As a young prince, Kublai governed parts of northern China. There he became interested in Chinese agriculture, taxation, and administration. Unlike many Mongol nobles, he actively sought advice from Chinese Confucian scholars.
When his brother Möngke died in 1259 during a campaign against the Song dynasty, another succession crisis erupted.
Two brothers claimed the throne : Kublai and Ariq Böke, the youngest brother, who remained in Mongolia. Both were elected by rival kurultais.
This led to the Toluid Civil War (1260–1264).
Although Ariq Böke controlled the traditional Mongol homeland, Kublai possessed greater economic resources from northern China. After four years of conflict, Ariq Böke surrendered, and Kublai emerged as Great Khan.
However, by then the empire had already begun to fragment. The rulers of the Golden Horde, Chagatai Khanate, and Ilkhanate increasingly acted independently.
Kublai's greatest military achievement was completing the conquest of the Southern Song.
His grandfather had conquered northern China from the Jin dynasty, but southern China remained under Song rule. After years of warfare, the Song capital fell, and in 1279 the last Song resistance was defeated. For the first time since the Tang dynasty, nearly all of China was united under a single ruler.
In 1271, even before completing the conquest, Kublai proclaimed the Yuan dynasty. This was significant because he adopted the traditional Chinese concept of a dynastic state rather than ruling solely as a Mongol khan. He moved the capital to Dadu, the city now known as Beijing.
Chinese dynasties were almost never named after the founder. They were usually given an auspicious, symbolic name chosen by the ruler. Kublai deliberately chose the name Yuan (元). The character 元 means : origin, beginning, primal, fundamental. It carries the idea of the first cause or the source from which everything begins. Kublai took this name from the ancient Chinese classic the I Ching (Book of Changes). The opening line of the first hexagram begins with : 大哉乾元 (Da zai Qian Yuan), which can be translated roughly as: "Great indeed is the Creative Origin." By choosing Yuan, Kublai was making a political statement : "My dynasty is not merely a Mongol occupation. It is the legitimate beginning of a new Chinese imperial era."
By declaring the Yuan dynasty, Kublai was signaling that he was not merely the Great Khan of the Mongols. He was also claiming to be the Son of Heaven (Tianzi)—the legitimate emperor of China. This helped him win the loyalty of Chinese officials and fit his rule into China's long-standing political tradition. A Chinese scholar could now write : "The Yuan succeeded the Song." instead of "Foreign Mongols conquered us."
Anyone could claim to be the Son of Heaven, but only if they could convince enough people that they possessed the Mandate of Heaven. It was not an ethnic title reserved for the Han Chinese. The concept of the Mandate of Heaven (天命, Tianming) emerged during the Zhou dynasty (around the 11th century BC). It held that Heaven granted the right to rule to a virtuous emperor. If that ruler became corrupt or incompetent, Heaven could withdraw the mandate and grant it to someone else.
Notice that this is different from the European idea of "divine right of kings." In Europe, a king's legitimacy was often tied to hereditary succession and divine sanction. In China, the mandate was conditional. A dynasty could lose it.
How could people tell if Heaven had withdrawn its mandate? Instead, historians and political thinkers interpreted events such as : successful rebellions, military victories, widespread famine, floods, earthquakes, social chaos. If a rebel overthrew the dynasty and successfully governed the empire, later historians often concluded that Heaven must have transferred the mandate.
From the perspective of the Southern Song, Kublai was a foreign conqueror. But after he defeated the Song and established stable rule over China, he proclaimed the Yuan dynasty and claimed the Mandate of Heaven. Many Chinese officials accepted this, entered his service, and governed under the Yuan. The same happened later with the Qing dynasty. The founders of the Qing were Manchus, not Han Chinese. They conquered China in the 17th century and also claimed the Mandate of Heaven. Over time, they became accepted as a legitimate Chinese dynasty and ruled until 1912. Even earlier, several non-Han peoples had founded dynasties in northern China, including the Xianbei, Khitan, and Jurchens. The Yuan was therefore not the first foreign-ruled dynasty, though it was the first to unify all of China under a non-Han dynasty.
So, why did Chinese people accept Kublai? Not everyone did. Many remained loyal to the Song and resisted Mongol rule. But after Kublai conquered the entire empire, maintained order, collected taxes, and governed effectively, the Confucian political framework allowed scholars to argue: "He has unified the realm. Therefore, Heaven has granted him the Mandate."
In that sense, success itself became evidence of legitimacy. This is why Chinese official histories, including the History of Yuan, treat Kublai as a legitimate emperor despite his Mongol ancestry. This flexibility is one of the distinctive features of the Mandate of Heaven. It was fundamentally political and moral, not ethnic. In principle, any ruler—Han, Mongol, Manchu, or otherwise—could become the Son of Heaven if they united China and established a stable, recognized government.
Ironically, many Mongol nobles disliked this shift. They worried Kublai was becoming "too Chinese" and abandoning traditional Mongol customs. His younger brother, Ariq Böke, represented a more traditional, steppe-oriented vision of the empire. In many ways, their civil war was not only a struggle over who should rule, but also over what kind of empire the Mongols should become.
Kublai combined Mongol and Chinese institutions. He retained Mongol military traditions while adopting many Chinese administrative practices. His government employed : Mongols, Central Asians, Persians, Chinese officials.
Kublai invested heavily in infrastructure. He improved the Grand Canal, roads, postal relay stations, granaries, irrigation.
During the Tang dynasty (618–907), merchants began using paper certificates instead of carrying large quantities of heavy copper coins. These certificates were issued privately, much like promissory notes.
Around the early 11th century, the Song government began issuing state-backed paper money, known as jiaozi. This is generally regarded as the world's first government-issued paper currency. Initially, these notes circulated only in certain regions. Over time, the government expanded their use, although copper coins remained important.
So under the Song, the situation looked roughly like this : Copper coins → everyday money throughout the empire. Paper money → widely used, but mainly as a supplement. Silver → large commercial transactions. The government did not attempt to replace metal currency completely.
When Kublai conquered China, he inherited this system. He then greatly expanded it.
Kublai's Yuan government took a much more ambitious approach. It tried to make paper currency the universal state currency. The government declared that official transactions should use paper notes. Taxes, salaries, and many commercial payments were conducted in them. The state also restricted or discouraged the circulation of precious metals in certain periods to encourage reliance on paper money.
Why could Kublai attempt this? One reason is that the Mongol Empire was enormous. Moving tons of copper coins across China was expensive and inefficient. A string of 1,000 copper coins could weigh several kilograms. Imagine paying an army of 100,000 soldiers with metal coins—you would need hundreds of tons of currency. Paper notes solved that logistical problem.
This impressed foreign visitors. Marco Polo famously described how the emperor could create money from the bark of mulberry trees. To Europeans, this sounded almost magical. In Europe at the time, money meant coins made from gold, silver, or copper. The idea that the government could print paper and everyone would treat it as valuable was extraordinary. In fact, Marco Polo wrote (paraphrased) that the Great Khan "causes every one of them to pass for whatever value he pleases." From a medieval European perspective, this was astonishing because the value of money was generally tied to the intrinsic value of the metal itself.
Outside China, paper money appeared much later. In the Islamic world, there were a few attempts to introduce paper currency, inspired by China, but they largely failed because the public did not trust it. In Europe, paper banknotes did not become common until many centuries later. One of the earliest successful examples was in Sweden in 1661, when the Stockholms Banco issued banknotes.
Kublai is the Mongol ruler best known in Europe because of Marco Polo. Marco Polo claimed to have spent many years at Kublai's court and later described the emperor's wealth, administration, and cities in his famous travel account.
Kublai inherited an empire built by conquest. For nearly seventy years, Mongol rulers had expanded almost continuously. To Mongol rulers, expansion was almost expected. A Great Khan who stopped expanding risked appearing weak.
Then, there was the East Asian tributary system. In Chinese political thought, neighboring rulers were expected to acknowledge the emperor's supremacy by sending embassies and gifts. In return, they received lavish gifts, trading privileges, and recognition. It was often more like a diplomatic framework than outright colonial rule.
For example, the Korean kingdom of Joseon sent tribute missions to Ming China several times a year. This wasn't because China sent soldiers every year demanding gifts. Rather, both sides found the arrangement beneficial : Korea received official recognition of its king. Korean merchants gained access to trade in China. China reinforced its prestige as the regional center. The "tribute" itself was often less valuable than the gifts China gave in return. In fact, the Chinese emperor frequently bestowed gifts worth more than the tribute received. From China's perspective, this displayed imperial generosity; from the tributary state's perspective, it could be economically profitable.
Japan provides a useful contrast. During the Ashikaga shogunate, some Japanese rulers accepted tribute relations with Ming China because it opened lucrative trade. Other Japanese governments rejected the idea because they did not want to acknowledge the Chinese emperor as their superior.
Kublai's demands were somewhat different because he combined the traditional Chinese tributary system with Mongol imperial ideology.
Under the Song dynasty, if a neighboring state declined to participate, China did not automatically invade. There might be diplomatic tension, but military conquest was not the default response.
From a modern perspective, it was often voluntary under strong political pressure. It was not simply an exchange of friendly gifts between equals, but neither was it always tribute extracted at swordpoint. It occupied a middle ground: a diplomatic institution in which both sides usually gained something, though the relationship was explicitly hierarchical.
The Mongols, however, viewed refusal much more seriously. They expected rulers to submit to the Great Khan. Tribute was not merely a trade arrangement; it was a public acknowledgment of Mongol supremacy. If a ruler refused—or worse, mistreated an envoy—that could be interpreted as rebellion before any relationship had even begun.
Not all of Kublai's campaigns succeeded.
His grandfather, Genghis Khan, had built the largest contiguous land empire in history. Kublai inherited that legacy and sought to complete what he saw as the natural expansion of the empire. However, he was fighting very different kinds of wars—across oceans and in tropical jungles rather than on the Eurasian steppe.
Japan (1274). Kublai first tried diplomacy. He repeatedly sent envoys demanding that Japan acknowledge him as the Great Khan and pay tribute, much as Korea had done. The Japanese government, led by the Kamakura shogunate, ignored or rejected these demands. From Kublai's perspective, refusal was both a political and personal challenge. Throughout Eurasia, many rulers had accepted Mongol overlordship. Japan's refusal stood out.
In 1274, Kublai launched an invasion of about 20,000–30,000 troops, mostly Mongols, Chinese, and Koreans transported in hundreds of ships. The Mongols won several engagements on Kyushu, but after only a few days they withdrew to their ships. A storm then damaged much of the fleet, forcing the expedition to abandon the campaign.
Kublai was determined to succeed where the first expedition had failed. This time (1281), he assembled one of the largest amphibious invasion forces of the Middle Ages—perhaps over 100,000 soldiers. The plan called for two fleets : one sailing from Korea, another from southern China. The coordination was poor. The fleets arrived separately, giving the Japanese time to prepare. The Japanese had also built long defensive stone walls along Hakata Bay, making a quick landing much more difficult. After weeks of fighting, a powerful typhoon struck. Thousands of ships were wrecked. The Japanese later called this storm kamikaze ("divine wind"), believing the gods had protected Japan.
This was one of the greatest military disasters of Kublai's reign. He lost enormous numbers of ships, tens of thousands of soldiers, years of preparation, vast financial resources.
Kublai wanted the kingdom of Đại Việt (northern Vietnam) to become a tributary state. He also hoped to use it as a base for attacking the Champa farther south. The Vietnamese court resisted these demands.
The Mongols invaded several times. Initially, they captured the capital. However, the Vietnamese deliberately avoided major battles. Instead they : evacuated cities, destroyed food supplies, harassed Mongol troops, attacked supply lines. The tropical climate and disease also took a heavy toll.
The decisive moment came in 1288 at the Bạch Đằng River. General Trần Hưng Đạo planted sharpened wooden stakes beneath the river. At high tide, the Mongol fleet sailed inland. When the tide fell, the ships became trapped on the hidden stakes and were destroyed.
Kublai failed to conquer Đại Việt. However, the Vietnamese eventually agreed to send tribute, allowing both sides to claim success in different ways.
The ruler of the Singhasari, Kertanagara, refused Kublai's demand for tribute. According to Javanese sources, he went further—he had Kublai's envoy humiliated by having his face scarred before sending him home.
Before the Mongol expedition arrived, Kertanagara had already been overthrown and killed by another Javanese prince. A claimant named Raden Wijaya convinced the Mongols to help him defeat the usurper. After they won, Wijaya suddenly turned against the exhausted Mongol army. Unfamiliar with Java's terrain and facing logistical problems, the Mongols withdrew. Ironically, this campaign helped pave the way for the establishment of the Majapahit Empire, one of the greatest empires in Indonesian history.
The repeated expeditions consumed enormous resources. These expenses contributed to financial strain and inflation during the later Yuan period.
Politically, Kublai's prestige remained high because he had successfully conquered all of China. None of the failed invasions caused a rebellion that threatened his throne. However, they did damage the image of Mongol invincibility. For nearly a century, Mongol armies had seemed unstoppable—from Korea to Hungary. Japan, Vietnam, and Java demonstrated that determined local powers, favorable geography, and logistical challenges could defeat even the world's most formidable military.
When Kublai died in 1294, he was still one of the most powerful rulers on Earth. Yet his successors inherited an empire burdened by heavy military expenditures, fiscal problems, and growing administrative difficulties. The failed overseas campaigns were not the sole cause of the Yuan dynasty's later decline, but they were an important contributing factor.
Kublai died in 1294. The Yuan dynasty did not fall until 1368. That's a gap of 74 years.
The decline resulted from a combination of long-term problems.
The overseas invasions were certainly expensive. To pay for these efforts, the Yuan government increased taxation and issued more paper currency. Excessive issuance of paper money contributed to inflation, though this problem became more severe under Kublai's successors than under Kublai himself.
However, after Kublai's death, several additional problems accumulated. His successors were generally less capable rulers. The imperial court became divided by factional struggles, and emperors changed frequently. In the 14th century, China experienced repeated flooding of the Yellow River, droughts, and famines. These disasters reduced agricultural production and increased public unrest. At the same time, the government's finances continued to deteriorate. Inflation worsened, tax collection became less effective, and corruption spread.
Eventually, widespread rebellions erupted. Finally, in 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang captured the Yuan capital and established the Ming dynasty.
Zhu Yuanzhang was a Han Chinese, not a Mongol. He was born in 1328 into an extremely poor peasant family. As a teenager, famine struck his region. Much of his family died, and he eventually became a Buddhist novice monk, wandering from place to place because even the monastery could no longer feed everyone.
At that time, the Yuan dynasty was facing multiple crises. One of the largest uprisings was the Red Turban Rebellions, inspired in part by the religious movement known as the White Lotus. Zhu joined the rebels as an ordinary soldier. He joined a branch of the Red Turban Rebellions, but more specifically, he entered the army led by Guo Zixing.
The Red Turbans were not a single unified organization. They were a collection of rebel armies that shared similar religious and political ideas but often operated independently and even fought one another. Many of them were inspired by the White Lotus and by the teachings of Han Shantong, who proclaimed that the Mongol Yuan had lost the Mandate of Heaven and that a new era was about to begin.
Unlike many rebel leaders, he proved to be an excellent commander and politician. Over time he won battles, attracted talented advisers, captured important cities ,built an efficient administration.
When Zhu captured Dadu (Beijing) in 1368, the last Yuan emperor did not surrender. Instead, he fled north into Mongolia. There, the Mongol rulers continued to claim they were the legitimate Yuan emperors. Historians call this state the Northern Yuan. The Northern Yuan survived for more than two centuries in Mongolia, although it never regained control of China.
The Chinese character 明 (Ming) means: bright, brilliant, illumination, light. It is composed of two characters : 日 = sun and 月 = moon. Before Zhu became emperor, he belonged to the Red Turban movement, which drew inspiration from Buddhist and Manichaean ideas. One of the movement's slogans spoke of the coming of the "King of Light" (Ming Wang, 明王), a messianic figure who would overthrow the corrupt rulers and restore justice.
To the Chinese, Kublai was the founding emperor of the Yuan dynasty. To Europeans, he became the legendary ruler of Cathay described by Marco Polo. To the Mongols, he was one of the last universally recognized Great Khans.
The Great Khan was the supreme ruler of the entire Mongol Empire.
In the early Mongol Empire, the succession of universally recognized Great Khans was : Genghis Khan (Founder) -> Ögedei Khan (Third Son) -> Güyük Khan (Grandson - Ögedei's son) -> Möngke Khan (Grandson -> Tolui's son).
These four rulers were generally acknowledged by all major branches of the Mongol Empire.
His brothers, Kublai Khan and Ariq Böke, each held their own kurultai and each claimed to be Great Khan. This led to the Toluid Civil War (1260–1264).
Kublai won the war, but by then the empire had effectively fragmented into four major khanates: the Yuan dynasty (China - Kublai Khan - descended from Tolui), the Golden Horde (western steppes - Batu Khan - descended from Jochi), the Chagatai Khanate (Central Asia - Chagatai), the Ilkhanate (Persia - Hulagu Khan - descended from Tolui).
Although Kublai continued to style himself Great Khan, the other khanates increasingly governed independently. Some acknowledged him ceremonially, while others ignored his authority altogether.
By Kublai's reign, the Golden Horde was ruled by Batu's brother and later successors.
During Kublai's reign, one of Chagatai Khanate's most important rulers was Kaidu. Although Kaidu technically belonged to the Ögedeid branch rather than Chagatai's direct line, he dominated politics in the region and fiercely opposed Kublai.
During Kublai's reign, the Ilkhanate had several rulers, all from Kublai's own Toluid branch of the family. The Ilkhans generally maintained friendly relations with Kublai because both belonged to the Toluid branch of the family.
Kublai regarded himself as Great Khan over the entire Mongol world. But the lines of authority were increasingly weak.
Berke of the Golden Horde fought a war against Hulagu of Ilkhanate, Kublai's own brother. Kaidu of the Chagatai Khanate spent decades fighting Kublai for control of Central Asia and disputed his claim to be Great Khan. The Ilkhanate generally cooperated with Kublai but made its own diplomatic and military decisions.
This is why historians often describe the period after Möngke's death as the transition from one unified Mongol Empire to a family of four related Mongol states rather than a single centralized empire.
