Venice and Retirement

We made it to Venice after our last boat trip. With the huge amounts of gold we made and were given we were able to purchase a large estate in Venice. We were also able to purchase a house in the city of Venice beside the canals. We plan to retire here and enjoy a new event that has been arising, known as the Renaissance. We will no longer be traveling but we will still buy and sell goods. We are only in our 20s so we will have plenty of time to enjoy our lives. Maybe if things get boring, we can take another journey, but I hardly believe things will get boring with all the new technology and art coming out these days.

-The End of Our Journey-

Antioch

We reached Antioch after a long journey through Persia and Interior Syria. Antioch, like Merv, was down in its luck. Formerly one of the largest cities in Christianity, its population was tiny compared to its heights. It was now in ruins. I would estimate that only 70,000 people remained whereas it formerly had a population of over a million people. It had fallen out of Christian hands just a few years ago and had been filled with Muslims. The crusades had failed to save Antioch and there was few Christians left. We also felt very unwanted and were threatened a few times by some of the Muslim citizens. The only thing that kept them from slashing our necks was Ibn who convinced them that we were friendly. We wanted to quickly leave the city so we sold all of our silk for a small profit. The Muslims refused to pay top dollar for the goods and we didn't really want to disagree with them for fear of our lives. While in town we learned that Adrianople had been conquered by the Turks and Greece was rapidly being conquered by the Turks. We decided that we could not go home and instead we decided to go to somewhere similar to our home. We would have to abandon Greece and instead we would head to Italy. We decided we would settle in Venice, a cosmopolitan city that was also a common place for Greek refugees. We boarded a ship and headed off to get away from all the War.

Merv and Emir Timur

We arrived in Merv expecting a great city like we had read about in our stories. Instead we arrived in a nearly empty city with almost no one on the streets. Most of the buildings had been partially destroyed by fire and were in decrepit shape. Only one man was out on the streets.  He introduced himself as Juvayni, a Persian historian who wrote about the Mongol wars. He told us that, “The Mongols ordered that, apart from four hundred artisans. .., the whole population, including the women and children, should be killed, and no one, whether woman or man, be spared. To each was allotted the execution of three or four hundred Persians. So many had been killed by nightfall that the mountains became hillocks, and the plain was soaked with the blood of the mighty.” He also said that nearly a million people had been killed in the city. We were horrified to hear of such brutal and evil massacres. The Mongols had managed to kill more people than the entire population of Greece. The town was also primarily Christian too, which struck us close to home. We were unable to sell anything to the few remaining citizens and we decided to donate some of our profits to them. We figured they would need it much more than us. We then continued on into the fairly new and strong Timurid dynasty of Persia. While passing through we noticed an extremely large amount of soldiers heading the opposite way as us. They stopped us and spoke with us. We were introduced to a man named Timur, who was the Emir of this new dynasty. He told us that he planned to conquer all of Central Asia including Merv. He was disgusted by the Mongols and wanted them out of his lands. He purchased some of our gunpowder, by force, but still paid a good price. We left him and then continued our journey on to Antioch.

Bukhara

Bukhara, one of my favorite cities so far. This city, although known for being a Uzbekistani city, has so many other cultures. I would say less than 40% of the city is actually Uzbek. There are many Tajiks here along with Jews comprising at least 5% of the population, Greeks, Italians, and just about every European ethnic group. It is filled with almost a hundred mosques and temples to meet its large populations of different religions. I almost don't want to leave... We of course must in order to get home though. We sell most of our wine here for a large profit because of its use in religion and normal consumption. We also sell all of our ginger and remaining paper. While the city is a huge producer of cotton as well, we choose not to purchase any more trade goods. We do this so we can travel faster. The only things purchase in the city are more supplies like food and water. We also rest in the city for a few days. We mingle with the locals and learn that the city is currently under occupation by the Mongols which is surprisingly beneficial to the city. The strength of the Mongols allows trade along the Silk Roads to happen relatively peacefully with few bandits or marauding troops. We soon set off after our rest so we can reach Merv and the Persian Empire before Summer. We do not wish to be stuck in the already hot areas of Persia and Central Asia long especially during the hottest time of the year.

Khotan and Onwards Towards Bukhara

We have gone through the Desert of Death and have conquered it. We are the conquerors of the 2 worst deserts in the known World. Our prior experiences gave us the knowledge to bring a compass so even the worst sandstorm wouldn't take us off track. We also brought tons of water and food because I did not want to have to eat one of the greatest horses I had even ridden. We reached Khotan, a large and prosperous trading center. Cotton was also a very important crop here. We soon found out that practically the entire city was Muslim and populated by the Turkic Uighur people. Ibn enjoyed talking with the Muslim people and learned of their differing customs. Meanwhile Mark and I got down to business and traded most of our bamboo for cotton. The cotton came quite cheap to us because they had a large surplus. Along with the cotton we were also paid some gold to make up for the inequalities in the trade. We also recalled from Marco Polo's journal that the area around Khotan was, "a province eight days’ journey in extent, which is subject to the Great Khan. The inhabitants all worship Mahomet. It has cities and towns in plenty, of which the most splendid, and the capital of the province, bears the same name as that of the province…It is amply stocked with the means of life. Cotton grows here in plenty. It has vineyards, estates and orchards in plenty. The people live by trade and industry; they are not at all warlike." We were able to observe all the things he had stated ourselves and we were quite interested in the city and the surrounding region. We visited some of the orchards to purchase plenty of fresh fruit for ourselves to take on our journey. We also purchased some wine at the vineyards for our own use and to trade. We resupplied and even found some replacement horses from stationed troops. They sold their heavenly horses to us for some wine and gold as well as our worn out horses. We then left and headed towards the city of Bukhara in Central Asia.

Dunhuang

Our trip has been fairly quick so far. These horses definitely have earned their name in my book. We have made it to Dunhuang in just 70 days, saving us almost 3 weeks of time. It is very cold up here though. It is already March but the temperatures are quite low, around 30 degrees Fahrenheit. When we arrived in Dunhuang, the first thing we did was find a tavern with a fireplace to get warmed up in. Luckily while we were warming ourselves by the fire, we met a coat merchant. He sold us some of the "Best coats in all of Asia." I will admit they did make me quite toasty inside. We were surprised and also disgusted when we learned from some papers left behind by the explorer Marco Polo that, "when a woman's husband leaves her to go on a journey of more than 20 days, as soon as he has left, she takes another husband, and this she is fully entitled to do by local usage. And the men, wherever they go, take wives in the same way." This was nothing like back at home where you took one woman and stayed with her for life, unless, of course, you had her killed like King Henry in England. We rested in Dunhuang for a few days before we were to journey past and around the great Taklamakan desert. While in Dunhuang we also sold off the paper we were carrying for a small profit because it was to be sent somewhere away from where we were heading. Our horses enjoyed the time relaxing and we fed them well in town. I hope they appreciated it. We were not worried though since we had already conquered the much larger and much scarier Saharan Desert. Along the way we would stop at Khotan to resupply and sell some of our goods before continuing onward to the Mediterranean.

Chang'an

We have arrived in Chang'an, the capital of China. It is a simply amazing city. It is in fact the largest city we have visited so far with a population of over 2 million people. I couldn't even imagine that many people living in one city. We met with a naval admiral while in Chang'an who talked about his one of his trips. He said, "The Emperor...has ordered us He and others at the head of several tens of thousands of officers and flag-troops to ascend more than one hundred large ships to go and confer presents on them in order to make manifest the transforming power of the (imperial) virtue and to treat distant people with kindness. From the third year of Yongle till now we have seven times received the commission of ambassadors to countries of the western ocean. The barbarian countries which we have visited are: by way of Zhancheng (Champa), Zhaowa (Java), Sanfoqi (Palembang) and Xianlo (Siam) crossing straight over to Xilanshan (Ceylon) in South India, Guli (Calicut), and Kezhi (Cochin), we have gone to the western regions Hulumosi (Hormuz), Adan (Aden), Mugudushu (Mogadishu), altogether more than thirty countries large and small. We have traversed more than one hundred thousand li of immense water spaces and have beheld in the ocean huge waves like mountains rising sky-high, and we have set eyes on barbarian regions far away hidden in a blue transparency of light vapours, while our sails loftily unfurled like clouds day and night continued their course (rapid like that) of a star, traversing those savage waves as if we were treading a public thoroughfare. Truly this was due to the majesty and the good fortune of the Court and moreover we owe it to the protecting virtue of the divine Celestial Spouse." We were much impressed with his journeys since he visited so many other areas than us. We also talked about some of the regions we both visited such as Palembang, Calicut, and Java. He was impressed with our knowledge and used his influence to get us a special treat. He was going to award us with "Heavenly Horses" from the nomadic Xiongnu in Central Asia. These were the horses of choice for the Chinese military. Whilst in Chang'an we purchased silk, bamboo, gunpowder, ginger, and paper. We know the gunpowder will be particularly useful in the Greeks fight against the Ottoman Turks. We just hope we can get it to them in time before all of Greece is overrun. The city is so amazing we are disappointed that we have to leave. We also get plenty of food to travel with. While we will be going fairly fast, we still pack 4 months of food just in case. We also get plenty of water so we don't have a repeat of our other dehydration experiences. We estimate it will take us about 90 days to get from Chang'an to our next trade stop in Dunhuang. We will have to traverse light mountains, many hills, and we will also have to cross the Yellow River just to get there. We just hope these Heavenly Horses are all they are made out to be. They do have quite a reputation and we sure hope they live up to it. We have heard the great Genghis Khan had one and they also are said to, "being able to gallop 1,000 kilometers a day and another 800 kilometers at night." I doubt thats true but anywhere near that will still be great. Zhang Chien said, "The population is agricultural and resident. They grow rice and wheat, make wine from grapes and have many good horses. The horses sweat blood and originate from the heavenly horses." He was referring to towns in the Western Chinese Empire where we were headed next. We are now setting off to make our long journey to the outskirts of China, Dunhuang. 

 A few of our new Horses.
http://www.horse-protection.org/images/horses01.jpg