1280 AD

Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006).

In 1280 AD:

Kublai Khan was the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire;

he had been visited by Marco Polo;

there were revolutionary secret societies in Cathay;

 

Japan had repelled a Mongol invasion;

 

Russian princes collected taxes for the Golden Horde, the northwestern sector of the Empire;

 

the Il-Khan Abaka, at war with the Golden Horde, ruled in Baghdad;

 

the Abbasid Caliphate had been driven from Baghdad to Cairo;

 

the Muslim Slave Dynasty ruled in Delhi;

 

Nicholas III was Pope;

 

Guelphs and Ghibellines were in conflict in Italy;

 

Edward I was King of England;

 

Rudolf I was King of Germany;

 

Philip the Bold was King of France;

 

Dante, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon and Thomas Rhymer were alive;

 

the Yuan milieu HQ of the Time Patrol was in Peking, as is the 1850-2000 Asian milieu HQ;

Manson Everard and John Sandoval of the Patrol watched a Mongol expedition advancing through North America.

Poul Anderson presents all of this background information, which I have checked on google (I am not sure that Philip the Bold's titles included "King"?), before describing how Everard and Sandoval interact with the expedition, which they must prevent from returning to China.