Page 133 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

SUNG AND YUAN WARES

The keramic annals of the Yuan dynasty may be

concluded by noting that opportunities for the west-

ward export of the products of Chinese kilns con-

tinued much as before " The Mongol "

rulers

(according to Dr. Hirth's " Ancient Chinese Porce-

lain ") were masters of Bagdad as well as of Peking,

and constant intercourse took place through Central

Asia between the east and west of that gigantic

empire. The journeys of Marco Polo and Ibn

Batuta bear witness to the continuance of the sea

trade between the coast of China and Arab provinces.

Batuta states distinctly, as regards porcelain, that * it

is exported to India and elsewhere, passing from
country to country till it reaches us in Morocco/

The Chinese themselves, during the Mongol period,

were pervaded by a desire to extend their power by

maritime warfare, and whatever may have been the

success of Kublai Khan's expeditions against Japan,

Java, and other southern islands, they show that

maritime enterprise had not declined among his sub-

jects on the coast of China." This state of warlike

effervescence was not particularly well suited to the
circulation of the products of peace, but the fact that
Bagdad and Peking were ruled by the same sceptre,
is in itself sufficient to indicate that Chinese wares

must have found their way westward in considerable

quantities.