r, and possibly in
connection with the above mission, a Chinese general, Lu T'ung, with a
force of forty thousand men in nine hundred boats, defeated one
hundred thousand Japanese--it is not stated where. I am inclined to
think, from the consonance of the word Liu and the nine hundred boats,
that this must be the affair mentioned lower down. The Manchu Tartar
envoy seems to have been a very sensible sort of man, for not only did
he bring back with him full details of the names and titles of the
Mikado and his ministers, descriptions of the cities and districts,
particulars of national customs, local products, etc., but also
strongly dissuaded Kublai from engaging in a useless war with Japan;
and he also gave some excellent advice to the celebrated Mongol
general Bayen, who was just then preparing to "finish off" the
southern provinces of China. It may not be generally known, but it is
a fact that Bayen himself, in the late autumn of 1273, had been
originally destined for the Japanese expedition, and the prisoners
captured at the first attack on Siaag-yang Fu (Marco Polo's Sa-yan Fu)
had already been handed over to him for service in Japan. The Mongol
history also gives a full copy of the letter sent to Japan on this
occasion. In it Kublai expresses his surprise at the persistent
ignoring by Japan of his successive missions; he charitably suggests
that "perhaps the fresh troubles and revolutions in Corea, which have
now once more been settled, are more to blame than your own deliberate
intentions." The menace of war was a little stronger than in the
letter of 1266, but was still decently veiled and somewhat guarded.
Before starting, the Manchu had requested that the etiquette to be
observed at his audience with the ruler might be laid down. The
cabinet council, to be on the safe side, advised: "As the relative
ranks prevailing in the country are unknown to us, we have no definite
etiquette to specify." On the other hand, both Kublai and his
ministers were much too sharp to believe in the power of the
"guard-house west of the Dazai Fu," and they came to the sensible
conclusion that the Japanese "envoys" were simply war-spies sent by
the supreme Japanese government itself.

Chinese history does not explain why, amid the conflicting counsels
exposed above, and others mentioned in biographical chapters, Kublai
decided to attack Japan at the very moment when Bayen was marching
upon South China; but, anyway, during the year 1