According to, Marco Polo, the Mongols, led by Nescradin, defeated an army of the king of Burma at Uniain (Yungch'ang Fu in Yunnan Province) and captured many elephants. Polo said that from that battle Qubilai Khan began to have elephants in plenty for his armies, though before he had none for the army. But, through the whole history of China, we can find no record of the use of elephants in warfare, except a king of Ch'u 楚 who used them to scare away the soldiers of Wu 呉 when the latters besieged his capital in 506 B.C. Besides, the Chinese sources concerning the battle between the Mongols and the Burmese in 1277 are not consistent with the account of Polo in various points. Therefore some scholars went so far to doubt or even to deny the veracity and credibility of the latter. The writer of this article compared the Chinese sources with the narrative of Polo and reached the conclusion that the both are supplemental to each other and not always incompatible.

松本信廣先生古稀記念