At the end of the 13th century, the Mongol Empire was the largest civilization on Earth. The Mongols ruled 25% of humanity from the Pacific Ocean to Hungary, from Siberian Kazan to the Indian Ocean. It was ruled by an emperor named Khubilai and here is his story.
Khubilai was the son of Tolui, Tolui was the younger son of Genghis Khan, the keeper of the Laws and Khan of the Golden Ulus — the historical homeland of the Mongols in Transbaikalia. And while Batyi was conquering the West, Tolui’s house (clan) was gaining power in Karakorum. Tolui was a shy alcoholic, so other sons of Genghis Khan were not afraid of his ambitions.
But they underestimated his wife Sorkhotani, who saw her sons on the imperial throne and gave the best teachers to raise them into leaders. Sorkhotani’s political savvy was legendary; Rashid al-Din wrote that she was “extremely intelligent, capable, and towered above all the women of the world.” Eventually the house of Tolui seized the imperial throne of the Mongols after Genghis Khan’s death and never gave it up again.
With Batyi’s support, Munkhe became emperor, and after his death in 1259, his younger brother Khubilai became emperor. For this Khubilai had to win a civil war with his own brother Arig-Buga, who seized the throne in Karakorum. And after that, Emperor Khubilai focused on China and completed what his grandfather, Genghis Khan, had started — the conquest of mighty China.
But this colossal success destroyed the Mongol Empire. For almost 20 years Khubilai spent resources on the conquest of China, not paying attention as the vassal uluses of the unified empire — the Golden Horde, Ilkhanate Hulagu, Chagatai Khanate, send less and less tribute and troops. Khubilai himself gave the Mongols a reason — he moved the capital from Mongolia to China and violated all Mongol laws.
Khubilai surrounded himself with Chinese advisors instead of Mongolian ones, adopted the Chinese language, Chinese laws, printed the empire’s money on Chinese machines and changed the Mongolian faith to Chinese Buddhism. This was a wise decision by Khubilai, for he had only 50,000 Mongols with him, and the invaders had to rule over millions of Chinese in an ancient, vast country.
Khubilai may have realized that the Mongol Empire had no future. And betrayed Genghis Khan.
But the emperor’s aspiration to become for China his own, has achieved the empire of Genghis Khan as the uniform power under management of Mongols. In fact, by 1279 Emperor Khubilai was no longer a Mongol and rejected the code — “Yasu Genghis Khan”. He founded the Chinese Yuan dynasty under Chinese, not Mongolian laws. He directed all the instructions and teachings of his mother Sorkhotani to China, not paying attention to what was happening in other parts of the Mongol Empire.
Perhaps the clever emperor realized that a giant land empire created on blood and without sea routes has no future. Khubilai tolerated different religions, races and nationalities, which was unheard of for those times. He led his Mongol-infused China to prosperity and promoted the exchange of ideas and knowledge, especially with Islam in the fields of mathematics, astronomy and medicine.
Under Khubilai’s reign, trade along the Silk Road flourished. He maintained a postal system, Khubilai’s money became the Eurasian currency, and his officials gave loans to trade caravans.
Attempting to conquer Asia was Khubilai’s major mistake
But he made a mistake when Mongol ambition threw him into conquering all of Asia. In this war he lost his accumulated resources, all his strength, authority among the Chinese, nurtured with so much labor. And also authority among the Chinggisids who sent him troops that will die. After all, after the Asian war, the Golden Horde stopped paying tribute to the emperor.
Invasions of army Khubilai on Burma, in Annam (northern Vietnam), Champa (southern Vietnam) were only formally successful. Each of these countries became a vassal of China, but the tribute they paid did not even recoup the cost of their conquest.
Even more reckless were Khubilai’s invasions of Japan and the 1293 invasion of Java. The demise of the Mongol-Chinese armadas seemed to Khubilai’s subjects a sign that he had lost the Mandate of Heaven.
The uluses of the Mongol Empire on the eve of collapse in the 1290s
In 1281, the emperor’s favorite wife Chabi died. This sad event was followed in 1285 by the death of his eldest son and heir. With these losses, Khubilai lost interest in life. He tried to drown out his sadness with alcohol, debauchery and food. He became very fat and developed gout. After a long illness Khubilai died in 1294, he was secretly buried like his grandfather in Transbaikalia, and the grave of the last emperor of the Mongols is unknown.
Betrayal of Mongols and Genghis Khan’s covenants for the sake of the Chinese throne turned out to be senseless. The Mongol Yuan dynasty founded by Khubilai would not last a century in China. The Mongol Empire will end with the death of Khubilai, for the Mongols will not elect a new emperor. And every piece of Eurasia conquered by the Mongols will begin its history to perish in the annihilating fire of the revolts of the conquered.
“It will be easy to forget your vision and purpose if you have beautiful clothes, fast horses and beautiful women. Then you will be no better than a slave, and you will surely lose everything…” — Genghis Khan.