Yuan Dynasty

The Yuan Dynasty (Mongolian: Dai Ön Yeke Mongghul Ulus; Chinese: 元朝 yuán cháo) lasting officially from 1271 to 1368, also called the Mongol Dynasty, was the name given to the significant ruling family of Borjigin in Asia. It invaded and ruled, during its hundred year life, over the Mongol Empire (Stretching great distances from Eastern Europe to the Middle-east to Russia), Korea and China. In the historiography of China, it followed the Song Dynasty and preceded the Ming Dynasty in China.

Birth of the Yuan

Founding an Empire

Timüjin, later to be more prominently known as Ghengis Khan, was the first in the line of Yuan rulers. He was the son of Yesügei, the tribal chief of the Kiyad — a tribe in a fractured Mongolia. His father was killed in his early life by a rival tribe, the Tartars — this rendered him chief of the Kiyad. Many in the tribe did not take well to a boy-ruler, abandoning him. He and his family were thus reduced to a state of abject poverty — however, at the age of 20 he met his future wife Börte, from whom he received a sable coat, his first semblance of power and wealth. He soon traded this coat for a small tribal army and joined the Keriat, a confederacy of Mongol tribes led by Wang Khan. After successful campaigns against the Tatars in 1202, Temüjin was adopted as Wang Khan's heir. This led to bitterness on the part of Senggum, Wang's former heir, who planned to assassinate Temüjin. Temüjin learned of Senggum's intentions however, and a large civil war broke out among the Mongols. Eventually Temüjin defeated Senggum and succeeded to the title of Wang Khan. Temüjin created a written code of laws for the Mongols called Yassa, and he demanded it to be followed very strictly.

Temüjin followed with attacks on other neighboring tribes, which further increased his power. By combining diplomacy, organization, military ability, and brutality, Temüjin finally managed to unite the tribes into the single nation, a monumental feat for the Mongols, who had a long history of internecine dispute. In 1206 Temüjin had successfully united the formerly fragmented tribes of what is now Mongolia. At a Khurultai (a council of Mongol chiefs), he was named the "Genghis Khan", or the "Universal Ruler". The birth of Mongolia marked the start of what would become the Yuan Dynasty, eventually ruling the expansive Mongol Empire, Russia and large parts of Asia for the following two centuries. Genghis Khan, with his skills in military strategy, continued the long Mongol tradition of attacking China proper with greater success than ever before, eventually building a powerful military machine with unity as support.

Aspirations to China

At the time of the Khuriltai Genghis was involved in a dispute with Western Xia — which eventually became the first of his wars of conquest. Despite problems in taking well defended Western Xia cities, he substantially reduced the Western Xia dominion by 1209, when peace with Western Xia was made. He was acknowledged by their emperor as overlord. This marks the first in a line of successes in Northern Chinese kingdoms which wasn't complete until Kublai Khan's rule. A major goal of Genghis was the conquest of the Jin Dynasty of China, both to avenge earlier defeats and to gain the riches of northern China. He declared war in 1211, and at first the pattern of operations against the Jurchen Jin Dynasty was the same as it had been against Western Xia. The Mongols were victorious in the field, but they were frustrated in their efforts to take major cities. In his typically logical and determined fashion, Genghis and his highly developed staff studied the problems of the assault of fortifications. With the help of Chinese engineers, they gradually developed the techniques that eventually would make them the most accomplished and most successful besiegers in the history of warfare.

As a result of a number of overwhelming victories in the field and a few successes in the capture of fortifications deep within China, Genghis had conquered and had consolidated Jin territory as far south as the Great Wall of China by 1213. He then advanced with three armies into the heart of Jin territory, between the Great Wall and the Huang He. He defeated the Jin forces, devastated northern China, captured numerous cities, and in 1215 besieged, captured, and sacked the Jin capital of Yanjing (later known as Beijing). The Jin emperor, Xuan Zong, however, did not surrender, but removed his capital to Kaifeng. There his successors finally were defeated, but not until 1234.

The vassal emperor of Western Xia had refused to take part in the war against the peoples of the Khwarizm, and Genghis had vowed punishment. While he was in Iran, Western Xia and Jin had formed an alliance against the Mongols. After rest and a reorganization of his armies, Genghis prepared for war against his foes. By this time, advancing years had led Genghis to prepare for the future and to assure an orderly succession among his descendants. He selected his third son Ögedei as his successor and established the method of selection of subsequent khans, specifying that they should come from his direct descendants. Meanwhile, he studied intelligence reports from Western Xia and Jin and readied a force of 180,000 troops for a new campaign.

Northern Conquest

In 1226, Genghis Khan attacked the Tanguts (Western Xia) on the pretext that the Tanguts received the Mongols' enemies. Over the next year he took the cities Heisui, Ganzhou, Suzhou, and Xiliang-fu — the Western Xia were finally defeated near Helanshan Mountain. He soonafter took Tangut city of Ling-zhou and the Yellow River — defeating the Tangut relief army. In 1227, Genghis Khan attacked the Tanguts' capital, and in February, he took Lintiao-fu. In March, he took Xining prefecture and Xindu-fu. In April, he took Deshun prefecture. At Deshun, the Western Xia General Ma Jianlong resisted the Mongols for days and personally led charges against them outside of the city gate. Ma Jianlong later died of arrow shots. On his deathbed in 1227, Genghis Khan outlined to his youngest son, Tolui, the plans that later would be used by his successors to complete the destruction of the Jin empire. The new Western Xia emperor, during Mongol attack, surrendered. The Tanguts officially surrendered in 1227, after being in existence for 190 years, from 1038 to 1227. The Mongols killed the Tangut emperor and his royal family members.

During the reign of Ögedei Khan, the Mongols completed the destruction of the Jurchen Jin empire (in 1234), coming into contact and conflict, during this time, with the Southern Song of China. In 1235, under the khan's direct generalship, the Mongols began a war of conquest that would not end for forty-five years. Mongol armies vassalized Korea (which was later used as a base for the two unsuccessful attempts to invade Japan, in 1274 & 1281), established permanent control of Persia proper (commanded by Chormagan) and, most notably, expanded westwards under the command of Batu Khan to subdue the Russian steppe. Their western conquests included almost all of Russia (save Novgorod, which became a vassal), Hungary, and Poland. Ögedei's death in 1241, caused by alcohol, brought the western campaign to a premature end. The commanders heard the news as they were advancing on Vienna, and withdrew for the kuriltai in Mongolia, never again to return so far west.

Not until Möngke Khan did any Khan take the conquest of China particularly seriously. Concerned himself more with the war in China, he outflanked the Song Dynasty through the conquest of Yunnan in 1253 and an invasion of Indochina, which allowed the Mongols to invade from north, west, and south. Taking command personally late in the decade, he captured many of the fortified cities along the northern front. These actions ultimately rendered the conquest a matter of time. He dispatched his brother Hülegü to the southwest, an act which was to expand the Mongol Empire to the gates of Egypt. European conquest was neglected due to the primacy of the other two theaters, but Möngke's friendliness with Batu Khan (with whom Güyük Khan had almost come to open warfare — only prevented from doing so by death) ensured the unity of empire. While conducting the war in China, Möngke fell ill of dysentery and died (in 1259), which aborted Hülegü's campaign, staved off defeat for the Song, and caused a civil war that destroyed the unity, and invincibility, of the Mongol Empire. His death gave rise to Kublai Khan, the first Yuan Emperor of China.

Downfall of the Yuan

Civil Unrest

The last of the Yuan Dynasty were marked by successions of struggle, famine, and bitterness on behalf of the Chinese people. The dynasty was, significantly, one of the shortest lived dynasties in the History of China, covering the period of just a century 1271 to 1368. During this time they had been seen as "foreign rule". In time, Khubilai's successors became sinicized, and they then lost all influence on other Mongol lands across Asia. Where the Mongols saw them as too Chinese, the Chinese populace saw them as too Mongol. Gradually, they lost influence in China as well. For one, most of the emperors in the dynasty did not bother learning the language of the people, nor celebrate the culture over which they ruled. The reigns of the later Yuan emperors were short and were marked by intrigues and rivalries. Uninterested in administration, they were separated from both their Mongolian army and their Chinese subjects. China was torn by dissension and unrest; bandits ranged the country without interference from the weakening Yuan armies.

Emperor Yingzong ruled for just two years (1321 to 1323); his rule ended in a coup at the hands of five princes. They placed Taidingdi on the throne, and after an unsuccessful attempt to calm the princes he also succumbed to regicide.

Loss of China

The last of the nine successors of Khubilai was expelled from Dadu in 1368 by Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), who was referred to as taizu. Although Zhu, who adopted Mongol military methods, drove the Mongols out of China, he did not destroy their power.

References

J. J. Saunders, The History of the Mongol Conquests (1971); M. Rossabi, Khubilai Khan (1988).

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