Kublai Khan

Khubilai Khan
Birth and death:	Sept. 23, 1215– Feb. 18, 1294
Clan name (obogh):	Borjigin (Боржигин) Bei'erzhijin (孛兒只斤) or Bo'erjijite (博爾濟吉特)
Sublineage name: (yasun)	Khiyad (Хиад) Qiwowen (奇渥溫) or Qiyan (乞顏)
Given name:	Khubilai (Хубилай) Hubilie (忽必烈)
Khan of the Mongols
Dates of reign:	May 5, 1260–Dec. 17, 1271
Emperor of Yuan China
Dates of reign:	Dec. 18, 1271–Feb. 18, 1294
Era Names:	Zhongtong, Zhiyuan
Dynasty:	Ön, now Yüanh (Юань) Yuan (元)
Khan name:	Setsen Khan (Сэцэн хаан) Xuechan Han (薛禪汗)
Temple name:	(Mongolian name to be added) Shizu (世祖)
Posthumous name: (short)	Never used short
Posthumous name: (full)	(Mongolian name to be added) Emperor Shengde Shengong Wenwu (聖德神功文武皇帝)
General note: Names given in Mongolian, then in Chinese. See Notes''

Kublai Khan, Khubilai Khan or "the last of the Great Khans" (September 23, 1215 - February 18, 1294) (Mongolian: Хубилай хаан, , also spelled as Kubilay Han in Turkic), was a Mongol military leader. He was Khagan (1260–1294) of the Mongol Empire as well as the founder and the first Emperor (1279–1294) of the Chinese Yuan Dynasty.

Born the second son of Tolui and Sorghaghtani Beki and the grandson of Genghis Khan, he succeeded his brother Möngke in 1260. Kublai Khan's brother, Hulagu, conquered Persia and founded the Ilkhanate. Kublai also had a cousin named Kaidu, who died in 1301.

Early Years

Kublai was the grandson of Genghis Khan. As a youth, he studied Chinese culture and became enamored with it. In 1251, his elder brother Mongke became Khan of the Mongol Empire, and Kublai became the governor of Southern territories of Mongol Empire. During his years as governor, Kublai managed his territory well, boosting the agricultural output of Henan and increasing social welfare spendings after receiving Xi'an. These acts received great acclaim from Chinese warlords and were essential to the building of Yuan Dynasty.

In 1253, Kublai was ordered to attack Yunnan. He eventually attacked and destroyed the Kingdom of Dali. In 1258, Möngke put Kublai in command of the Eastern Army and summoned him to assist with the attacks on Sichuan and Yunnan. Before Kublai could arrive in 1259, words had reached him that Möngke had died. Despite his brother's death, Kublai continued to attack Wuhan. Soon thereafter, Kublai received news that his younger brother had usurped power. Kublai quickly reached a peace agreement with Song troops and rode back north to the Mongolian plains.

Both his brother and Kublai crowned themselves Khan in 1260, and the two brothers battled for three years before Kublai finally won. However, during this civil war, Yizhou governor Li revolted against Mongol rule. The revolt was swiftly crushed by Kublai, but this incident instilled in him a strong distrust of ethnic Hans. After he became emperor, Kublai instituted many anti-Han laws, such as banning the titles of and tithes to Han Chinese warlords

Mongol Empire

The empire was separated into four khanates, each ruled by a separate khan and overseen by the Great Khan. The Kipchak Khanate (also called the Golden Horde) ruled Russia; the Ilkhanate ruled the Middle East, the Chagatai Khanate ruled over western Asia, and the Great Khanate controlled Mongolia and eventually the whole China. The empire reached its greatest extent under Kublai with his conquest of Song Dynasty which was completed by his final victory in 1279.

Emperor of Yuan

As emperor of Yuan Dynasty, Kublai Khan worked to minimize the influences of regional lords who had held immense power before and during the Song Dynasty. His mistrust of ethnic Han Chinese caused him to hire other ethnic group members as officials more often than Han Chinese.

At the Eighth Year of Zhiyuan(1271), Kublai Khan officially declared the creation of the Yuan Dynasty, and proclaimed the capital to be at Da Du (Beijing, China) in the following year. To unify China, Kublai Khan began a massive offense against the remnants of Southern Song Dynasty in the 11th year of Zhiyuan, and finally destroyed the Song Dynasty in the 16th year of Zhiyuan, unifying the country at last.

He ruled better than his predecessors, promoting economic growth with the rebuilding of the Grand Canal, repairing public buildings, and extending highways. However, Kublai Khan's domestic policy also included some aspects of the old Mongol living traditions, and as Kublai Khan continued his reign, these traditions would clash more and more frequently with traditional Chinese economical and social culture.

He also introduced paper currency although eventually a lack of fiscal discipline and inflation turned this into an economic disaster. He encouraged Chinese arts and demonstrated religious tolerance, except in regards to Taoism. His capital was at Beijing (then Cambuluc or Dadu 大都 lit. big capital). The empire was visited by several Europeans, notably Marco Polo in the 1270s who may have seen the summer capital in Shangdu (上都 lit. upper capital or Xanadu).

He conquered Dali (Yunnan) and Goryeo (Korea). Under pressure from his Mongolian advisors, Kublai attempted to conquer Japan, Myanmar, Vietnam and Indonesia. All these failed attempts, costly expeditions, along with the introduction of paper currency caused inflation. However, Kublai Khan also forced warlords from the Northwest and Northeast to capitulate, ensuring stability for those regions. Kublai Khan died in the 31st year of Zhiyuan. (1294)

Invasions of Japan

Kublai Khan twice attempted to invade Japan in search of gold; however, both times the samurai resisted greatly and the weather tore the fleets apart. The first attempted invasion was in 1274 with a fleet of 900 ships. The second invasion was in 1281 with a fleet of over 1,170 large war junks, each close to 240 feet long. Japanese were prepared for this invasion and they had built a wall several feet high on the island where Mongols were predicted to land to prevent horses from coming ashore easily. The Campaign was badly synchronized as the Korean fleet reached Japan much ahead of the Chinese fleet. Japanese samurai fought with great valor and defeated the largely Chinese and Korean army of Mongols. Dr. Kenzo Hayashida, the marine archaeologist who discovered the wreckage of the second invading fleet off the western coast of Takashima, headed their excavation. The findings strongly indicate that Kublai Khan rushed to conquer Japan and attempted to construct his enormous fleet in only one year (a task that should have taken up to 5 years), which forced the Chinese to use any available ships, particularly river boats, as the basis for Khan's fleet in order to achieve readiness on time. Most importantly, the Koreans, then under his control, were forced to build countless ships to contribute to the fleet in both of the invasions. Had Kublai used ocean-going ships, which have a curved keel to prevent capsizing, his navy may have survived the journey to and from Japan and may have even conquered it as originally intended.

John Pearson, author of Kublai Khan (2005), writes, "The cost of these defeats led the Khan to devalue the central currency, further exacerbating growing inflation. He also increased tax assessments. These economic problems lead to growing resentment of the Mongols, who paid no taxes, among the Chinese populace." David Nicole writes in The Mongol Conquerors that "these disastrous defeats shattered the myth of Mongol invincibility throughout Asia." He also wrote that Kublai Khan was determined to mount a third invasion, despite the horrendous cost to the economy and to his and Mongol prestige of the first two defeats, and only his death prevented such a third attempt, despite the unanimous agreement of his advisors against such an attempt."

In early 2006, marine archaeologists determined that previous theories that Kublai's fleet was made up entirely of ships that came from river boats was found to be weakened as evidence of keel usage began to show up in recent discoveries. One current theory that has yet to be found false is the idea that the new Mongol technology of explosives (grenade-like weapons) may have backfired, potentially from inexperienced engineering, when an attack on Japan would have begun.

Dadu

Kublai, a grandson of the Mongol leader Genghis Khan began leading further Mongol advances in the latter years of the 1250s. On 5 May 1260 Kublai was elected Khan at his residence in Shangdu and he began to organize the country. Zhang Wenqian, who was a friend of Guo and like him was a central government official, was sent by Kublai Khan in 1260 to Daming where unrest had been reported in the local population. Guo accompanied Zhang on his mission. Guo was not only interested in engineering, but he was also an expert astronomer. In particular he was a skilled instrument maker and understood that good astronomical observations depended on expertly made instruments. He now began to construct astronomical instruments, including water clocks for accurate timing and armillary spheres which represent the celestial globe.

Zhang advised Kublai Khan that his friend Guo was a leading expert in hydraulic engineering. Kublai knew the importance of water management, for irrigation, transport of grain, and flood control, and he asked Guo to look at these aspects in the area between Dadu (now Beijing or Peking) and the Yellow River. To provide Dadu with a new supply of water, Guo found the Baifu spring in the Shenshan Mountain and had a 30 km channel built to bring the water to Dadu. He proposed connecting the water supply across different river basins, built new canals with many sluices to control the water level, and achieved great success with the improvements which he was able to make. This pleased Kublai Khan and led to Guo being asked to undertake similar projects in other parts of the country. In 1264 he was asked to go to Gansu province to repair the damage that had been caused to the irrigation systems by the years of war during the Mongul advance through the region. Guo travelled extensively along with his friend Zhang taking notes of the work which needed to be done to unblock damaged parts of the system and to make improvements to its efficiency. He sent his report directly to Kublai Khan.

Later Life

Kublai, in the later part of his life developed severe Gout. He also put on a lot of weight due to excessive eating. This ultimately led to his death.

Notes

General note: Dates given here are in the Julian calendar. They are not in the proleptic Gregorian calendar.

This is the singular. The plural is Borjigi.
This is the most frequent Chinese version of the clan name nowadays.
This Chinese version of the clan name was the most frequent during the Qing Dynasty.''
The Cambridge History of China thinks that Khiyad was a sublineage inside the larger Borjigin clan, but other scholars disagree and think that Borjigin was a sublineage inside the larger Khiyad clan, while there are those who think that Khiyad and Borjigin were both used interchangeably.
This is the plural. The singular is Khiyan.
This Chinese version of Khiyad is the one that appears in the Chinese history of the Yuan Dynasty.''
Founded the Yuan Dynasty on that day. However, was not in control of southern China until February 1276, when the Southern Song emperor was captured and the imperial seal was relinquished to the Mongols. The last pockets of resistance in southern China fell in 1279.

The Yuan dynasty was the first to think the world was round, but thought that the other parts had horrible devils and spirits in them.

Popular culture

Kubla Khan is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Kublai Khan is featured in the PC video game Civilization IV. In the game, Kublai Khan is a civilization leader of the Mongolian Empire, alongside Genghis Khan. Kublai Khan possesses the traits "Creative" and "Aggresive".
Kublai is mentioned in a Family Guy episode, when Stewie is offered pancakes "from Flappy himself" he replies with "I don't care if they're from Kublai filthy wretched Khan"
Kublai Khan is one of the primary characters in the Italo Calvino novel "Invisible Cities," in which Marco Polo tells him of his travels to different cities.
The poem Kubla Khan is namechecked in the Rush song Xanadu. "To stand within the Pleasure Dome / Decreed by Kubla Khan"
Reference is made in the song What Would Brian Boitano Do? from the film Bigger, Longer & Uncut written by DVDA (Trey Parker and Matt Stone's band) in which figure skater Brian Boitano "beat up Kublai Khan".

External links

References

Morgan, David. The Mongols (Blackwell Publishers; Reprint edition, April 1990), ISBN 0631175636.
Rossabi, Morris. Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times (University of California Press (May 1, 1990)) ISBN 0520067401.
Saunders, J.J. The History of the Mongol Conquests (University of Pennsylvania Press (March 1, 2001)) ISBN 0812217667.

1215 births | 1294 deaths | Mongol Khans | Yuan Dynasty emperors

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