One day Niccolo decided to ask Kublai Khan about going home. But the khan was immediately worried and said no. He then began to ask Niccolo a lot of questions. Why did the Polos want to go home? Why did they want to go on a dangerous journey again? Did they not want to stay with him?
So the Polos continued their usual life at the Khan's court. But one day news arrived from Arghun, the ruler of the Mongol Empire in Persia. He was the grandson of Kublai Khan's brother. Arghun's wife was dead and he wanted to marry again. But his new wife had to be from the most important Mongol family.
So Kublai Khan said that Arghun could marry a beautiful young princess from his court-a seventeen-year-old girl called Kokachin. At first, Kokachin began her journey to meet Arghun with three Persian ambassadors. But they turned back because of terrible fighting on the road.
Back at the Mongol court, the three Persian ambassadors secretly met the Polos. They needed to take Kokachin to Persia soon, and perhaps these three famous travellers could go with them. The Polos were, of course, very pleased with this plan and they talked to the Khan about it. In the end, he agreed. He also said that that the Polos could visit their families in Venice but after that they had to return to see him.
The Khan again gave the men gold passports, and bags of valuable jewels as presents. In 1292 the group sailed from the city of Zaiton in fourteen huge ships full of food and drink for the long journey. There were hundreds of sailors, servant, and passengers on each ship.
The ships stopped at a number of places-for example, the islands of Java, Sumatra, and Sri Lanka, and also parts of India. But it was not easy travelling by sea. In Java they had to stop for months because of heavy rain, and on the two-year journey 600 passengers died from accidents