Note {1} — Chapter XI

Note 1.— ✛ The history of the city on the site of Peking goes back to very old times, for it had been [under the name of Ki] the capital of the kingdom of Yen, previous to B.C. 222, when it was captured by the Prince of the T’sin Dynasty. [Under the T’ang dynasty (618–907) it was known under the name of Yu-chau.] It became one of the capitals of the Khitans in A.D. 936, and of the Kin sovereigns, who took it in 1125, in 1151 under the name of Chung-tu. Under the name of Yenking, [given to this city in 1013] it has a conspicuous place in the wars of Chinghiz against the latter dynasty. He captured it in 1215. In 1264, Kúblái adopted it as his chief residence, and founded in 1267, the new city of Tatu (“Great Court”), called by the Mongols Taidu or Daitu since 1271 (see Bk. I. ch. lxi. note 1), at a little distance—Odoric says half a mile—to the north-east of the old Yenking. Tatu was completed in the summer of 1267.