The Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) was a dynasty of China ruled by the Mongol Borjigin clan. Founded by Kublai Khan, it is considered one of the successors to the Mongol Empire.
History
Rise of Kublai Khan
Genghis Khan united the Mongol and Turkic tribes of the steppes and became Great Khan in 1206. He and his successors expanded the Mongol Empire across Asia. Under the reign of Genghis' third son, Ögedei Khan, the Mongols destroyed the weakened Jin dynasty in 1234 and conquered most of northern China. Ögedei offered his nephew Kublai a position in Xingzhou, Hebei. Kublai was unable to read Chinese, but had several Han Chinese teachers attached to him since his early years by his mother Sorghaghtani. He sought the counsel of Chinese Buddhist and Confucian advisers. Möngke Khan succeeded Ögedei's son, Güyük, as Great Khan in 1251. He granted his brother Kublai control over Mongol held territories in China. Kublai built schools for Confucian scholars, issued paper money, revived Chinese rituals, and endorsed policies that stimulated agricultural and commercial growth. He made the city of Kaiping in Inner Mongolia, later renamed Shangdu, his capital.
Many Han Chinese and Khitan defected to the Mongols to fight against the Jin. Two Han Chinese leaders, Shi Tianze, Liu Heima (, Liu Ni),Collectif 2002, p. 147. and the Khitan Xiao Zhala defected and commanded the 3 Tumens in the Mongol army. Liu Heima and Shi Tianze served Ogödei Khan.Schram 1987, p. 130. Liu Heima and Shi Tianxiang led armies against Western Xia for the Mongols.eds. Seaman, Marks 1991, p. 175. There were 4 Han Tumens and 3 Khitan Tumens, with each Tumen consisting of 10,000 troops.
Shi Tianze was a Han Chinese who lived in the Jin dynasty (1115–1234). Interethnic marriage between Han and Jurchen became common at this time. His father was Shi Bingzhi (, Shih Ping-chih). Shi Bingzhi was married to a Jurchen woman (surname Na-ho) and a Han Chinese woman (surname Chang), it is unknown which of them was Shi Tianze's mother.ed. de Rachewiltz 1993, p. 41. Shi Tianze was married to two Jurchen women, a Han Chinese woman, and a Korean woman, and his son Shi Gang was born to one of his Jurchen wives.Kinoshita 2013, p. 47. His Jurchen wives's surnames were Mo-nien and Na-ho, his Korean wife's surname was Li, and his Han Chinese wife's surname was Shi. Shi Tianze defected to the Mongol Empire's forces upon their invasion of the Jin dynasty. His son Shi Gang married a Kerait woman, the Kerait were Mongolified Turkic people and considered part of the "Mongol nation".Kinoshita 2013, p. 47.
The Yuan dynasty created a "Han Army" () out of defected Jin troops and army of defected Song troops called the "Newly Submitted Army" ().Hucker 1985, p.66.
Möngke Khan commenced a military campaign against the Chinese Song dynasty in southern China. The Mongol force which invaded southern China was far greater than the force they sent to invade the Middle East in 1256.Smith, Jr. 1998, p. 54. He died in 1259 without a successor. Kublai returned from fighting the Song in 1260 when he learned that his brother, Ariq Böke, was challenging his claim to the throne. Kublai convened a kurultai in the Chinese city of Kaiping that elected him Great Khan. A rival kurultai in Mongolia proclaimed Ariq Böke Great Khan, beginning a civil war. Kublai Khan depended on the cooperation of his Chinese subjects to ensure that his army received ample resources. He bolstered his popularity among his subjects by modeling his government on the bureaucracy of traditional Chinese dynasties and adopting the Chinese era name of Zhongtong. Ariq Böke was hampered by inadequate supplies and surrendered in 1264. All of the three western khanates (Golden Horde, Chagatai Khanate and Ilkhanate) became functionally autonomous, although only the Ilkhans truly recognized Kublai as Great Khan. Civil strife had permanently divided of the Mongol Empire.
The conflicts between Kublai Khan and the khanates in Central Asia led by Kaidu had lasted for a few decades, until the beginning of the 14th century, when both of them had died. Hülegü, another brother of Kublai Khan, ruled his Ilkhanate and paid homage to the Great Khan but actually established an autonomous khanate, and after Ilkhan Ghazan's enthronement in 1295, Kublai's successor Emperor Chengzong sent him a seal reading "" in Chinese script to symbolize this. The four major successor khanates never came again under true one rule, and border clashes also frequently occurred among them, although Yuan dynasty's nominal supremacy was recognized by the other three after the death of Kaidu.H.H.Howorth-History of the Mongols, vol.II p.288
Founding of the dynasty
Instability troubled the early years of Kublai Khan's reign. Li Tan, the son-in-law of a powerful official, instigated a revolt against Mongol rule in 1262. After successfully suppressing the revolt, Kublai curbed the influence of the Han Chinese advisers in his court. He feared that his dependence on Chinese officials left him vulnerable to future revolts and defections to the Song. Khublai's government after 1262 was a compromise between preserving Mongol interests in China and satisfying the demands of his Chinese subjects. He instituted the reforms proposed by his Chinese advisers by centralizing the bureaucracy, expanding the circulation of paper money, and maintaining the traditional monopolies on salt and iron, but rejected plans to revive the Confucian imperial examinations.
In 1264, he transferred his headquarters to the Daning Palace northeast of the former Jin capital Zhongdu. In 1266, he ordered the construction of his new capital around that site's Taiye Lake, establishing what is now the central core of Beijing. The city came to be known as Khanbaliq ("City of the Khans") and Daidu to the Turks and Mongols and Dadu (, "Great Capital") to the Han Chinese. As early as 1264, Kublai decided to change the era name from Zhongtong () to Zhiyuan (). With the desire to rule all of China, Kublai Khan formally claimed the Mandate of Heaven by proclaiming the new Yuan dynasty in 1271 in the traditional Chinese style. This would become the first non-Han dynasty to rule all of China proper.
The official title of the dynasty, Da Yuan (, "Great Yuan"), originates from a Chinese classic text called the Commentaries on the Classic of Changes (I Ching) whose section regarding Qián () reads "" (dà zai Qián Yuán), literally translating to 'Great is Qián, the Primal', with "Qián" being the symbol of the Heaven, and the Emperor. Therefore, Yuan was the first dynasty of China to use Da (, "Great") in its official title, as well as being the first Chinese dynasty to use a title that did not correspond to an ancient region or noble title in China. In 1271, Khanbaliq officially became the capital of the Yuan dynasty. In an edict titled "Proclamation of the Dynastic Name" (), Kublai announced the name of the new dynasty as Da Yuan and claimed the succession of former Chinese dynasties from the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors to Tang dynasty.
In the early 1270s, Kublai began his massive drive against the Southern Song dynasty in southern China. By 1273, Kublai had blockaded the Yangzi River with his navy and besieged Xiangyang, the last obstacle in his way to capture the rich Yangzi River basin. In 1275, a Song force of 130,000 troops under Chancellor Jia Sidao was defeated by the Yuan force. By 1276, most of the Southern Song territory had been captured by Yuan forces. In 1279, the Yuan army led by the Chinese general Zhang Hongfan had crushed the last Song resistance at the Battle of Yamen, which marked the end of the Southern Song and the onset of a unified China under the Yuan. The Yuan dynasty is traditionally given credit for reuniting China after several hundred years of fragmentation following the fall of the Tang dynasty.
After the founding of the dynasty, Kublai Khan was put under pressure by many of his advisers to further expand the sphere of influence of the Yuan through the traditional Sinocentric tributary system. However, the attempts to establish such tributary relationships were rebuffed and expeditions to Japan (twice), Dai Viet (twice during Kublai's rule), and Java, would later meet with less success. Kublai established a puppet state in Myanmar, which caused anarchy in the area, and the Pagan Kingdom was broken up into many regions warring with each another. In order to avoid more bloodshed and conflicts with the Mongols, Annam and Champa later established nominal tributary relations with the Yuan dynasty.
Rule of Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan was seen as a martial emperor, reforming much of China and its institutions, a process that would have taken decades to complete. For example, he consolidated his rule by centralizing the government of China — making himself (unlike his predecessors) an absolute monarch. He divided his empire into Branch Secretariats (), or simply provinces (), in addition to the regions governed by the Zhongshu Sheng or the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs. Each province governed the areas of approximately two or three modern-day Chinese provinces, and this provincial-level government structure became the model for later Ming and Qing dynasties. Kublai Khan also reformed many other governmental and economic institutions, especially the tax system. Kublai Khan sought to govern China through traditional institutions, and also recognized that in order to rule China he needed to employ Han Chinese advisers and officials, though he never relied totally on Chinese advisers. Yet, the Hans were discriminated against politically. Almost all important central posts were monopolized by Mongols, who also preferred employing non-Hans from other parts of the Mongol domain in those positions for which no Mongol could be found. Hans were more often employed in non-Chinese regions of the empire. In essence, society was divided into four classes in order of privilege: Mongols, Semu ("Various sorts", for example: Central Asians), Northerners, and Southerners. During his lifetime, Kublai Khan built the capital of the Yuan, Khanbaliq at the site of present-day central Beijing and made Shangdu (, "Upper Capital", known to Marco Polo as Xanadu) the summer capital. He also improved the agriculture of China, extending the Grand Canal, highways and public granaries. Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant who served under Kublai Khan as an official, described his rule as benevolent: relieving the populace of taxes in times of hardship; building hospitals and orphanages; distributing food among the abjectly poor.