In the 13th century, Italy's Venice was a beautiful and prosperous commercial city on the Mediterranean Sea. There were lots of shrewd traders, sailing the Mediterranean Sea and busing traveling between the Middle East North Africa and Europe.

  Because of the separation by Arabian land, the Christians in Europe never entered the Indian Ocean. There is no historic record about Europeans doing business in India and China. Ignorance led Europeans to believe that Jerusalem was the ultimate end of the world and the African coastal lines were too long to cross. After the western expedition of the Mongolian army, Venice merchants Nicolo-polo and Maffeo-polo began to go through the Arabian land to reach China by land.

  In 1260, two Polo brothers set off to the coast of the Black Sea. They arrived at Salai, the capital of Kipchak. After they stayed there for one year they continued their journey eastward. They stayed in Bukhara for 3 years and met an envoy from Mongolia. He invited them to visit China. They agreed to go.

  In the summer of 1265, they reached Kaiping region (in the present Inner Mongolia). Kublai Khan warmly received the two brothers. After listened to their briefing on Europe, the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty decided to dispatch an envoy to the Vatican. After he was sick on the way, the envoy handed the credential of Kublai Khan to Polo brothers and asked them to bring it to Rome. In 1269, Polo brothers returned to Accra and successfully accomplished their mission. They completed the first trans-Euro-Asian continent travel in the history.
  In the November of 1271, Polo brothers once again set off for China but this time they had the reply of the pontificate to Kublai Khan and the 17-year old Marco Polo the son of Nicolo Polo.

  They left Venice to start their journey by sea and landed on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. They went eastward by land along the ancient Silk Road, sometimes on foot, or on horseback, or on camel back. Their first stop was Baghdad. When they arrived, the city had somehow recovered from the invasion of Mongolian army, and restored at least partially its former glory or prosperity They passed the port Hormuz (the present Abas in Iran) in the Persian Gulf, turned northward and arrived at Bahlaka. They didn't go to Samarkand, but traveled straight eastward, in 12 days crossed over the Pamirs, and entered Kashgar.

  They continued their journey eastward along the southern route of the Tarim Basin. They spent a whole month to cross the Lop Nor desert and eventually they arrived at Sazhou (Dunhuang). The whole territory of Xinjiang had become the territory of the Muslims. It was in Sazhou that Marco Polo saw Buddhism temples and but the prosperous scenes of the Tang Dynasty had gone forever. They passed Yumen, Zhangye and Wuwei. They didn't use the traditional route along the Silk Road to Chang'an. They prepared the provision of food and drinking water for 40 days and crossed the desert and arrived at the traveling imperial palace of Chahannaoer. From there they went northeastward for 3 day and reached the capital of the Yuan Dynasty When seeing the palace of Kublai Khan, Marco Polo was deeply impressed. He wrote in his travel notes, "The palace is built with marbles and various beautiful and precious stones. Its design is ingenious and sophisticated. All the halls and chambers in the palace were decorated with gold." The court officials told him that the Khan only came here in the summer. His grand palace was actually in the capital of Khan-baliq (the present Beijing).

  It was in the summer of 1275 that Marco Polo reached the capital of the Tang Dynasty Kublai Khan received the young man in the imperial palace, and liked the young man from Europe very much. He even gave him a post in the palace. He stayed in China for 17 years. During his stay, Kublai Khan appointed him as the governor of Yangzhou.

  Marco Polo gave a detailed description of the capital of Yuan Dynasty (Beijing): "The grand halls in the palace are majestic and magnificent. The design and architecture are perfect with full of skills and arts." The whole new capital was within a square land surrounded by city walls. The design of the city was defined by straight lines. If you standing at one tower on the city walls, you could see the tower on the other side of the city in the distance. There were 12 city gates on the city walls, beyond each of them there was a suburb residential area, each covering a distance of 6-7 kilometers. In the suburbs there were hotels and inns for the merchants with camel caravans. More people lived in the suburbs than in the city You could buy virtually everything in Chang'an. There were no less than 1,000 carriages arrived at the capital each day.

  Full of vitality and curiosity, Marco Polo traveled extensively in China. He had traveled a long-distance journey to southern-western regions, visited Xi'an Chengdu, Yunnan, Dali, Yongchang and other cities on Burma border. Afterwards, he toured the provinces on the southeastern coasts, to the commercial cities of Ji'ning, Huai'an, Yangzhou, Hangzhou and Quanzhou, which were the largest trading ports at that time.

  Marco Polo witnessed many things he had never seen in the West. In the north, he saw people used black stones as fuel, once ignited, they were just like charcoal but their flame was more vigorous than that of charcoals. It could burn from dusk to dawn. These stones could provide a great amount of energy Chinese had known for long what coal could do. In Yuan Dynasty, coal had been extensively used in the Empire. Marco Polo was the first Westerner saw the use of coal and he was the first person to introduce coal to Europe.

  In the capital of Yuan Dynasty, Marco Polo found people using paper money for business transaction. The paper money was produced by Khan's mint with official seal and had a value of equal gold and silver. In China, paper money was in use since Tang Dynasty. Businessmen no longer need to carry heavy metal of gold and silver as payment for their goods. Paper money was widely used in North Song Dynasty while Europeans still used gold and silver to conduct transactions. Marco Polo introduced paper money to Europe. The use of paper money facilitated the trade in Europe tremendously.

  Marco Polo, his father and uncle were appointed to very important positions by Kublai Khan. They accumulated a great amount of wealth. But they missed homeland. In 1292, when his wife died, II Gagan, the ruler of the Central Asia, asked Kublai Khan to choose a princess as his newwife. Kublai Khan married Princess Kuokuozhen to II Gagan. Marco Polo and his father and uncle recommended themselves to escort the princess. Kublai Khan agreed and asked Marco Polo also to take his letters to the pontiff and the kings of Britain and France. In the summer of 1292, they led an escort of more than 600 and set off from Quanzhou in 14 big ships. After more than 2 years of sailing, they reached the capital of II Gagan.

  After the completion of their mission, Marco Polo, his father and uncle continued their westward journey. They passed Constantinople, entered the Aegean Sea, and sailed along the familiar sea-route in the Mediterranean Sea. In the winter of 1295, they returned to their native city Venice after 25 years of traveling in the East.

  But for an accidental event, the experience of Marco Polo might be forgotten with his death. In 1298, Venice was attacked by another commercial city Genoa. Marco Polo took part in the war against Genoa. Unfortunately, Venice was defeated. Marco Polo was captured and put into in prison. In order to spend the long and torturous life behind the bars, Marco Polo told what he saw and heard in China and the far east to his cellmate, Rusticiano, a writer. The writer recorded his story in French. The manuscript was kept in Paris. The book was what known to the world as The Travel Notes of Marco Polo.

  At that time, the book didn't attract the attention of the public. Europe was still a place of medieval backwardness. Ignorance made people difficult to believe China was as rich and prosperous as Marco Polo described. No body believed in Marco Polo and thought he made up his story. Marco Polo died silently in his prison cell. Afterwards, no one had ever taken a great trans-Euro-Asian journey both by land and by sea, as Marco Polo did. More than 200 years later, when Columbus read The Travel Notes of Marco Polo, he began to search for China and India by sea. After the great geographical discoveries of Columbus, people realized the contribution Marco Polo made.