How long did the yuan dynasty rule

The reigns of the later Yuan emperors were short and marked by intrigues and rivalries. Uninterested in administration, they were separated from both the army and the populace, and China was torn by dissension and unrest. Outlaws ravaged the country without interference from the weakening Yuan armies. In , the Red Turban Rebellion started and grew into a nationwide uprising. After trying to regain Khanbaliq, an effort that failed, he died in Yingchang located in present-day Inner Mongolia in Yingchang was seized by the Ming shortly after his death.

Some Yuan royal family members still live in Henan today. During his reign, the value of the paper currency was devalued by about 80 percent. This procedure enriched the court and the Mongols relative to the rest of the population but impoverished the population in general, especially the rich Chinese merchants and officials. Since the Mongol rulers could print as much paper currency as they wanted, they printed too much and the value of the money kept dropping.

The costly wars and great defeats were financed largely with paper money and, to reinforce their monetary control, they outlawed the use of gold and silver currency. From the s onward, natural disasters , such as epidemics, droughts, and floods, brought suffering and death to the peasants. The Little Ice Age began, and similar famines and natural disasters caused political instability around the world at the same time.

In , the bubonic plague pandemic, known as the "Black Death" in Europe, began to sweep the empire. The epidemic ravaged the empire. Millions of people died in Hebei Province alone. In , the Yellow River shifted course. This caused a massive flood that impoverished an important and populous region at the center of the empire.

The river flooded on two other occasions during the last couple of decades. There were also massive famines. There was a time of drought that lasted from to In , a rebellion started called the Red Turban Rebellion. The Red Turbans said that the bad rule of the Yuan Dynasty caused the natural disasters because they lost the Mandate of Heaven. The court defeated the rebellion but more started soon after. Between and , an important leader of the Red Turban Rebellion, Zhu Yuanzhang, defeated all the other powerful rival armies.

In , he attacked the Yuan empire capital of Dadu Beijing and gained control of it. The Yuan court fled northwards. Mongolia became the final home of the Yuan Dynasty clans.

Mongolians kept trying to recapture the empire but they failed. They eventually allied with the Manchus, and Mongolians became officials in the Qing Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang destroyed the Yuan palaces.

He established a new dynasty called the Ming Dynasty. Beijing tours : Beijing then called Dadu —'Big Capital' was the capital of the Yuan Dynasty and has continued to be China's capital for most of the following years.

Discover the enduring charm of the 'big capital' with China Highlights. Silk Road tours : Their control of the Silk Road's northern land route to Central Asia gave the Mongols a major source of income and manpower.

Vajrabhairava mandala. Plate with Carp. Fisherman Wu Zhen. The Simple Retreat Wang Meng. Citation Department of Asian Art. Second Century B. Second—First Century B. China, — A. Himalayan Region, — A. Iran, — A. Li Tan, the son-in-law of a powerful official, instigated a revolt against Mongol rule in After successfully suppressing the revolt, Kublai curbed the influence of the Han Chinese advisers in his court. He feared that his dependence on Chinese officials left him vulnerable to future revolts and defections to the Song.

He instituted the reforms proposed by his Chinese advisers by centralizing the bureaucracy, expanding the circulation of paper money, and maintaining the traditional monopolies on salt and iron. He restored the Imperial Secretariat and left the local administrative structure of past Chinese dynasties unchanged. However, Kublai rejected plans to revive the Confucian imperial examinations and divided Yuan society into three, later four, classes, with the Han Chinese occupying the lowest rank.

Kublai readied the move of the Mongol capital from Karakorum in Mongolia to Khanbaliq in , constructing a new city near the former Jurchen capital Zhongdu, now modern Beijing, in In , Kublai formally claimed the Mandate of Heaven and declared that was the first year of the Great Yuan in the style of a traditional Chinese dynasty. The era name was changed to Zhiyuan to herald a new era of Chinese history. The adoption of a dynastic name legitimized Mongol rule by integrating the government into the narrative of traditional Chinese political succession.

Khublai evoked his public image as a sage emperor by following the rituals of Confucian propriety and ancestor veneration, while simultaneously retaining his roots as a leader from the steppes. The Yuan dynasty is traditionally given credit for reuniting China after several hundred years of fragmentation following the fall of the Tang dynasty. During the Yuan dynasty, trade flourished and peace reigned along the newly revived Silk Road, contributing to a period known as the Pax Mongolica.

Kublai Khan promoted commercial, scientific, and cultural growth. He supported the merchants of the Silk Road trade network by protecting the Mongol postal system, constructing infrastructure, providing loans that financed trade caravans, and encouraging the circulation of paper banknotes.

Pax Mongolica , Mongol peace, enabled the spread of technologies, commodities, and culture between China and the West. Kublai expanded the Grand Canal from southern China to Daidu in the north. Mongol rule was cosmopolitan under Kublai Khan. He welcomed foreign visitors to his court, such as the Venetian merchant Marco Polo, who wrote the most influential European account of Yuan China.

Pax Mongolica is a historiographical term, modeled after the original phrase Pax Romana , that describes the stabilizing effects of the conquests of the Mongol Empire on the social, cultural, and economic life of the inhabitants of the vast Eurasian territory that the Mongols conquered in the 13th and 14th centuries, including the Yuan dynasty in China.

The new Mongol Empire amalgamated the once-isolated civilizations into a new continental system and re-established the Silk Road as a dominant method of transportation. The unification of Eurasia under the Mongols greatly diminished the amount of competing tribute gatherers throughout the trade network and assured greater safety and security in travel.

During the Pax Mongolica , European merchants like Marco Polo made their way from Europe to China on the well-maintained and well-traveled roads that linked Anatolia to China. On the Silk Road, caravans with Chinese silk and spices such as pepper, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg from the Spice Islands came to the West via the transcontinental trade routes. Eastern diets were thus introduced to Europeans. Indian muslins, cotton, pearls, and precious stones were sold in Europe, as were weapons, carpets, and leather goods from Iran.