Part I - A History: The Mongol Campaign in Java

Summary

Beginnings are difficult for everyone but God, since for the rest of us every beginning is preceded by and results from prior events. Should an account of the Mongol invasion of Java begin with Khubilai's order to send a naval force? Or with the Javanese king Kertanagara's branding of the envoy Meng Qi? Should it not begin with the history of Chinese-Javanese relations or biographical portraits of Kertanagara and Khubilai, noting those characteristics which lead each of these kings to acts of aggression?

To establish the facts of the invasion in so far as that is possible there is no need to leave the narrow period of their occurrence; to evaluate the narratives through which we learn of those events, to interpret them, to understand how the narrated events relate to prior events, why things happened thus and not otherwise in these histories, it is necessary to look back to the actors and the worlds in which they lived. An infinite regression is unnecessary for many facts can be left out of account, such as the composition of the muddy water Wijaya threw into the eyes of Mundarang. Since the narrative in this section is not intended as an exhaustive study but as a background from which to view the various histories and stories told and written about and around it over the last 700 years, only a few facts will matter, and they will matter because of the questions they raise and my interest in them. The composition of Wijaya's mud and many other matters shall be left for other authors with other interests and other questions.

Why Java?

In general, the underlying reasons for the expedition have been little examined, and Mongol “imperialism” has seemed a satisfactory explanation. To be sure it is advisable to place the expedition in the context of the global project which sought control of the maritime trade routes after having taken command of the continental routes; Marco Polo tells us explicitly that when all the other nations of the southern seas had submitted, Java refused to enter the system.[…]