Jay Roberts
Lesson Plan: Mongol Dynasty
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Yuan Dynasty 1279-1368 A.D
- One of two times that all of China was ruled by a foreign power;
the Mongols.
- China was part of the Mongol Empire, during the Yuan Dynasty. The
Mongols were lead by Genghis Khan, defeated much of China, and his grandson,
Kublai Khan became the emperor and founder of the Yuan dynasty. The
Mongols conquered China because of their superior military capabilities.
Yuan Dynasty- Kings/Kingdoms
- Yuan Shi Zu (1,277 - 1,295 A.D.)
- Yuan Chen Zong (1,295 - 1,308 A.D.)
- Yuan Wu Zong (1,308 - 1,312 A.D.)
- Yuan Ren Zong (1,312 - 1,321 A.D.)
- Yuan Ying Zong (1,321 - 1,324 A.D.)
- Yuan Tai Ding Di (1,324 - 1,328 A.D.)
- Yuan Wen Zong (1,328 - 1,333 A.D.)
- Yuan Sun Di (1,333 - 1,368 A.D.)
Mongols
- Culturally, the Mongols were very different than the Chinese.
- The Mongols and the Chinese differences included different languages,
different forms of dress and other different customs.
Mongol Conquest of China
- The Mongol conquest of China came in a series of stages.
- While time of Mongol rule is called a dynasty, it was in fact a government
of occupation.
- The Western Xia kingdom in the NW was attacked between 1205 and 1209.
- The Jin Empire of North China was first overrun between 1211 and
1215.
- Afterwards, the Mongols turned to the west and took over the Western
Liao Empire, the state founded by the remains of the Qidan.
- In 1234, the Jin Empire was destroyed, the remains of the Nanzhao
kingdom in the SW fell in 1253. Korea was conquered by 1258. The Yuan
dynasty was established in 1272 and the Southern Song capitulated in
1279.
Four Class System
- The Mongols imposed a four class system on China that divided the
population into four separate ethnic groups.
- Based on descending order of privilege and were to become a cause
of much contention.
- The Mongols were first.
- Then Western and Central Asians who were known as semu ren.
- Next were the Han ren, who were the people of Northern China and conquered
in 1234. These included Chinese and Qidan, Jin and others.
- The final group and of the lowest order were the nan ren, the people
who had been ruled by the Southern Song and brought into the new Mongol
Empire in 1279.
- The class distinctions were not rigidly enforced.
- They did have exceptions when it came to privileges, appointments
and taxation.
- In the Yuan period Mongols and semu ren were tried according to Mongolian
or Central Asian laws, while the Chinese were tried according to Chinese
law.
- This resulted in a diverse system of punishments.
- Special courts were established to deal with cases involving more
than one ethnic group..
Genghis Khan (1162-1227) - Rise to Power
- Genghis Khan was born in 1162. He was born as the son of the chief
of the Yakka Mongols.
- His father was poisoned to death when he turned 10. Upon his death,
Genghis became chief. When he did, all of the tribe members deserted
him.
- Afterwards, he lived a harsh lonely existence, digging roots for food
and only owning seven sheep.
- Three years later, he was talking to a group of his former tribe members,
explaining his military and political beliefs. They liked his ideas
and many more people began listening to them. He used these audiences
to form alliances and the alliances into armies.
- Genghis used strict discipline and tough training to organize a superior
army.
- He wrote the first Mongol code of laws called Yasa.
- The laws stated that he had to pick his officers and rank by achievement,
not familial connections
- The laws also said his officials must remain loyal to their leader.
- Genghis then resolved to leave the world in better condition than
that in which he found it.
Genghis Khan- Conquests
- His next big goal was to take over all of China. He did so by conquering
the three main empires that made up China. First, Xi Xia, which was
the smallest. Then the Qin. And finally the largest, Na-Chung.
- When he first attacked Xi Xia, he conquered it easily by defeating
two armies of 50 people each.
- The Qin Empire conquest was much more challenging. The process of
getting there involved a lot of work. He had to break through the weakest
spot of the Great Wall of China, which was up north from where they
were.
- Genghis started on his greatest challenge of all, conquering the
Empire of Na-Chung! It took three years, but Genghis' armies chewed
up everything it their paths killing over 60,000 people finally conquering
the Na-Chung Empire.
Kublai Khan
- 1238: Kublai Khan established the Imperial Library at Beijing.
- 1260: Kublai Khan becomes Great Khan
- 1271: Kublai Khan Becomes emperor of China.
- 1280: Yuan Dynasty is founded after all of China is conquered.
- 1274: First attempt to invade Japan
- 1275-1292: Marco Polo travels in China
- 1281: Second attempt to invade Japan.
- 1300-1368: White Lotus Society, White Cloud Society and Red Turbans
lead rebellions against Mongol rule.
Yuan Philosophy
- The single most striking aspect of the Yuan is not only the survival
of Chinese culture under a vastly foreign rule, but its singular vitality
and growth.
- The Yuan had steadily adopted Chinese ways of thinking. Before the
conquest of China, Yeh-lü Ch'u-ts'ai (1189-1243), an advisor to
the Mongol Khan Ögödei, reformed the financial administration
along the lines of its Chinese form.
- In 1271, Kublai Khan adopted a Chinese dynastic name.
- The traditional philosophies and religions of China continued unabated
under Mongol rule.
- Buddhism in particular found a welcome home among the Mongols who
had in part adopted it.
- Taoism remained vital throughout China, and Confucianism continued.
- The foreign rule of the Mongols allowed for a certain amount of revolution
and renewal in Chinese thought. The Mongols held Confucianism in contempt
in the early years of their rule.
- The Mongols, though Buddhist, did not really support or patronize
Buddhism, which was largely left to its own devices.
- Mongols favored Tibetan Buddhism but really did not financially support
the monasteries.
- When the Mongol rulers decided that too many Buddhists were escaping
military service, they instituted a literacy test on Buddhist scriptures.
Anyone who couldn't demonstrate literacy in the scriptures lost their
military exemption.
- This put the Mongol rulers in direct conflict with the major Buddhist
masters; the central school of Buddhism was Ch'an, or "Meditation"
Buddhism.
Yuan Religion
- They practiced a form of shamanism, the Mongols did not impose this
on their subject races.
- During the Yuan period there was religious freedom albeit with some
degree of favor to one group at the expense of another.
- The Taoist leader, Changchun, who had a famous meeting with Genghis
Khan in 1219, gained privileges for his followers over Buddhists.
- Public debates held between 1255 and 1258 to settle difference between
Taoists and Buddhist.
- The Tibetan lama, Phags-pa, major player in debates and as his form
of Buddhism had more appeal to the Mongols.
- He was appointed State Preceptor in 1260. Tibetan Buddhism took a
firm hold in China and the Mongol Emperors were to receive Buddhist
legitimization.
Social Economy
- Following their invasion, the Mongols confiscated a vast amount of
arable land and turned it over to pasture.
- State owned land was often granted to Mongol aristocrats and to Buddhist
monasteries. Along with this, harsh taxes took its toll on peasant farmers,
many then migrated to the South.
- The Mongols neglected river flooding and the Yellow River shifted
its course resulting in large loss of life.
- The incorporation of China into the Mongol empire did little to help
their economy as so much trade was under foreign control.
- Under Kublai, things were improved. He brought together groups of
fifty households to develop land for agriculture, to improve flood defenses
and irrigation. This encouraged silk production.
- He also promoted the interests of artisans and merchants.
- Towards the end of his reign, economic problems rose. Kublai employed
a series of semu finance ministers who were very unpopular as a result
of their taxation methods. His successors continued to suffer from financial
problems.
- To fix this they raised revenue and currency manipulation.
Significance of the Yuan Dynasty
- The traditional view of Chinese historians was that the Mongol conquest
was a disaster.
- The Mongols devised a system of economic exploitation and practiced
racial discrimination. This was ultimately the reason that the Mongols
were in China.
- The Mongol occupation proved to be a setback to the development of
Chinese society due to the ending of the progress achieved during the
Song period.
- This led to the fact that the flourishing Ming dynasty became an
introverted and non competitive state.
- It has also been suggested that the Mongol rule introduced a level
of brutality into government that had not previously existed.
Fall of the Yuan
- The Yuan was the shortest lived of the major dynasties. From the
time that Kublai occupied Beijing in 1264 to the fall of the dynasty
in 1368, a mere hundred years had passed.
- Kublai was a highly successful emperor as was his son, but the later
Yuan emperors could not stop the slide into powerlessness.
- The Chinese never accepted the Yuan as a legitimate dynasty but regarded
them rather as bandits, or at best an occupying army.
- The failure to learn Chinese and integrate themselves into Chinese
culture greatly undermined the Mongol rulers.
- As with all Chinese dynasties, nature conspired in the downfall; the
Yellow River changed course and flooded irrigation canals and so brought
on massive famine in the 1340's.
- The decline of the Yuan coincided with similar declines in all the
other Khanates throughout Asia.
- Finally, a peasant, Chu Yuan-chang, led a rebel army against the Yuan.
- He had lost most of his family in the famine, and had spent part of
his life as a monk and then as a bandit leader.
- He took Beijing in 1368 and the Yuan emperor fled to Shangtu. When
he drove the Yuan from Shangtu back to Mongolia, he declared himself
the founder of a new dynasty: the Ming (1369-1644).
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