The Mongol Empire

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• The Mongol Empire
• (Yuan Dynasty
• in China)

2

• 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.

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• 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 Ching
  (1644-1911). Disorder occurred mainly during the
  years of dynastic decline and change.

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• Yet, this generally stable political period has
  an interesting aspect the Yuan and the Ching
  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.

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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)

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• 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.

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• 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 Aesops 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)!

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• 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.

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• 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 Chu-tsai
  (1190-1244), who persuaded his new Mongol masters
  that it would be more profitable not to turn
  North China into an empty pasture (grassland)!

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• 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.

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• 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, Mans highest joy
  is in victory to conquer ones enemies, to
  pursue them, to deprive them of their
  possessions, to make their beloved weep, to ride
  on their horses, (Fairbank, p. 164)

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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 mares milk and cheese,
• Grown up on the dry desert, the Mongols were not
  used to washing.

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• 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)

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• Khubilais 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.

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• 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 Khubilais
  court (1275-1292), and returned to Venice in
  1295.

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• 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.

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• Marco Polos 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.

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• 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.