Travels Of Marco Polo: Eighty

Caigui is a small city towards the southeast. [1] situated upon the bank of above mentioned river. All the people are idolaters, subject to the Khan and use paper money.  Here are collected large quantities of corn and rice; and there is passage by water to the city of Kambalu [2] and the court of Khan.  Grain from this place forms a considerable part of provisions required by his court.  The monarch made this communication by digging long and deep canals from one river to another, and from Lake to lake, so that a large ship may pass through. And by the side of this water channel goes a road, so that you may take either the one or other, as is most convenient. In the middle of that river, opposite the city is an isle of rocks, on which is a monastery of idolaters, where there are 200 monks, who serve a very great number of gods.  Now, let us cross the river, and tell of a city of Cinghingui 

___________________________________

1. The modern day name of Caigui is  Shaoxing.  According to some scholars Caigui is modern day Ningbo. Between these two places there is a distance of around 122 kilometres.  A city may change its heart in course of time because of various reasons. A city may grow in due course of time to include the neighborhoods.

2. City of Kambalu is modern day Beijing.  Khanbaliq was the name given to it by Kublai Khan, and it

served as the capital of Yuan Empire.

Khanbaliq is a Mongolian word meaning the city of Khan. The meaning of Beijing is Northern Capital.  Beijing is a Mandarin Chinese word. Splitting the word we get Bei = North; Jing = capital 

End of the Section