Yuan Dynasty (Great Yuan)

History

The vast Mongol-Chinese empire founded by Kublai Khan. It was the realm of the Great Khan - Khagan is a title of imperial rank in the Turkic and Mongolian languages, equivalent to the status of Emperor. It translates to 'Khan of Khans' (King of Kings). Under Genghis Khan, it was stabilized as the title for the supreme ruler of the Mongol Empire.According to Mongolian legends, the Khagan was chosen by Tengri, the supreme sky god, and ruled by the authority of the 'Eternal Blue Sky' (Mönkh Khukh Tengri) as his representative on Earth., heir to the Mongol Empire, and took its name, Great Yuan, from the Book of Changes. Choosing a Chinese classic rather than a Mongol title for the name of the state was itself a sign of the road this empire would take.

The blue wolf that ruled the Central Plain

Legend says the Mongols descend from a blue wolf and a white deer sent by Heaven. Their descendants used the fighting power of the steppe to bring down the Southern Song and unify all of China.

Dadu - Dadu was the Yuan capital that Kublai Khan began building in 1267 on the site of present-day Beijing. Mongols called it Khanbaliq, 'the city of the Khan'.It was a planned city with a grid of straight avenues inside square walls, and the Grand Canal was extended right into it so grain barges from the south could unload at its docks. A ruler of the steppe had built himself a Chinese capital.This is the city Marco Polo is said to have visited. When Ming armies approached in 1368 the last Yuan emperor abandoned it for the steppe; the Ming renamed it Beiping, and it later became Beijing. and the relay stations

Instead of Karakorum - Karakorum was the capital of the Mongol Empire, founded by Ögedei Khan on the Orkhon River in 1235, near present-day Kharkhorin in Mongolia.Standing in open grassland, it had to be fed by grain convoys from the farming lands to the south. That weakness decided a war: when Kublai cut the routes in 1261, Ariq Böke's hold on the capital collapsed without a decisive battle.It was also a city people reached from all over the world. Guillaume Boucher, a goldsmith taken captive in France, built a great silver tree in the palace whose pipes are said to have poured out wine and fermented mare's milk. Only ruins remain today, beside the Erdene Zuu Monastery built from its stones. out on the steppe, Kublai built a new capital, Dadu, where Beijing stands today. It lay close to the grain-rich south, so feeding it was easy, and it was well placed for governing China. Dadu impressed Marco Polo, and merchants came to it from every direction.

What held the empire together was the relay system. Stations a day's ride apart kept horses and food ready, so anyone carrying a passport tablet could change mounts and keep going. News, goods and travellers moved along those roads.

A state of many peoples

The Yuan sorted people into Mongols, Semu from the west, Han of the old Jin lands, and southerners of the old Song lands, and gave each group different access to office and different taxes. It was how a small number of Mongols governed a far larger population, but resentment built among those placed at the bottom. At the same time the dynasty spread paper money, supported Tibetan Buddhism, and brought in astronomers and engineers from the west.

Back to the steppe

In the middle of the 14th century floods, failed harvests and heavy taxes set off revolts everywhere, and in 1368 the Yuan gave up Dadu and withdrew to the steppe. The state it kept going on the Mongolian plateau afterwards is known as the Northern Yuan.