CHAPTER XXV.

CONCERNING THE TWELVE BARONS WHO ARE SET OVER ALL THE

AFFAIRS OF THE GREAT KAAN.

You must know that the Great Kaan hath chosen twelve great Barons to

whom he hath committed all the necessary affairs of thirty-four great

provinces; and now I will tell you particulars about them and their

establishments.

You must know that these twelve Barons reside all together in a very

rich and handsome palace, which is inside the city of Cambaluc, and

consists of a variety of edifices, with many suites of apartments. To

every province is assigned a judge and several clerks, and all reside

in this palace, where each has his separate quarters. These judges and

clerks administer all the affairs of the provinces to which they are

attached, under the direction of the twelve Barons. Howbeit, when an

affair is of very great importance, the twelve Barons lay in before

the Emperor, and he decides as he thinks best. But the power of those

twelve Barons is so great that they choose the governors for all those

thirty-four great provinces that I have mentioned, and only after

they have chosen do they inform the Emperor of their choice. This he

confirms, and grants to the person nominated a tablet of gold such as

is appropriate to the rank of his government.

Those twelve Barons also have such authority that they can dispose

of the movements of the forces, and send them whither, and in such

strength, as they please. This is done indeed with the Emperor’s

cognizance, but still the orders are issued on their authority. They

are styled SHIENG, which is as much as to say “The Supreme Court,”

and the palace where they abide is also called _Shieng_. This body

forms the highest authority at the Court of the Great Kaan; and indeed

they can favour and advance whom they will. I will not now name the

thirty-four provinces to you, because they will be spoken of in detail

in the course of this Book.{1}

NOTE 1.—Pauthier’s extracts from the Chinese Annals of the Dynasty,

in illustration of this subject, are interesting. These, as he

represents them, show the Council of Ministers usually to have

consisted of twelve high officials, viz.: two _Ch’ing-siang_

[丞 相] or (chief) ministers of state, one styled, “of the

Right,” and the other “of the Left”; four called _P’ing-chang

ching-ssé_, which seems to mean something like ministers in charge

of special departments; four assistant ministers; two Counsellors.

Rashiduddin, however, limits the Council to the first two

classes: “Strictly speaking, the Council of State is composed of

four Ch’ing-sang (_Ch’ing-siang_) or great officers (_Wazírs_

he afterwards terms them), and four Fanchán (_P’ing-chang_)

or associated members, taken from the nations of the Tajiks,

Cathayans, Ighurs, and Arkaun” (_i.e._ Nestorian Christians).

(Compare p. 418, _supra_.)

[A Samarkand man, Seyyd Tadj Eddin Hassan ben el Khallal, quoted in

the _Masálak al Absár_, says: “Near the Khan are two amírs who are

his ministers; they are called _Djing San_ جينكصان (Ch’ing-siang).

After them come the two _Bidjan_ بجان (P’ing Chang), then the two

_Zoudjin_ زوجين (Tso Chen), then the two _Yudjin_ يوجين (Yu Chen),

and at last the _Landjun_ لنجون (Lang Chang), head of the scribes,

and secretary of the sovereign. The Khan holds a sitting every

day in the middle of a large building called _Chen_ شن (Sheng),

which is very like our Palace of Justice.” (_C. Schefer, Cent. Ec.

Langues Or._, pp. 18–19.)—H. C.]

In a later age we find the twelve Barons reappearing in the

pages of Mendoza: “The King hath in this city of Tabin (Peking),

where he is resident, a royal council of twelve counsellors and

a president, chosen men throughout all the kingdom, and such as

have had experience in government many years.” And also in the

early centuries of the Christian era we hear that the Khan of the

Turks had his twelve grandees, divided into those of the Right and

those of the Left, probably a copy from a Chinese order then also

existing.

But to return to Rashiduddin: “As the Kaan generally resides

at the capital, he has erected a place for the sittings of the

Great Council, called _Sing_.... The dignitaries mentioned above

are expected to attend daily at the Sing, and to make themselves

acquainted with all that passes there.”

The _Sing_ of Rashid is evidently the Shieng or Sheng (_Scieng_) of

Polo. M. Pauthier is on this point somewhat contemptuous towards

Neumann, who, he says, confounds Marco Polo’s twelve Barons or

Ministers of State with the chiefs of the twelve great provincial

governments called _Sing_, who had their residence at the chief

cities of those governments; whilst in fact Polo’s _Scieng_ (he

asserts) has nothing to do with the _Sing_, but represents the

Chinese word _Siang_ “a minister,” and “the office of a minister.”

[There was no doubt a confusion between _Siang_ 相 and _Sheng_

省.—H. C.]

It is very probable that two different words, _Siang_ and _Sing_,

got confounded by the non-Chinese attachés of the Imperial Court;

but it seems to me quite certain that they applied the same word,

Sing or Sheng, to both institutions, viz. to the High Council

of State, and to the provincial governments. It also looks as

if Marco Polo himself had made that very confusion with which

Pauthier charges Neumann. For whilst here he represents the

twelve Barons as forming a Council of State at the capital, we

find further on, when speaking of the city of Yangchau, he says:

“_Et si siet en ceste cité uns des xii Barons du Grant Kaan; car

elle est esleue pour un des xii sieges_,” where the last word is

probably a mistranscription of _Sciengs_, or _Sings_, and in any

case the reference is to a distribution of the empire into twelve

governments.

To be convinced that _Sing_ was used by foreigners in the double

sense that I have said, we have only to proceed with Rashiduddin’s

account of the administration. After what we have already quoted,

he goes on: “The _Sing_ of Khanbaligh is the most eminent, and the

building is very large.... _Sings_ do not exist in all the cities,

but only in the capitals of great provinces.... In the whole empire

of the Kaan there are twelve of these Sings; but that of Khanbaligh

is the only one which has Ching-sangs amongst its members.” Wassáf

again, after describing the greatness of Khanzai (Kinsay of Polo)

says: “These circumstances characterize the capital itself, but

four hundred cities of note, and embracing ample territories,

are dependent on its jurisdiction, insomuch that the most

inconsiderable of those cities surpasses Baghdad and Shiraz. In

the number of these cities are Lankinfu and Zaitun, and Chinkalán;

for they call Khanzai a _Shing_, _i.e._ a great city in which the

high and mighty Council of Administration holds its meetings.”

Friar Odoric again says: “This empire hath been divided by the Lord

thereof into twelve parts, each one thereof is termed a Singo.”

Polo, it seems evident to me, knew nothing of Chinese. His _Shieng_

is no direct attempt to represent _any_ Chinese word, but simply

the term that he had been used to employ in talking Persian or

Turki, in the way that Rashiduddin and Wassáf employ it.

I find no light as to the thirty-four provinces into which Polo

represents the empire as divided, unless it be an enumeration of

the provinces and districts which he describes in the second and

third parts of Bk. II., of which it is not difficult to reckon

thirty-three or thirty-four, but not worth while to repeat the

calculation.

[China was then divided into twelve _Sheng_ or provinces:

Cheng-Tung, Liao-Yang, Chung-Shu, Shen-Si, Ling-Pe (Karakorum),

Kan-Suh, Sze-ch’wan, Ho-Nan Kiang-Pe, Kiang-Ché, Kiang-Si, Hu-Kwang

and Yun-Nan. Rashiduddin (_J. As._, XI. 1883, p. 447) says that of

the twelve Sing, Khanbaligh was the only one with _Chin-siang_. We

read in _Morrison’s Dict._ (Pt. II. vol. i. p. 70): “Chin-seang, a

Minister of State, was so called under the Ming Dynasty.” According

to Mr. E. H. Parker (_China Review_, xxiv. p. 101), _Ching Siang_

were abolished in 1395. I imagine that the thirty-four provinces

refer to the _Fu_ cities, which numbered however _thirty-nine_,

according to _Oxenham’s Historical Atlas_.—H. C.]

(_Cathay_, 263 _seqq._ and 137; _Mendoza_, I. 96; _Erdmann_, 142;

_Hammer’s Wassáf_, p. 42, but corrected.)