanor, as they said, to maintain
tranquillity; and for this purpose they mingled with the groups,
joined in the dances, and familiarly accosted the women; pressing the
hand of one, taking unwarranted liberties with others; addressing
indecent words and gestures to those more distant, until some
temperately admonished them to depart, in God's name, without
insulting the women; and others murmured angrily; but the hot-blooded
youths raised their voices so fiercely that the soldiers said to one
another, "These insolent paterini must be armed, that they dare thus
to answer," and replied to them with the most offensive insults,
insisting, with great insolence, on searching them for arms, and even
here and there striking them with sticks or thongs. Every heart
already throbbed fiercely on either side, when a young woman, of
singular beauty and of modest and dignified deportment, appeared with
her husband and relations, bending her steps toward the church.
Drouet, a Frenchman, impelled either by insolence or license,
approached her as if to examine her for concealed weapons; seized her
and searched her bosom. She fell fainting into her husband's arms,
who, in a voice almost choked with rage, exclaimed, "Death, death to
the French!" At the same moment a youth burst from the crowd which had
gathered round them, sprang upon Drouet, disarmed and slew him; and
probably, at the same moment, paid the penalty by the loss of his own
life, leaving his name unknown and the mystery forever
unsolved--whether it were love for the injured woman, the impulse of a
generous heart, or the more exalted flame of patriotism that prompted
him thus to give the signal of deliverance.
Noble example has a power far beyond that of argument or eloquence to
rouse the people; and the erstwhile abject slaves awoke at length from
their long bondage. "Death, death to the French!" they cried; and the
cry--say the historians of the time--reechoed, like the voice of God,
through the whole country, and found an answer in every heart.
Above the corpse of Drouet were heaped those of the slain on either
side. The crowd expanded itself, closed in, and swayed hither and
thither in wild confusion. The Sicilians, with sticks, stones, and
knives, rushed with desperate ferocity upon their fully armed
opponents. They sought for them and hunted them down. Fearful
tragedies were enacted amid the preparations for festivity, and the
overthrown tables were drenched with blood. The people displayed their
strength and conquered. The struggle was brief, and great the
slaughter of the Sicilians; but of the French there were two
hundred--and two hundred fell!
Breathless, covered with blood, brandishing the plundered weapons, and
proclaiming the insult and its vengeance, the insurgents rushed toward
the tranquil city, "Death to the French!" they shouted, and as many as
they found were put to the sword. The example, the words, the
contagion of passion, in an instant aroused the whole people. In the
heat of the tumult Roger Mastrangelo, a nobleman, was chosen--or
constituted himself--their leader. The multitude continued to
increase; dividing into troops they scoured the streets, burst open
doors, searched every nook, every hiding-place, and shouting "Death to
the French!" smote them and slew them, while those too distant to
strike added to the tumult by their applause. On the outbreak of this
sudden uproar the Justiciary had taken refuge in his strong palace;
the next moment it was surrounded by an enraged multitude crying aloud
for his death; they demolished the defences and rushed furiously in,
but the Justiciary escaped them. Favored by the confusion and the
closing darkness, he succeeded, though wounded in the face, in
mounting his horse unobserved, with only two attendants, and fled with
all speed. Meanwhile the slaughter continued with increased ferocity;
even the darkness of night failed to arrest it, and it was resumed the
next day more furiously than ever. Nor did it finally cease because
the thirst for vengeance was slaked, but because victims were wanting
to appease it. Two thousand French perished in this first outbreak.
Even Christian burial was denied them, but pits were afterward dug to
receive their despised remains, and tradition still points out a
column surmounted by an iron cross, raised by compassionate piety on
one of these spots, probably long after the perpetration of the deed
of vengeance.