After a three-and-a-half year journey, Marco Polo, his father and uncle arrived in Shangdu (Xanadu), Kublai Khan’s summer capital, not so far from Beijing, in 1275, when Marco was 21. Marco Polo met Kublai Khan soon after arriving and called the great Khan a “Lord of Lords” and “the most powerful man in people and in lands and in treasure that ever was in the world.” While historians have at times accused Polo of exaggerating his travels, this was probably not far from the truth.

Marco Polo described great parties hosted by Kublai Khan with as many as 40,000 guests. He reported that the Khan once received “a gift of more than 100,000 whites horses, very beautiful and fine” and employed 10,000 falconers and 20,000 dog handlers. He also had an unstated number of lions, leopards and lynxes to go after wild boars and other big animals and 5,000 elephants “all covered with beautiful clothes.” He wrote that Kublai Khan’s palace contained a dining area that could seat 6,000 and was surrounded by a four mile wall.

As Kublai Khan’s special envoy for almost two decades, Marco Polo boasted he explored “more of those strange regions than any man who was ever born.” Marco Polo claimed that he was the governor of Yangzhou for three years. Some scholars think he was exaggerating. Others say he could have been telling the truth because Kublai Khan was in need of administrators.

Soon after the Polos returned home to Venice in 1295, war broke out with the rival city-state of Genoa. Marco Polo was captured and sent to prison where he met Rustichello, a popular writer of romance stories. Marco reported his twenty-five year Asian adventure to his fellow prisoner and their combined work became one of the most influential books in history, the Description of the World, now known more commonly as the The Travels of Marco Polo. Some historians saw Marco Polo as an astute observer with a keen memory. Others argue that Marco Polo made up his stories based on gossip and tales he heard—he failed to mention the Great Wall of China, tea, or the Chinese practice of binding the feet of women.

As an old man, Marco was asked if he invented the stories in his book. His answer was that he barely told half of what he actually knew.

L. Ron Hubbard’s The Trail of the Red Diamonds was originally published in Thrilling Adventures magazine in 1935. In this exciting tale Lieutenant Jonathan Daly comes across a reference to red diamonds while translating passages fromThe Travels of Marco Polo. Daly sets out on a spellbinding adventure into China.

The story sparkles with the luster of a diamond. And like the red diamonds that have enticed Lieutenant Jonathan Daly, readers will find a wealth of riches in L. Ron Hubbard’s The Trail of the Red Diamonds that glitter “like the sun through red-stained quartz.”

by Thomas McNulty

Thomas McNulty is the author of Errol Flynn, a critically acclaimed biography, and the novels Trail of the Burned Man, Wind Rider, and Death Rides a Palomino. Visit him online at thomasmcnulty.com.

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