China, The Yüan dynasty

On Chinese contacts with Asia and the West, see E. Bretschneider, Mediaeval Research from Eastern Asiatic Sources: Fragments Towards the Knowledge of the Geography and History of Central and Western Asia from the 13th to the 17th Century, 2 vol. (1888, reprinted 1967); Herbert Franke, “Sino-Western Contacts Under the Mongol Empire,” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 6:49–72 (1966); Leonard Olschki, Marco Polo's Asia: An Introduction to His “Description of the World” called “Il Milione” (1960; originally published in Italian, 1957); and Igor de Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans (1971).