68 MARCH/APRIL 2020
The war was long and grueling. Knowing Ku-
blai’s strength lay in the fast Mongol cavalry at-
tacks over open ground, the Song exploited his
weaknesses by withdrawing into heavily forti-
fied positions. Long, protracted sieges unfolded.
Kublai began a campaign of coastal assaults to
cut off the enemy’s supply routes. It was a risky
tactic for a commander rooted in the culture of
the steppes.
By 1273 Mongol perseverance led to the fall of
the fortified city of Xiangyang. Little by little the
rich Southern Song realms began to fall apart po-
litically. In 1279 the Southern Song finally
fell to Kublai Khan, and for the first time in
several centuries China was united.
New Beginnings
As Kublai Khan captured more and more
of the Song lands, he declared his reign to
be a new dynasty for China. In 1271 Ku-
blai established himself as emperor of the
Yuan, meaning “Great Origin.” Drawing on
his education and his current advisers,
Kublai knew it was even more important
to embrace Chinese culture. He adopted Chi-
nese dress and customs, incorporated Chinese
methods of governing and management, and
assembled a team of local advisers to help him
administer the country.
One of the most important of these was Liu
Bingzhong. At the beginning of Kublai’s reign,
Liu had persuaded the khagan to transfer the
Mongol capital from Karakorum to Shangdu,
anticipating the increasingly Chinese flavor
of Kublai’s rule. Constructed for both govern-
ment and business, its lavish facilities deeply
impressed the Venetian traveler Marco Polo
when he met Kublai.
By the time of Polo’s visit, in the mid-
1270s, Shangdu was already being relegated
to the role of summer palace. To center the
empire more in Chinese territory, the capi-
tal shifted southeast to Dadu (today the site
of Beijing), also on the advice of Liu. Marco
Polo became famous for having served in the
court of Kublai, an event that demonstrates
the khagan’s openness to foreign customs.
Whether marked by notable military fail-CASH
MONEY
China’s use of paper
currency (below,
from 1297) was
introduced around
a.d. 800. Kublai
Khan preserved
the system and
authorized the
conversion of Song
paper money into
Yuan currency.
BRIDGEMAN/ACI