r.

The Chinese author does not mention Nasr-uddin in connection with this
battle. He names as the chief of the Mongol force _Huthukh_ (Kutuka?),
commandant of Ta-li fu. Nasr-uddin is mentioned as advancing, a few months
later (about December, 1277), with nearly 4000 men to Kiangtheu (which
appears to have been on the Irawadi, somewhere near Bhamo, and is perhaps
the Kaungtaung of the Burmese), but effecting little (p. 415).

[I have published in the _Rev. Ext. Orient_, II. 72-88, from the British
Museum _Add. MS._ 16913, the translation by Mgr. Visdelou, of Chinese
documents relating to the Kingdom of Mien and the wars of Kublai; the
battle won by _Hu-tu_, commandant of Ta-li, was fought during the 3rd
month of the 14th year (1277). (Cf. Pauthier, supra.)--H.C.]

These affairs of the battle in the Yung-ch'ang territory, and the advance
of Nasr-uddin to the Irawadi are, as Polo clearly implies in the beginning
of ch. li., quite distinct from the invasion and conquest of Mien some
years later, of which he speaks in ch. liv. They are not mentioned in the
Burmese Annals at all.

Sir Arthur Phayre is inclined to reject altogether the story of the battle
near Yung-ch'ang in consequence of this absence from the _Burmese
Chronicle_, and of its inconsistency with the purely defensive character
which that record assigns to the action of the Burmese Government in
regard to China at this time. With the strongest respect for my friend's
opinion I feel it impossible to assent to this. We have not only the
concurrent testimony of Marco and of the Chinese Official Annals of the
Mongol Dynasty to the facts of the Burmese provocation and of the
engagement within the Yung-ch'ang or Vochan territory, but we have in the
Chinese narrative a consistent chronology and tolerably full detail of the
relations between the two countries.

[Baber writes (p. 173): "Biot has it that Yung-ch'ang was first
established by the Mings, long subsequent to the time of Marco's visit,
but the name was well known much earlier. The mention by Marco of the
Plain of Vochan (Unciam would be a perfect reading), as if it were a plain
_par excellence_, is strikingly consistent with the position of the
city on the verge of the largest plain west of Yuennan-fu. Hereabouts was
fought the great battle between the 'valiant soldier and the excellent
captain Nescradin,' with his 12,000 well-mounted Tartars, against the King
of Burmah and a large army, whose strength lay