China as a whole nearly Christianized

Today June 30... rewind.. back to 1755 this day Spanish goverment authorities closed all non- catholic restaurants in the country. This act was believed to be the efforts of Spain to Christianize the Chinese in the Philipines who were then engaged in commerce and as merchants. Yes but going a little farther back...rewind.. back in the 13th century as told in the Travels of Marco Polo, the rich Venician merchant in his time. Nicolo, father of Marco Polo and Maffeo his uncle traveled to the East passing by Constantinople, now Istanbul in Turky then reached the Far East in China, where they met the great emperor, Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan of Mongolian origin who conquered the whole of China for centuries. Nicolo and Maffeo presented themselves humbly to the emperor- with their credentials and the purpose of their visit. The emperor received them peacefully and that the purpose of their visit was to bring peace and harmony to all people. As to the visitor's status in their religion it was not mentioned. Kublai Khan already heard about the Pope and his powers, that the Pope is head of the Christian religion. The emperor asked his visitors to tell him more about the Pope and Christianity. After some time the emperor seemed to have been convinced and believed that the Pope' s religion was good. So he called his visitors and told them to act as his ambassador and go back home, tell the Pope to send more knowledgeable Christians to explain to him more about the Christian religion. Not long after Nicolo and Maffeo was in their journey back home. Their travel took them almost four years and when they arrived they found their country at war with its neighbor Genoa. Pope Clement IV was aging and weak. When the Pope died it took more than three years before the replacement took over, the mission of Nicolo and Maffeo became a less priority but they did not stop their recruitment of more missionaries to fulfil their promise to the emperor. The missionaries knew that the journey was very risky and perilously dangerous. In this journey the young MarcoPolo joined. Again it took them many years to get back to the far east, that many missionaries died along the way. Fifteen thousand kilometers of sea travel on wooden boats. When they finally reached the empirial palace Kublai Khan had already declared the Tibetan Buddhist religion the official religion of the empire. China was nearly Christianized. It is worthwhile talking all about these at this point in time amid China's territorial dipute with the Philippines the only Christian country in the far east.