NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 69ures—such as his attempted invasions of Japan
in 1274 and 1281, or successes such as the con-
quest of Vietnam and Burma—Ku blai’s later
reign relied heavily on non-Mongol military
personnel and on foreign advisers.
Even so, the Yuan hierarchy was rigid: Mon-
gols occupied the top of the heap, followed by
Central Asians and then the Chinese. Despite
Kublai’s reliance on some Chinese as close
advisers, Chinese nobles resented how they
were shut out of the top positions in the Yu-
an government, and how the Yuan abolition
of the civil service exams essentially cut off
the chance of employment and social ascent
for the brightest and best in Chinese society.
Mongols, meanwhile, resented the increasingly
China-centered nature of Kublai’s imperial
power structure.
Kublai had already chosen his grandson Te-
mür as his successor when he died at age 79, in
- He said that his body—the location of
which is now lost—should rest alongside that
of his grandfather Genghis in Burkhan Khal-
dun, a mountain in northeastern Mongolia.
In spite of the years he lived in China, Kublai’s
heart always belonged to the Mongol steppe.
The conquest of China, where he forged
the Yuan dynasty, would stand as his great-
est achievement. Yet he could not have done
so without adopting Chinese customs, thus
alienating Mongol aristocrats who regarded
the Chinese as inferior. This tension between
the Mongol elite and its subject peoples—
especially the Chinese—played a major role
in destabilizing Mongol rule. Although at his
death Kublai would leave an empire that was
relatively stable and prosperous, it would sur-
vive him by less than a century.MELODIOUS VISION/GETTY IMAGESTHE GREAT KHAN IN HIS CAPITAL
FROM THE EARLY 15TH-CENTURY
LIVRE DES MERVEILLES DU MONDE.
BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE, PARISSHANGDU (anglicized as Xanadu in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous 1816
poem “Kubla Khan”) became Kublai’s summer capital in 1274. Little remains
of its splendor today; dark brick walls still stand, but the magnificent palace
with marble and gold-plated rooms described by Marco Polo is gone. After
the Yuan dynasty fell in 1368, the city lingered but was most likely aban-
doned by 1430. Today the site is designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.“IN XANADU DID KUBLA KHAN.. .”
BRIDGEMAN/ACIRETURN OF THE HAN
The image shows the corner tower of
Beijing’s Forbidden City, built by the Ming
dynasty. Toppling the Mongol Yuan in 1368,
the Ming, who were ethnically Han Chinese,
represented a return to native Chinese rule.SPECIALIZING IN ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA, VERONICA
WALKER IS A POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI, FINLAND.BOOKS
Kublai Khan: The Mongol King Who Remade China
John Man
Bantam, 2006.
The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties
Timothy Brook
Belknap Press, 2010.Learn more