In 1298, when the war between Venice and Genoa was in full swing, Marco Polo was imprisoned. While in prison, he dictated his adventures in Asia, especially those legends in China. These oral accounts were later compiled into Marco Polo's Travels, which provided Europeans with valuable insight into the Far East.
Marco Polo was born in Venice in 1254 into a merchant family. In 1271, he followed his father to Asia, and after much hardship, he finally arrived in the capital of the Yuan Dynasty in 1275. He served in the Yuan Dynasty court for 17 years, during which he traveled to the north and south of China, including Xinjiang, Gansu, Shanxi, Yunnan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian, and even sent envoys to Burma and Nanyang. In 1292, he returned to Venice in 1295 after completing the task of escorting the princess of the Yuan dynasty to Persia.
However, in the field of history, there has been controversy about whether Marco Polo actually visited China. One school of scholars suggests that Marco Polo's actual travels may not have extended beyond the Islamic countries of Central Asia. They believe that what Marco Polo describes in Marco Polo's Travels was most likely obtained while communicating with Persian or Turkish merchants from China, or based on some travel guides and rumors that have been lost. This school of thought is based on the accuracy of some of the statistics in Marco Polo's account, the description of the Mongol royal family, and doubts about the absence of Chinese specialties such as tea and Chinese characters.
In addition, there are some inexplicable contradictions and errors in Marco Polo's "Travelogue". For example, the chronological order of some of the events in Chinese history that he mentions in his Travels does not correspond to reality. These doubts have led some scholars to wonder if Marco Polo actually lived in China for many years.
Scholars at the other end of the spectrum insist that Marco Polo did indeed visit China. By carefully studying Chinese historical documents, they found an account that corresponded to the time mentioned in the Travels of Marco Polo. According to these researchers, the information provided by the Travelogue is still highly reliable, despite the fact that it was dictated by Marco Polo and written by someone else, and that the time gap is many years.
There is no unanimous consensus in the academic community on this issue. On the one hand, Marco Polo's Travels is an important document for the study of Asian history in the 13th century, which is of great significance for understanding the cultural exchanges between China and the West at that time. On the other hand, the question of whether Marco Polo really came to China needs more historical evidence to confirm.