From great khan to Chinese emperor
The Yuan dynasty was the Chinese form of Mongol rule. It grew out of the wider Mongol conquests and was established by Kublai, a grandson of Genghis Khan. Mongol armies had already taken northern China from the Jin by 1234. After his brother Mongke died in 1259, Kublai fought for the title of great khan and was proclaimed khan in 1260, in a contest with his younger brother Ariq Boke that he won by about 1264. In 1271 he adopted the Chinese dynastic name Yuan, drawn from the classic text known as the Book of Changes, presenting his rule as a legitimate Chinese dynasty. The date 1271 for the founding is the conventional one, though the full conquest of the south came later.
In 1279 the last Song resistance was defeated at sea at Yamen, and China was once again united, this time under non-Chinese rulers. The Song commercial economy and its cities, which were among the largest in the world, became part of the Mongol realm.
A new capital
Kublai moved his main base from Mongolia to northern China. He built a new capital, called Dadu in Chinese and Khanbaliq in Turkic, on the site of present-day Beijing, with construction beginning in 1267. It was laid out on a grid with a palace compound at the centre, and the Grand Canal was extended to bring grain from the south. A summer capital at Shangdu, in Inner Mongolia, let the court keep ties with the steppe. The two-capital pattern shows the double identity of the dynasty.
Governing a Chinese empire
The Mongols were a small ruling group over a very large population, and they relied on a mix of existing Chinese institutions and new arrangements.
Chinese forms. Kublai kept a version of the central bureaucracy, with provincial governments and a system of local administration, and he took advice from Chinese Confucian scholars, as well as from Buddhist and Muslim advisers. Rites and ceremonies were adopted for the court, and he sponsored Chinese-style temples and ancestral rites.
Mongol priorities. Key posts and military commands tended to be held by Mongols or their associates. Many financial specialists were Central Asian Muslims, who were useful as tax managers, and are sometimes called “semu ren” (various categories of people).
Social ranking. Traditional accounts describe a four-part ranking of Mongols, semu ren, northern Chinese (Han people) and southern Chinese (the former Song subjects). The scheme did affect appointments and legal treatment in some cases, but how consistently it was applied is debated, and some historians caution against reading it as a rigid caste system.
Exams. The civil service examinations that had long selected officials were suspended for decades and restored in 1315, with quotas that favoured Mongols and others. This reduced a major route to office for southern Chinese scholars, and many turned to teaching, writing or local leadership instead.
Money, trade and the arts
The Yuan government issued paper money, including notes backed by reserves of silver in the early period. Paper currency was widely used, but later overissue contributed to inflation. The Mongol network of roads and relay stations, which was part of the larger Mongol system, supported travel and commerce, and foreign merchants and envoys visited. Marco Polo’s account of his travels, which claims service at Kublai’s court, is a famous source, though scholars debate how much of it is first-hand and how reliable its details are.
Chinese culture continued to flourish. Yuan drama, in the zaju form, became a highlight of Chinese literature, and potters at Jingdezhen developed blue-and-white porcelain, influenced by demand and by cobalt from Persia. Astronomers and mathematicians worked with scholars from Persia and elsewhere, and Chinese medical and scientific works continued to be produced. Painting and poetry by scholars who chose not to serve the Yuan form a major strand of its artistic legacy.
Religion and the court
Kublai supported various religions. He gave special respect to Tibetan Buddhism, appointing the Tibetan monk Phagpa (Drogon Chogyal Phagpa) as an imperial preceptor, who also helped to devise a script for writing Mongolian and other languages. Daoists, Muslims, Nestorian Christians and Confucians were also present, and religious institutions often received tax exemptions. This policy was in line with Mongol practice elsewhere, although it was not free of rivalry, and in some cases led to conflicts over property and influence.
Campaigns beyond China
Kublai tried to extend his authority overseas, with limited success. Large expeditions against Japan in 1274 and 1281 failed, with the second being largely wrecked by storms and difficulties of coordination. Campaigns in Vietnam, Burma and Java produced mixed results, and a Javanese expedition around 1293 did not establish lasting control. These ventures were costly, and they strained finances.
Decline and fall
Kublai died in 1294. His successors faced court factions, frequent changes of ruler and growing expenses. In the fourteenth century the dynasty also confronted flooding of the Yellow River, famine, epidemic disease, and rising rebellion. Currency problems and heavy demands on peasants added to discontent. The Red Turban movements and other rebel groups grew in strength, and in 1368 the rebel leader Zhu Yuanzhang took Dadu, founding the Ming dynasty. The last Yuan emperor, Toghon Temur, withdrew to the steppe, where a Mongol successor regime, often called the Northern Yuan, continued for some time. The Ming restoration followed, bringing back Chinese rule and a revived civil service.
Weighing the Yuan
The Yuan era is sometimes depicted as a foreign interruption, and sometimes as a period of openness and exchange. Both pictures contain part of the truth. Yuan China was connected to the wider Mongol world, which brought new people, goods and ideas, and it also placed heavy burdens on its subjects and left a social hierarchy that many resented. Because sources were written by Chinese, Persian and Western observers with different aims, claims about Yuan policy should be checked against more than one source.