Both Pagan and Male are mentioned in a remarkable Chinese notice extracted in Amyot’s Memoires (XIV. 292):  “Mien-Tien ... had five chief towns, of which the first was Kiangtheu (supra, pp. 105, 111), the second Taikung, the third Malai, the fourth Ngan-cheng-kwe (? perhaps the Nga-tshaung gyan of the Burmese Annals), the fifth PUKAN MIEN-WANG (Pagan of the Mien King?).  The Yuen carried war into this country, particularly during the reign of Shun-Ti, the last Mongol Emperor [1333-1368], who, after subjugating it, erected at Pukan Mien-Wang a tribunal styled Hwen-wei-she-se, the authority of which extended over Pang-ya and all its dependencies.”  This is evidently founded on actual documents, for Panya or Pengya, otherwise styled Vijayapura, was the capital of Burma during part of the 14th century, between the decay of Pagan and the building of Ava.  But none of the translated extracts from the Burmese Chronicle afford corroboration.  From Sangermano’s abstract, however, we learn that the King of Panya from 1323 to 1343 was the son of a daughter of the Emperor of China (p. 42).  I may also refer to Pemberton’s abstract of the Chronicle of the Shan State of Pong in the Upper Irawadi valley, which relates that about the middle of the 14th century the Chinese invaded Pong and took Maung Maorong, the capital.[3] The Shan King and his son fled to the King of Burma for protection, but the Burmese surrendered them and they were carried to China. (Report on E. Frontier of Bengal, p. 112.)

I see no sufficient evidence as to whether Marco himself visited the “city of Mien.”  I think it is quite clear that his account of the conquest is from the merest hearsay, not to say gossip.  Of the absurd story of the jugglers we find no suggestion in the Chinese extracts.  We learn from them that Nasruddin had represented the conquest of Mien as a very easy task, and Kublai may have in jest asked his gleemen if they would undertake it.  The haziness of Polo’s account of the conquest contrasts strongly with his graphic description of the rout of the elephants at Vochan.  Of the latter he heard the particulars on the spot (I conceive) shortly after the event; whilst the conquest took place some years later than his mission to that frontier.  His description of the gold and silver pagodas with their canopies of tinkling bells (the Burmese Hti), certainly looks like a sketch from the life;[4] and it is quite possible that some negotiations between 1277 and 1281 may have given him the opportunity of visiting Burma, though he may not have reached the capital.  Indeed he would in that case surely have given a distincter account of so important a city, the aspect of which in its glory we have attempted to realize in the plate of “the city of Mien.”