The Mongol Empire

(Yuan Dynasty

in China)

• Main reference;

• Fairbank, John K., et al. East Asia: Tradition and Transformation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978.

• Mote, Frederick W. Imperial China, 900-1800. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U. Press, 1999.

• Rossabi, Morris. Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1988.

• From the 13th to the 18th centuries, the Chinese way of life showed great stability. Three ruling houses held power during 3 dynastic period: Yuan (1271-1368), Ming (1368-1644), and Ch’ing (1644-1911). Disorder occurred mainly during the years of dynastic decline and change.

• Yet, this generally stable political period has an interesting aspect: the Yuan and the Ch’ing were non-Han dynasties of conquest. Nevertheless, the non-Han conquerors made use of the Chinese traditional political institutions, which supported centralized imperial rule through bureaucracy.

• The Mongol Empire

• In the history of the Northern Wei, the Liao, and the Chin, we can see some repetitive features, which become even clearer in the periods of Mongol (and Manchu) conquests:

• 1. Invaders seized power in North China usually during periods of disorder;

• 2. The “barbarians” enlisted Chinese advice and aid, especially from Chinese of the border region;

• 3. The superior “barbarian” chivalry was supplied with more and better horses from the steppe than could be maintained in an agricultural region;

• 4. Through a policy of tolerance, if not appeasement, local Chinese leaders were attracted and used to enlist a larger corps of Chinese tax collectors and administrators;

• 5. The invaders made use of the Chinese institutions of government and also let the traditional administration and Chinese social and cultural life continue;

• 6. But for themselves, the invaders maintained a homeland of their own beyond the Great Wall in order to preserve their own conscious existence as a [non-Han] people and avoid absorption;

• 7. A dual, Sino-”barbarian” administration was conducted at the local level, mainly by Han Chinese under the supervision of the conquerors (“barbarians”);

• 8. The invaders also employed other “barbarians” and foreigners (“colored eyes people”, such as Marco Polo, etc.) as officers in their administration;

• 9. The rulers preserved control through military force – including both a territorial army, and units of the invading horde, which garrisoned the Capital and key areas.

• Genghis Khan• When Genghis Khan was born about 1167, the

Mongol tribes were still scattered. He became the great organizer and unifier.

• (Story of “United we stand, divided we fall”; cf. story from Aesop’s Fables).

• His personal name was Temujin. He was of aristocratic birth, but his father was slain when he was a boy, and he struggled through hard times to revenge and rose to power – rebelling against his overlord, and defeated one tribe after another, Finally, in 1206, at a great meeting of the Mongol tribes on the Kerulen River, he was confirmed the title of Genghis Khan (= “Universal ruler”)!

• His political structure was organized on the family principle: families forming clans, clans forming tribes, and so on.

• One source of strength of this untutored nomad chieftain lay in his ability to

• learn from others. In building a civil administration, he used Uighur Turks, who were also traders in Central Asia; and some of them were Nestorian Christians, centered around the oasis of Turfan.

• The heavy bows (and arrows) of the Mongols, more powerful than the medieval English longbow, could kill at 600 feet.

• Genghis Khan started wars against the Hsi Hsia Kingdom in the northwest of China in 1205, and conquered it in 1227. His campaign against the Chin Empire in 1211-1215 destroyed their Capital and also gained the services of Chinese who knew how to besiege cities and to govern them. The most famous of these was a descendant of the Khitan royal house, Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai (1190-1244), who persuaded his new Mongol masters that it would be more profitable not to turn North China into an empty pasture (grassland)!

• Instead he taught the Mongol rulers to levy taxes on agriculture and foster the existing mines and craft-industries. Genghis Khan then conquered the Turkish Empire of Khoresm (in Russian Turkestan) in 1219-1221. He acquired not only wealth, irrigated oasis-cities, centers of handicraft production, caravan trade, and Islamic culture, but also the services of Muslim merchants. Turkish tribes were also incorporated into the Mongol horde.

• Therefore, Genghis Khan had established the basis of a far-lung Eurasian Empire by conquering Central Asia and beyond. According to John K. Fairbank, he reportedly said, “Man’s highest joy is in victory: to conquer one’s enemies, to pursue them, to deprive them of their possessions, to make their beloved weep, to ride on their horses, …” (Fairbank, p. 164)

• Conquest of the Southern Sung• The Southern Sung repeated its earlier

mistake of removing the buffer (Chin and Liao) between themselves and their eventual conquerors. Nevertheless, the conquest of South China took a few decades, which shows the strength and endurance of the Southern Sung –- a much more difficult conquest for the Mongols than the empires of West Asia.

• The conquest of the Southern Sung was completed under Genghis Khan ablest grandson, Khubilai Khan (1215-1294), who became Great Khan in 1260 and ruled for 34 years. Khubilai built up Peking (Beijing) as his winter Capital. His forces moved down the Yangtze River and took the Southern Sung Capital in Hangchow. Then, they took Canton, … In 1271, Khubilai had adopted the Chinese dynastic name of Yuan, meaning “The First Beginning” or “The Origin”, the first dynastic name not derived from a place name.

• China under Mongol Rule• The Mongol conquerors faced the age-old problem

of how to rule in a Han Chinese fashion and still retain power.

• The Mongols differed from their subjects in very striking ways, not only in language and status.

• For clothes, they preferred the leather and furs of steppe horsemen.

• For food, they liked mare’s milk and cheese, …• Grown up on the dry desert, the Mongols were not

used to washing.

• They were the only full nomads to achieve a dynasty of conquest.

• The gap between them and the Han Chinese were great culturally and then politically.

• In the fact of native hostility, the Mongols in China employed many foreigners, particularly Muslims from Central and Western Asia.

• As Marco Polo recorded, “You see the Great Khan had not succeeded to the dominion of Cathay by hereditary right, but held it by conquest; and thus, having no confidence in the natives, he put all authority into the hands of Tartars, Saracens, or Christians [colored eyes people], who were attached to his household and devoted to his service, and were foreigners in Cathay”. (Fairbank, p. 168)

• Khubilai’s grandson Temur, who succeeded him in 1294, maintained a strong central administration, but after his death in 1307 the Mongols’ hold on China rapidly weakened. In the coming 26 years, 7 rulers were on the throne. After 1328, there were rebellions and civil wars. Meanwhile, paper money, which had earlier stimulated trade, was now issued in increasing quantities without backing, and so paper notes were no longer accepted for tax payments and seriously depreciated. There were also floods, famines, plagues; thus, financial, moral, and political bankruptcy came hand in hand.

• Marco Polo• Marco Polo was only one of many who brought

back direct word of “Cathay” (the name derived from “Khitai”, meaning peaceful and wealthy China).

• Marco Polo set out in 1271 with his father and uncle, Venetian merchants on their second trip to China.

• Marco spent 17 years as an officer in Khubilai’s court (1275-1292), and returned to Venice in 1295.

• His book on Cathay was a systematic, scientific treatise, well informed and objective, the first connected exposition of the geography, economic life, and government of China to be told t the Europeans.

• [*China of the late 13th century was superior to Europe not only in size but also in culture and technology.]

• Marco Polo’s influence persisted: Christopher Columbus had a copy of his book and made notes in it. … His burnable “black stones” dug from mountains, proved to be coal. In the 19th century, his writings were verified in detail.

• All in all, the significance of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty in China lies not in her ruling for the Han Chinese, but rather the period witnessed the enhancing of the knowledge and understanding between East and West; thus, eventually and probably causing the later “Discovery of the New World” (by Columbus) and the “Rise of Great Nations” later.