Yuan dynasty

The Yuan dynasty, officially called the Great Yuan, was a Chinese imperial dynasty led by the Mongols. It emerged as a successor state following the split of the Mongol Empire. Kublai, the fifth khagan-emperor of the Mongol Empire from the Borjigin clan, established it, and it lasted from 1271 to 1368. In the sequence of Chinese dynasties, it came after the Song and before the Ming. While Genghis Khan had been called emperor in Chinese records as early as 1206, and the Mongol Empire had controlled parts of northern China for decades, Kublai only formally proclaimed the dynasty in the traditional Han style in 1271. The conquest of all of China was completed in 1279, when the Southern Song fell at the Battle of Yamen. By then, Kublai’s realm was cut off from the other Mongol-led khanates and covered most of modern-day China, including Mongolia. This was the first time a non-Han ethnic group ruled all of China proper. In 1368, after the Ming defeated the Yuan forces, the Genghisid rulers retreated to the Mongolian Plateau and kept ruling there until 1635, when they surrendered to the Later Jin dynasty (which later became the Qing). This remnant is known in Chinese history as the Northern Yuan. After the Mongol Empire split, the Yuan dynasty was the khanate governed by Möngke’s successors. In official Chinese histories, the Yuan held the Mandate of Heaven. Though Kublai founded the dynasty, he listed his grandfather Genghis Khan as the official founder, giving him the temple name Taizu. In the 1271 edict that announced the dynastic name, Kublai called the new dynasty Great Yuan and claimed it continued the line of earlier Chinese dynasties from the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors through the Tang. Some Yuan emperors knew Chinese; others used only Mongolian, written in the ʼPhags-pa script. Kublai, as the Mongol Empire’s khagan from 1260, claimed authority over the other successor khanates—the Chagatai, Golden Horde, and Ilkhanate—before declaring himself emperor of China in 1271. Because of this, the Yuan was sometimes called the Empire of the Great Khan. However, although the western khans recognized the Yuan emperors’ supremacy in 1304, their submission was only nominal, and each khanate continued developing separately. **Name**

In 1271, Kublai Khan imposed the name Great Yuan (Chinese: 大元; pinyin: Dà Yuán), founding the Yuan dynasty. The “Decree on the Establishment of the National Title” explains that Dà Yuán comes from a phrase in the Commentaries on the I Ching, on the first hexagram (Qian): “great indeed is the primal unity” (大哉乾元). The shortened name “Yuan” (元) was common during the dynasty, appearing in terms like Huáng Yuán (“Imperial Yuan”) and Wǒ Yuán (“Our Yuan”). The Mongolian version was Dai Ön Ulus. The Chinese Dà Yuán was rendered as Dai Ön in Mongolian and often used alongside or replaced by “Yeqe Mongɣul Ulus” (“Great Mongol State”). Bilingual Chinese-Mongolian steles from 1335, 1338, and 1362 paired Chinese inscriptions like Huáng Yuán and Dà Yuán with Mongolian ones such as Yeqe Mongɣul Ulus, Dai Ön qemeqü Yeqe Mongɣol Ulus (“Great Mongol State called Great Yuan”), and Dai Ön Yeqe Mongɣol Ulus (“Great Yuan Great Mongol State”). The name “Great Yuan” also appeared officially in Yuan-era Tibet on the seals of the Imperial Preceptors in Tibetan-language decrees. By standard historical practice, “Yuan dynasty” refers to the realm with its main capital in Dadu (modern Beijing). Han Chinese literati of the time saw Yuan as the dynastic title Kublai adopted for his Chinese dynasty, while Mongols of the Yuan viewed Da Yuan as the Chinese term for Yeke Mongghol Ulus, the Mongolian name for the Mongol Empire, even after the empire split. The western khanates are not known to have used Da Yuan. Though Yuan rulers claimed supremacy over all Mongol successor states, the other khanates were independent in practice. After the Yuan fell in 1368, the title “Great Yuan” was kept by the Yuan remnants who fled to Mongolia, known as the Northern Yuan (1368–1635), until 1388, though some Mongol leaders still used it occasionally into the early 1600s. Westerners sometimes call the Yuan the “Mongol dynasty,” just as the Qing is sometimes called the “Manchu dynasty.”

**History**

**Background**

Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and became Great Khan in 1206. He and his successors expanded the Mongol empire across Asia. Under Genghis’ third son, Ögedei Khan, the Mongols destroyed the weakened Jin dynasty in 1234, conquering most of northern China. Ögedei gave his nephew Kublai a post in Xingzhou, Hebei. Kublai could not read Chinese but had several Han teachers assigned to him from an early age by his mother Sorghaghtani. He consulted Chinese Buddhist and Confucian advisors. Möngke Khan succeeded Ögedei’s son, Güyük, as Great Khan in 1251. He gave his brother Kublai control over Mongol-held territories in China.