Show notes
After Khuiblai Khan's death in 1294, his successors ruled over the most powerful kingdom on earth, the Yuan Dynasty, controlling all of China and Mongolia. Yet not even one hundred years after the declaration of the Yuan in 1271, the Dynasty was pushed from China, their rulers a shadow of the men Chinggis Khan and Khubilai had been. In our first episode on the Yuan Dynasty, we take you through the first 40 years of their rule after Khubilai, and introduce you to ten Khans, from Temur Oljeitu to Toghon Temur, and the manner in which they lurched from crisis to crisis in the fourteenth century. It was an age of political chaos and bloodthirsty brothers, scheming bureacrats, overbearing mothers and misplaced Khans, and a century where every other person was seemingly named a variation of Temur. It was a period to have strangled even the greatest of rulers and most robust of dynasties; and these were not the greatest of rulers. I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. Our first of ten Khans for today is Temur Oljeitu, Khubilai's grandson and first successor. Khubilai, as we demonstrated rather thoroughly, had outlived his chosen heir, Jinggim, as well as a plethora of other sons and grandsons. After Jinggim's death, Khubilai had vacillated on who should succeed him. It was much more traditional Chinese custom for chosen heirs and the like, as opposed to the Mongolian method of 'to the strongest,' and declarations of quriltais. Seemingly reluctantly, only in the very twilight years of his life almost a decade after Jinggim's death, did Khubilai move to make Temur Oljeitu, one of the late Jinggim's younger sons, his heir. In 1293 Khubilai gave Temur Oljeitu the jade seal of the heir apparent, but had not provided him the full titles and honorifics that Jinggim had held. Thus, when the old Khubilai finally did die in February 1294, Temur Oljeitu was the favourite candidate, but not the only one. He was challenged by his older brother, another son of Jinggim named Kammala. It came to the quriltai in April 1294, where both made their speeches, each demonstrating their knowledge of the maxims of Chinggis Khan, aiming to convince the elite and each other of their fitness for the Grand Khanate. Of course, it wasn't really just a matter of speeches which determined the outcome. Being the selected heir of Great Khan Khubilai was obviously a powerful boost, but Temur Oljeitu had a number of powerful allies backing him. His mother, Kokejin, was well respected and beloved by Khubilai; military leaders, especially Bayan of the Baarin, the great conqueror of the Song Dynasty, backed Temur Oljeitu; and prominent members of the bureaucracy, such as the Chancellor of the Right, Oljei. This was to be a heralding of the future of the succession Yuan Khans, where the bureaucracy and military elite became the decision makers. Kammala was convinced to accept Temur Oljeitu, who on April 15th, 1295, was duly enthroned as Khan of Khans and Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty. Temur Oljeitu was a respectable choice. Conservative minded, both he and Chancellor Oljei, as well as Oljei's successor Harghasun, aimed to consoldiate and stabilize the Yuan Dynasty after the struggles of Khubilai's final years. Open minded regarding Chinese culture, respecting Confucianism but not enmeshed in it, while also having connections to the military elite in the Mongolian steppe, Temur Oljeitu was very much a Khan in the mold of his grandfather Khubilai, though lacking his physical and intellectual vigour, while also keeping one of Khubilai's worst vices, a penchant for alcoholism. In order to stabilize the government and economy, reconciliation of various branches of the family was favoured and great invasions abandoned. Lavish gifts to princes on his accession helped affirm their loyalty and quiet some of the Mongols in Manchuria who had been so problematic in Khubilai's last years. Plans to invade Annam and Japan were cancelled; the only foreign ventures were to be brief excursions into Burma and northern Thailand which, though largely failures, were not on the scales of any of Khubilai's efforts. Tax debts from Khubilai's reign were cancelled, and Temur Oljeitu sought to reduce the tax burden on the people, forbidding the collection of anything beyond established quotas. Diplomatically, Temur enjoyed a significant triumph over his father. In 1301 his armies under his nephew Qaishan finally defeated Qaidu Khan, the master of central Asia. When Qaidu died of his wounds in September 1301, Qaidu's puppet Chagatai Khan Du'a decided he had enough of fighting the Yuan. With Qaidu's son Chapar, Du'a contacted Temur Oljeitu indicating his willingness to recognize Temur Oljeitu's overlordship. Temur Oljeitu was delighted and immediately accepted. Their representatives were sent to the Khan of the Ilkhanate, also called Oljeitu, and the Khan of the Golden Horde, Toqta. By 1304, peace had reached between the Khanates. For the first time since 1259, there was a recognized Great Khan, something Khubilai had never achieved. Though Temur Oljeitu wielded no authority over them, he sent patents to affirm each Khan, and in turn received gifts and tribute from them, a process largely carried out by his successors. And in 1306, when Du'a went to war with the heirs of Qaidu, Temur Oljeitu provided him with an army. For a few years at the start of the fourteenth century, we can finally speak of a proper pax Mongolica, when there was peace between all of the Khanates across Eurasia. It would not last very long. In internal matters, Temur Oljeitu did not quite have the same success. For one thing, the Yuan Dynasty permanently hemorrhaged money. In 1295, less than a year after his enthronment, the imperial treasury was reporting to him that nearly all of the wealth Khubilai had accumulated over his reign had been spent in gifts to the princes. The financial policies of Temur Oljeitu and the Chancellors Oljei and Harghasun had brought stability after the "Three Bad ministers," but was not bringing in new revenue. Temur Oljeitu had to cover government costs by paying out from the silver reserve. This was the silver needed to back the paper currency, and with less silver reserve, inflation would rise and rise, a problem we will keep coming back to. Government corruption was intense. The set quota for the number of court and capital officials was set at 2,600 persons. In the first year of Temur Oljeitu's reign, it was found to be over 10,000. In 1303, a corruption trial revealed bribery going to the very highest levels of Temur Oljeitu's government. A furious Khan pushed for further investigation, resulting in over 18,000 convictions of officials and clerks on bribery and other corruption charges. Rather typical of Temur Oljeitu though, was that he lacked the energy to carry out these charges and sweeping changes implied by such convictions. Most officials were let off with hardly as much as a warning, and many simply returned to their posts within the following years. While it has been common to attest the Yuan Dynasty's economic failings to corruption and lavish gift giving- which to be sure, there was no shortage of- recent research has highlighted a significant problem overlooked in such a presentation. The fourteenth century was the start of the Little Ice Age, a global climatic shift towards generally cooler and wetter temperatures, not counting for regional variations. Some variations in temperature and weather of the thirteenth century can be attributed to the massive eruption of the Indonesian volcano of Samalas in the late 1250s, with the Little Ice Age entailing more long term shifts. Cooler temperatures in general strongly affect the Asian monsoon season, which in the 14th century manifested into a general trend of intense colds and snowfall in Mongolia and the steppe, droughts in North China and unending rains and typhoons in southern China. These began to be felt in the very first years of Temur Oljeitu's reign. In 1295, the year after he became Khan of Khans, typhoons struck the Yangzi River delta, his empire's most densely populated region; the Yellow River broke its banks in multiple places and caused repeated flooding, and a dry spell from the previous years resulted in plagues of locusts that eradicated crops. Flooding, typhoons and locust plagues were annual problems for most of the 1290s. In Mongolia and the steppes, the winters turned harsh, and unexpected and high volumes of snow fell even in spring and summer, starving entire herds and forcing many to flee south to seek support for the Khan. So intense were these problems that in 1297 Temur Oljeitu changed his reign title from Yuanzhen, "Primary allegiance" to Dade, "great virtue." Usually reign titles were held for decades, so to change it after two years was a last-ditch attempt to appease the heavens. It was not just an ecological problem though. Khubilai Khan had continued the policy of huang zheng from the Song Dynasty. This was government-provided disaster relief, in the form of cash, food, normally grain or rice, farm tools, animals and other supplies to help the given stricken population through this period. It was a duty of the ruler of China, and fit well into Khubilai's policy of reconstruction after the Mongol conquest and relieving the burdens of the lower classes. None of Khubilai's heirs dared repeal such a law, for it became a basis of Yuan legitimacy. However, in a century that was to prove one of unprecedented, and worsening, climatic terrors over a vast geographic area, from the forests of Siberia, mountains of Tibet, Korea, Manchuria across all of China and its southern coast, this was to prove an impossible burden to meet. The detailed Chinese records reveal a dynasty facing a crisis every year. From 1272 until 1357, there was a major famine somewhere in China on average once every two years; over 56 earthquakes were recorded; super typhoons on the southern coast coincided with supersnowstorms in the steppe. Exceptionally cold winters and unexpected frosts meant certain crops could no longer be reliably grown in the north. The densely populated Yangzi River Delta, home to one of the most economically and agriculturally vital areas of the empire, was almost yearly suffering droughts, flooding, epidemics, starvation and typhoons which wiped away entire towns. For more than a third of the Yuan era, the empire experienced at least seven distinct natural calamanities within the same year! People died in the disasters by the thousands, and survivors died in the hundreds of thousands in the ensuing famines and destruction of farmland. Survivors needed to be brought onto government relief. Grain and rice shortages caused the Yuan to try and cover costs only with cash, and to provide more cash, more had to be printed, to the point it outstripped government revenues. Inflation was the result, and Yuan paper money became ever more worthless over the 1300s. Further, waves of natural calamanities always appear to symbolize the given dynasty had lost the support of heaven, and that the time was come for them to be overthrown. Temur Oljeitu's reign saw the beginning of these problems. In 1301, a spring drought in the Yangzi Delta was followed by a massive typhoon; arable farmland was destroyed for 50 kilometres along the coast line, and a 30-40 metre high wave pushed 280 kilometres inland! 17,000 were killed by storm by the storm itself, and 100,000 by the ensuing starvation. Only a month later, there was flooding displacing people in Manchuria, a freak August snowstorm in Mongolia, flooding around the imperial capital of Dadu, and a locust plague in Hebei province. From this year onwards, flooding somewhere in the Empire became an almost annual problem: in 1302, 50 days of torrential rain caused flooding in 14 prefectures in southern China, and in 1303 and 1305 severe earthquakes rocked the Central regions. And these problems would only become worse over the rest of the dynasty's history. The Khan was simply not equipped to handle this. The conservative-minded Temur Oljeitu and his chief ministers, Oljei and Harghasun, could not invigorate the dynasty for such an immense task as this. After the death of chief and favourite wife in 1299 and mother in 1300, and onset of illnesses from his years of heavy drinking, Temur Oljeitu lost much of his energy for governance, allowing another wife, the empress Buluqan, to overpower him. She sought to ensure the succession of their son, Deshou, a process in which she made many enemies, though even her hostile biography in the Yuan Shi recognized her as a just and able minister. Exiling and removing possible challengers to Deshou's accession, she was able to have Temur Oljeitu confirm him as heir in 1305… only for Deshou to die unexpectedly early in 1306. When Temur Oljeitu died in February 1307, he had no heirs and no surviving children, and was given the posthumous temple name of Chengzong. One Khan down, nine to go. Temur Oljeitu's death saw factions form immediately. Empress Buluqan had her allies, and sought to make Temur Oljeitu's cousin, Ananda, the next Great Khan. A Muslim and prince ruling over the former Tangut territories, Ananda had a powerful army and seemed a likely candidate.. Until Ayurburwada, a son of Temur Oljeitu's older brother Darmabala, led a coup in Dadu, arresting Ananda and Empress Buluqan and their allies. They died in prison soon after. Ayurburwada wanted to be Khan, but faced a challenge from his older brother Qaishan and his powerful and experienced army. A veteran of wars against Qaidu and their enemeis in the steppe, Qaishan was a fearsome foe, and war was only averted with the intervention of their mother, Targi. Agreement was reached, making Qaishan the Khan of Khans, and Ayurburwada his heir. So we have our second Khan of the episode, Qaishan, known also as Külüg Khan and by his posthumous temple name, Wuzong. Unlike Khubilai and Temur Oljeitu, Qaishan was a man of the steppe with no love or understanding for Chinese culture. He immediately changed course with Temur Oljeitu. Where his predecessor sought continuation of Khubilai's policies and maintained ministers, Qaishan removed most of Temur Oljeitu's adherents. Instead of seeking to rule through the Secretariats, Qaishan wanted to rule like a steppe nomad in the vein of Chinggis Khan, via his personal retainers and keshig. Lavish gifts were spent on his friends and allies, even building a palace for them. Princely titles were handed out like candy. And for this, only four months into his reign, Qaishan found he effectively spent well over a year's worth of government revenue: he found himself able to pay less than half of what he had promised in gifts to the aristocracy. In a panic, he spent the rest of the reign trying to address this. The price on salt licenses, one of the most important industries in the Yuan realm, was raised by 35%; prohibition on liquor production was lifted in order to collect taxes there. The tax debts that Temur Oljeitu had cancelled were now to be collected again. Most famously was Qaishan and his allies' currency program. New copper coins were minted, golder and silver were demonetarized and new paper bills put into circulation. The new currency was based on an exchange of 1:5 with the old, and the volume of currency printed in 1310 was 7 times higher than the three previous years! Qaishan's efforts did little good other than expand the bureaucracy needlessly and grow inflation. His sudden death in April 1311 after only a 4 year reign brings us to our third Khan, Qaishan's younger brother Ayurburwada Buyantu, posthumous temple name Renzong. This was the first fully peaceful transition of power in the Yuan Dynasty's history. It went according to their agreement, and once comfortably in power, Ayurburwada violently purged the government of Qaishan's allies and appointees. Unlike the steppe raised Qaishan, Ayurburwada was a man with a good Confucian education, could read and write Chinese and appreciated Chinese art and culture. Most of Qaishan's policies were immediately reversed, the new currency abolished, the building projects halted, and good Confucian scholar-officials placed into power. Ayurburwada wanted a more traditionally Chinese-Confucian government, and reinstated the civil service examination system to choose officials, for instance, with a distinct Neo-Confucianism curriculum which stayed for the Ming and Qing dynasties. He promoted the translation of Chinese classics in Mongolian, and began the codification of the Yuan legal system, a process that took until 1323. But he could not address the real problems facing the dynasty. The environmental crisis only grew worse, with more severe snow storms in Mongolia increasing the northern refugees crisis, while the flooding problem grew exponentially worse in 1319 onwards, all in addition to the varied economic troubles associated with this, from destruction of farmland to government support of refugees. Ayurburwada could reverse Qaishan's disastrous currency but could not find new revenue sources to alleviate the problems that Qaishan had tried to fix, and government expenditure was not trimmed. After a brief effort, Ayurburwada found he could not change the privileges of the aristocracy or interfere in the administration of their appanages, though he tried to lesson the number of new princes made and reduce the level of annual gifts. He needed the support of the Mongol and military elite, and reducing their gifts was not a good way to do this. His greatest political challenges came from his own mother, Dowager Empress Targi, and her favourite, the Chancellor of the Right Temuder. Both were ntrenched supporters of the status quo- that is, enriching themselves and their followers at the expense of the Chinese. Ayurburwada found himself continually harassed, always combating them and their allies who resisted his reform efforts. Temuder bullied and fought with Ayurburwada's ministers and was openly corrupt. The Khan could not even arrest him. The most he could do was remove Temuder from office, only for Dowager Empress Targi to make Temuder the Grand Preceptor to the Heir apparent, Ayurburwada's son Shidebala. Unable to stand up to his mother, the reform minded Ayurburwada died in March 1320, aged only 35, without having really made any true reforms to the Yuan state or government, other than add a coat of Confucian-coloured paint to the dynasty for a brief period. He was peacefully succeeded by his 18 year old son Shidebala, known also as Gegeen Khan or by his posthumous temple name of Yingzong. So starts the reign of our fourth Khan of the episode. Only three days after Ayurburwada's death, Dowager Empress Targi reinstated Temuder as the Grand Chancellor of the Right, and began a veritable reign of terror. The officials who stood up to them during Ayurburwada's life were severely punished, exiled or executed. Appointing his own allies and family members, Temuder ran roughshod over the young Khan. But well educated, sinicized and with a strong spirit, Shidebala Khan did not long sit idle. He appointed a fine choice to the second government position, Chancellor of the Left, in Baiju, a grandson of Antung, a popular chancellor under Khubilai, and a descendant of the heroic Mukhali, great general and viceroy of Chinggis Khan. A friend to Confucians and of proud Mongol heritage, Baiju was an excellent choice for any enemy of Targi and Temuder to flock to. Together, Baiju and Shidebala Khan became staunch allies, and the Empress Dowager is said to have complained of the young Khan, "we should not have raised this boy!" Only two months into his reign, a conspiracy was discovered to replace Shidebala with his younger brother. Baiju urged Shidebala to act quickly, and they unravelled the conspiracy, discovering it was associates of Targi and Temuder behind the plot. Weakening their support network, the Khan and his Chancellor gradually began to repulse the Dowager and her Chancellor. The aging pair were only overcome when they died of old age in the fall of 1322. After that, Shidebala and Baiju could finally carry out their reforms, pushing out more of Temuder's associates from government and continuing policies of the late Ayurburwada. Shidebala supported Confucians, but he loved Buddhism. An ardent and devout Buddhist, Shidebala ordered a Buddhist temple honouring the 'Phags-pa lama to be constructed in every prefecture in the empire, with the stipulation that they all had to be larger than their Confucian counterparts. The Khan did not apparently see the hypocrisy in such an expensive program when he was supposed to be dealing with the financial crisis. He also showed open disdain for Islam, having the mosque in Shangdu, the summer capital, destroyed in order to make room for the 'Phags-Pa temple there. If Shidebala would have strengthened or weakened the Khanate without the presence of his grandmother or Temuder, it will never be known. In September 1323, a conspiracy made up of a number of princes, allies of the late Temuder and part of the Imperial Asud Guard killed Shidebala and Baiju at Nanpo. Immediately they reached out to prince Yesun Temur, a son of Temur Oljeitu's older brother Kammala. A month after Shidebala's murder, Yesun Temur was declared Khan on the Kerulen River, the very birthplace of Chinggis Khan, and became our fifth Khan of the episode. Yesun Temur was almost certainly involved in the plot against Shidebala, and moved quickly to secure himself against charges of illegitmacy. First rewarding the conspirators, once he was firmly entrenched in the two Yuan capitals, he had the conspirators violently purged, the princes involved exiled to far corners of the empire. Yesun Temur worked hard to distance himself from the means of his enthronement. The official version of events became that he had learned of the plot only days before it happened, and had tried to warn Shidebala Khan. He just happened to be very convientenly placed to immediately become Khan. The new Khan had spent many years in the steppe and had a powerful military backing, and in some respects was a proponent of returning things to "the old ways." Only a single Chinese minister was carried over into the new adminsitration, and was routinely ignored. Muslims gained their most prominent status in the Yuan under Yesun Temur. His chancellor of the Left, Dawlat Shah, was a Muslim and a firm ally throughout his reign. However, he understood that the means of his ascension left a bad taste in some mouths, and therefore reached out to accomodate them. Supporters of Ayurburwada and Shidebala who had been wronged by Temuder were posthumously pardoned or restored to their posts; Baiju's son was given his father's old military position. Two sons of Qaishan who had been exiled by Shidebala, including one Tuq Temur, were allowed to return. More princely titles and appanages were granted, gifts were made- another addition to the expenditure, but arguably necessary given the means by which he had ascended the throne. Despite his origins, Yesun Temur showed respect to Confucians, refused to scrap the state exam system and encouraged the further translation of Confucian classics and teaching to Mongols, though these had little effect on government. Like Shidebala, Yesun Temur was a Buddhist, and spent great sums on Buddhist temples throughout the empire. The environmental crisis only worsened though. The flight of Mongols and other peoples of the north and northwest grew so bad that in the first year of his reign, 39% of the money printed that year was spent on trying to send the refugees back and put them onto their feet. This was so ineffective that he then ordered any Mongol trying to migrate south without express permission was to be executed, and in 1326 forbid steppe princes from sending their wives to the court to complain about famine in Mongolia. Intense flooding every year of the 1320s annihilated cropland and worsened the problem, and inflation only continued to rise. These troubles showed no signs of abating when Yesun Temur died of illness in August 1328, aged 35. Our fifth Khan of the episode was succeeded by his 8 year old son Ragibagh at Shangdu in Inner Mongolia. Dawlat Shah and the party enthroning the new Khan were taken aback when news reached them of a coup already underway in Dadu. Dadu, the imperial capital, had been seized by a Qipchap officer named El Temur. A compatriot of the late Qaishan, who had fought beside him in the wars against Qaidu, El Temur seized the capital in order to restore it to the line of Qaishan. Inviting both Qaishan's sons Tuq Temur and Qoshila to Dadu to take the throne, El Temur deftly outmanuevered the supporters of young Ragibagh Khan. El Temur's ally Bayan of the Merkit brought Tuq Temur to Dadu and in October 1328, made him the seventh Khan of the episode- with a promise to abdicate once his older brother, Qoshila, arrived from his exile in the Chagatai Khanate. This was the so-called "War of the Two Capitals," with the two factions based in each of the capitals founded by Khubilai Khan, Dadu, where sits modern Beijing, and Shangdu, in the steppes in what is now Inner Mongolia. The two sides fought across the border, but El Temur and Tuq Temur's armies had the better of the encounters. They advanced on Shangdu which surrendered in November 1328. Dawlat Shah and his allies were captured and executed; the young Ragibagh, the sixth Khan of the episode, was never found. Qoshila was excited at the news, and with the Chagatai Khan Eljigidei, declared himself Khan at a quriltai north of the old imperial capital of Karakorum, declaring Tuq Temur to be his heir. The Chagatai Khan returned to his Khanate, and Qoshila marched southeast.The eighth khan of the episode met the seventh at a palace built by their father, Qaishan, in August 1329. The reunion of Qoshila and Tuq Temur was warm. Four days later, Qoshila Khan was found dead, and Tuq Temur was enthroned once more as Khan of Khans. Despite being enthroned twice and having killed his brother for the throne, Tuq Temur was a puppet. He sat on the whim of the real powermakers, El Temur and Bayan of the Merkit. They were the ultimate bureaucratic kingmakers, having built their own wealth and support networks independent of the Khan. Unlike Temuder who was loyal to Targi Khatun, or civil servants like Oljei or Harghasun, El Temur and Bayan were their own dynamic duo controlling government, granting themselves titles, imperial wives, honorifics and fiefdoms. Tuq Temur Khan contented himself with his studies of the Chinese classics and Confucianism, which he adored, practicing his calligraphy, collected art and was haunted with guilt over murdering his older brother. The khan founded an Academy to help instill Confucian morals on the Mongols and government. El Temur, who had no care for Confucians, took over this Academy to restrict access of its members to the Khan. The nakedly illegal reign did no favours for a Dynasty struck with financial and ecological chaos. In the three years Tuq Temur was Khan of Khan, 21 rebellions broke out requiring great resources to be crushed. It would not be until 1332 that the final holdouts of Yesun Temur loyalists would be militarily crushed. No new revenues could be found while the costs of relief, war, the court and corruption continued to soar alongside inflation. In 1328, 343,420 ding of paper money was printed. The next year, 1.232 million was printed, which almost covered the 1.35 million in cash and nearly 1 million tonnes of grain spent on famine relief, a full 20-30% of government revenue in that year. Tuq Temur Khan obsessed with legitimacy: other claimants were exiled, including the sons of Qoshila. One, the 13 year old Toghon Temur, was sent to Korea. Tuq Temur and his empress had their eldest son Aratnadara declared heir in 1331… one month before Aratnadara died. Beset with grief and guilt, Tuq Temur changed the name of his eldest son, entrusted him to the care of El Temur, and died in September 1332 with the succession undecided. On his deathbed, overcome with shame, he apparently declared that a son of Qoshila was to succeed him in order to make amends. And so, El Temur carried out Tuq Temur's will, installing the late Qoshila's six year old son Rinchinbal as the ninth Khan of the episode. El Temur envisioned many happy years watching over this malleable child ruler, only for the lad to die of illness a full 53 days into his reign. El Temur desired to place Tuq Temur's young son on the throne, but court resistance was led by Tuq Temur's widow, the empress Budashiri, who wanted to hold to her husband's final will. And so, El Temur invited Qoshila's older surviving son, the thirteen year old Toghon Temur, to come take the throne, our tenth and last Khan of the episode- and the last Chinggisid Khan to rule the Yuan Dynasty in China. The long reign of Toghon Temur will be the subject of our next episode, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast in order to follow. To help us keep bringing you great content, please consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals, and providing us a kind review on a podcast site of your choice, or sharing with your friends. All are appreciated. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I'm your host David, and we will catch you on the next one.