No. 237 Maritime Archaeology in the People's Republic of China ...

Figure 18. Two medium sized Mongol vessels under attack, from the Moko Shurai Ekotoba .
Figure 19. A fragment from the Moko Shurai Ekotoba showing
medium sized Mongol vessel.
hanging counter. The planking is uniform with no chine
(Fig. 10 right).
The vessels all show very clearly the nail pattern on the
lower part of each strake, except where the vessel has a flat
bottom (type 2) where the nailing is on both sides of the strake.
It is uncertain if the vessels are clinker- or carvel-built, but at
the transom there is no evidence of clinker, suggesting carvel
construction with skew nails. The masts which are used to
attach the tracking lines are bipod. While these vessels are
obviously river-craft, their construction is of great interest
because of the detail of the illustration.
The Moko Shurai Ekotoba or Illustrations and Narrative
of the Mongol Invasion of Japan, produced in 1292 and
preserved in the Imperial Household Museum illustrates the
Second Mongolian invasion of Japan in 1281 (the first was in
1274) (Figs 16–20). The scroll illustrates the adventures of the
nobleman Takezaki Suenaga and it has been suggested that he
was responsible for illustrating part of the scroll. The central
part of the maritime scenes from the scroll show two large
Chinese or Mongolian vessels retreating to the left. From the
right (in the direction of reading and chronology) come the
Japanese in small vessels to attack the Chinese fleet (Fig. 16).
At the left come some vessels to counter this attack and some
in retreat. The scroll has been damaged and possibly repaired,
but it is lively, and suggests an active engagement between a
small lightly armed Japanese force against a larger and more
unwieldy Chinese force. The two large Chinese vessels have
several interesting features. Because of the complexity of
these illustrations and their significance, their features are
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