When Marco Polo was 17 years old, he travelled {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Europe and Asia with his father, who wanted to do trade with the Chinese. And {#blank#}2{#/blank#} they arrived in Beijing.

    Marco was amazed by how beautiful and powerful China was. He was impressed by Beijing and the Emperor's palace. He was surprised to see Chinese people using paper money in the markets because he could not understand how people could pay for food and valuable things with paper! He was also {#blank#}3{#/blank#} by the black stones people used to burn for fuel. The black stones were coal, but Marco had never seen it before.

    Not long after his return to Italy, a local war {#blank#}4{#/blank#}. During the war, he was caught by the enemy and put into prison. Another prisoner, who was an author, took {#blank#}5{#/blank#} while Marco told all his stories about China and wrote the stories in a book called The Description of the World.