Crossing the Gobi

Most merchants turned back at the Pamir Mountains. The Polos kept going. They crossed the Gobi Desert with nothing but camels and determination. When they finally reached Kublai Khan's summer palace at Shangdu, the emperor was so impressed he made young Marco a diplomatic envoy.

His book Il Milione describes paper money, coal, postal systems, and a city (Hangzhou) with 12,000 bridges — all novelties that Europeans found unbelievable. Critics doubted him for centuries, and a few historians still ask how much he witnessed firsthand. But most modern scholars accept that he reached China, and many of the specifics he reported — from the Khan's paper currency to the salt trade — have since checked out against Chinese records.