ABSTRACT
The Mongols' association with outsiders and their well-documented 'use' of non-Mongol experts is possibly based in their nomadic tradition. Xiangyang, on the north bank of the Han river was one of the last strongholds of the Song dynasty, and the final Mongol nvictory in 1273 after a five-year siege represented major turning point in the conquest of China, which was finally achieved in 1279. The siege and its breaking are described by Rashid al-Din, who said that there had been no 'Frankish' mangonels in China before the Persian engineers constructed them. The desire of Marco Polo to associate himself with this famous siege is not unique. He was a plagiarist who freely copied Ordoric of Pordenone's account of China and also used other written accounts such as those of Albert of Aix, Haiton of Armenia, William of Tripoli, Caesarius of Heisterbach and Vincent of Beauvais.
