of account equal to ten taels of silver, and we know (supra, ch. l. note 4) that this was in those days the exact equivalent of one tael of gold.
The equation in our text is 10,000 x = 70,000 saggi of gold, giving x, or the unit sought, = 7 saggi. But in both Ramusio on the one hand, and in the Geog. Latin and Crusca Italian texts on the other hand, the equivalent of the toman is 80,000 saggi; though it is true that neither with one valuation nor the other are the calculations consistent in any of the texts, except Ramusio’s.[1] This consistency does not give any greater weight to Ramusio’s reading, because we know that version to have been edited, and corrected when the editor thought it necessary: but I adopt his valuation, because we shall find other grounds for preferring it. The unit of the toman then is = 8 saggi.
The Venice saggio was one-sixth of a Venice ounce. The Venice mark of 8 ounces I find stated to contain 3681 grains troy;[2] hence the saggio = 76 grains. But I imagine the term to be used by Polo here and in other Oriental computations, to express the Arabic misḳál, the real weight of which, according to Mr. Maskelyne, is 74 grains troy. The misḳál of gold was, as Polo says, something more than a ducat or sequin, indeed, weight for weight, it was to a ducat nearly as 1·4:1.
Eight saggi or misḳáls would be 592 grains troy. The tael is 580, and the approximation is as near as we can reasonably expect from a calculation in such terms.
Taking the silver tael at 6s. 7d., the gold tael, or rather the ting, would be = 3l. 5s. 10d.; the toman = 32,916l. 13s. 4d.; and the whole salt revenue (80 tomans) = 2,633,333l.; the revenue from other sources (210 tomans) = 6,912,500l.; total revenue from Kinsay and its province (290 tomans) = 9,545,833l. A sufficiently startling statement, and quite enough to account for the sobriquet of Marco Milioni.
Pauthier, in reference to this chapter, brings forward a number of extracts regarding Mongol finance from the official history of that dynasty. The extracts are extremely interesting in themselves, but I cannot find in them that confirmation of Marco’s accuracy which M. Pauthier sees.
First as to the salt revenue of Kiang-Ché, or the province of Kinsay. The facts given by Pauthier amount to these: that in 1277, the year in which the Mongol salt department was organised, the manufacture of salt amounted to 92,148 yin, or 22,115,520 kilos.; in 1286 it had reached 450,000 yin, or 108,000,000 kilos.; in 1289 it fell off by 100,000 yin.
The price was, in 1277, 18 liang or taels, in chao or paper-money of the years 1260–64 (see vol. i. p. 426); in 1282 it was raised to 22 taels; in 1284 a permanent and reduced price was fixed, the amount of which is not stated.
M. Pauthier assumes as a mean 400,000 yin, at 18 taels, which will give 7,200,000 taels; or, at 6s. 7d. to the tael, 2,370,000l. But this amount being in chao or paper-currency, which at its highest valuation was worth only 50 per cent. of the nominal value of the notes, we must halve the sum, giving the salt revenue on Pauthier’s assumptions = 1,185,000l.
Pauthier has also endeavoured to present a table of the whole revenue of Kiang-Ché under the Mongols, amounting to 12,955,710 paper taels, or 2,132,294l., including the salt revenue. This would leave only 947,294l. for the other sources of revenue, but the fact is that several of these are left blank, and among others one so important as the sea-customs. However, even making the extravagant supposition that the sea-customs and other omitted items were equal in amount to the whole of the other sources of revenue, salt included, the total would be only 4,264,585l.