The History of China - #186 - Yuan 8: Khan With the Wind

Episode Date: February 20, 2020

Khubilai is ancient, pained, and sick... but he still has more Mongol justice to mete out before he joins the Eternal Sky. Still, some campaigns will go better than others. Period Covered: ca. 1287-1294 CE Major Historical Figures: Yuan Dynasty: Khubilai (Emperor Shizu) [r. 1260-1294] Crown Prince Olziit Temur (Emperor Chengzong) [r. 1294-1307] Prince Esen Temur Prince Temur Bukha General Shibi General Gao Xing Admiral Yike Musi Ambassador Meng Qi Phagspa Lama, Imperial Preceptor of Tibet [1235-1280] Imperial Preceptor Dharmapalarasita Kingdom of Pagan (Burma): King Narathihapate [r. 1256-1287] Kingdom of Singhasari (Java): King Kertanagara [d. 1292] Prince Raden Vijaya [r. 1293-1309] Duke Jayakatwang of Kediri [d. 1293] Mongol Khanates: Du'a Khan of the Chagatids Khaidu Khan of the Ögedeids [d. 1301] Prince Nayan [d. 1287] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hello and welcome to the History of China. Episode 186, Khan with the Wind. I wear this crown of thorns upon my liar's chair, full of broken thoughts I cannot repair. Beneath the stains of time, the feelings disappear. You are someone else. I am still right here. By Trent Reznor. Last time in our look at Mongol Yuan's history, the aged Emperor Kublai had received some of the harshest losses he had ever been dealt in his life. On the battlefield, his once-invincible armies had been shoved back from the shores of Japan by the martial resistance of the shogunate samurai, as well as the spirits themselves in the form of the divine kamikaze winds that drowned the

invading force. And in Southeast Asia, he'd found similar frustration and failure as the jungles, mountains, and the guerrilla fighters who hid within them of Burma, Daiviet, and Champa had whittled away at the Mongol expedition's morale and strength, until they too were forced back. In his personal life, too, he had suffered the devastating double loss of first his beloved empress, Chabi, followed by their son and heir, Prince Zhenjin. Thus today, we return to the court of the great Khan in Dadu to find him an embittered, lonely shell of his former self,

turning to food and drink more and more to fill the void in his heart as his body continues to break down. But the old Mongol isn't quite out of the fight just yet, and even in his despair, or perhaps because of it, he'll continue to strike out against foes, both old and new, necessary and unnecessary alike, right up until the bitter end. We turn today first to the one loose string we last less standing, the vainglorious king of Pagan, Narathihapate, he who purportedly ate 300 bowls of curry per day. In his first encounter with the UN forces sent against him in 1283, the Paganese had sent out the war elephants by the thousands, nearly overwhelming the shocked Mongol forces and almost forcing their immediate route.

Only the quick thinking of their commander to target the charging elephants themselves, rather than their riders, had broken the charge enough for the UN expedition to be able to stand their ground and, eventually, carry the day. Even in victory, however, there was little to be gained from seizing the capital of Pagan, as its king had managed to flee into the wilds and frustrate any attempt at his capture. With the subsequent wars elsewhere in the empire, it wouldn't be until nearly five years later, in 1287, that Kublai would at last be able to return his attention to the arrogant little kingdom and exact his full measure of justice. This time, the force would be commanded by Kublai's own grandson, Esen Timur. They once again fought their way to the Pagan capital and occupied it for several months. Though Narathapate again escaped capture,

the fact that he now had run away twice from the Mongols and left his people to their mercy severely undermined his position within the society. At last, humbled and dejected, he surrendered and agreed to send tribute to Dadu as a vassal of Great Yuan. It would prove, however, to be the last decision he would ever make. Now looking well and truly weak as the king who knelt, Narathihapati's own son took advantage of his loss in popularity and had him poisoned. Nothing personal, dad. It's strictly business. In the end, however, even this now-rare total victory for Kublai over Pagan proved to have been a poor investment. Unlike the conquest of southern Song or his defense of Mongolia against Kaidu, the submission of Pagan, even with the

tribute it offered, was scarcely enough to even pay for, much less justify the cost of the war in the first place. It was, at best, a break-even affair. Even more puzzling and difficult to rationalize, however, was Kublai's decision in 1289 to initiate yet another amphibious invasion. This time, not of storm-tossed Japan, but of tropical Java in the Southern Sea. Given his prior two, and up until this point only two, experiences with amphibious landings on foreign beachheads, one might think that Kublai would have been significantly more

wary of a third such operation when he was already 0 for 2. Even so, Kublai certainly must have felt that he quite simply had no choice in the matter, and for almost the exact same reason as he had Japan. For you see, as with the shogunate, the king of Singhasari, one of the several chief rival powers of the island since the 1220s, and as of 1290 the dominant, though not uncontested, state across the island, the King Kirtanagara would commit the same fatal faux pas, laying hands on Mongol emissaries. Granted, Kirtanagara did not go nearly so far as Hojo Tokimune had done in ordering the ambassador's execution. Rather, the ambassador, Mengqi,

had arrived and made the usual demands of submission to Great Yuan. King Kirtanagara had ordered Meng's face branded and his ears slit as punishment for his haughtiness, a punishment that was usually reserved for common criminals. And in the eyes of the Mongols, really, there was little difference between killing an ambassador and simply mutilating them. Heck, even cutting their beards to humiliate them had been sufficient cause for Genghis to raise Khwarazm to the ground six decades prior. The point is, don't mess around with Mongol ambassadors.

The punitive expedition against the impudent Javanese king would be led by three Yuan officers of typically multi-ethnic makeup. The Mongol, Shibi, acting as overall commander, the Chinese general, Gao Xing, acting as the field commander, and a Uyghur admiral, Yi Kamusa, acting as overall commander, the Chinese general Gao Xing, acting as the field commander, and a Uyghur admiral, Yi Kamusa, acting as both chief provisioner of the operation and commander of the navy. In total, the force that set out from Quanzhou in late 1292 for Java was composed of a force of 20,000 men on 1,000 ships, with a year's supply of grain and 40,000 ounces of silver as a general war chest.

The soldiers were primarily from southern China, since they could best tolerate the heat and tropical conditions of Java. In addition, Kublai personally ordered that the troops be equipped in light lamellar armor rather than the heavier armor of the north, again, for reasons of comfort. This is a relatively unimportant point, however, as only about 20% or so of the total soldiers were thus armored. In any case, the fleet, having set out with the seasonal monsoon wind at their backs, made good time southward and arrived at the shores of Java in early 1293. Admiral Ikamusa anchored his ships offshore,

and Generals Gao and Shibi and their 20,000 soldiers disembarked onto the beaches of the island kingdom and into an almost unnatural silence. King Kutanagara of Singhasari had, of course, been appraised of the setting sail of the Mongol fleet against him, and had established his troops to where he thought was most likely they would make their first landing. Unfortunately for him, he had assumed that the Yuan army would first seek to establish a forward base on the Meili Peninsula before striking at Java directly. The bulk of his army had already been dispatched to the island of Sumatra, directly adjacent to the Meili Peninsula, and when combined, that meant that there was virtually no defense force left in Singhasari itself. Yet it would not be the Great Yuan army that would take advantage of Kirtanagara's vulnerable state. Rather, the Duke of Kadiri, a region in eastern Java that had refused to submit to Singhasari's rule, took the opportunity to rise up in rebellion against the near-defenseless enemy king. The king attempted to counter this attack by sending what forces

he had left at the capital under the command of his son-in-law, Prince Vizjaya, to engage the Duke of Qadiri in the north. But again, his intelligence failed him, as it turned out that the Duke had actually split his army and was attacking the capital from the north and the south simultaneously. Though Prince Vizjaya's attackers successfully held the northern assault back, the southern force was able to make good their advance on the capital and sack it. The Duke of Qadiri was able to take King Kirtanagara captive and then killed him and usurped the throne. Though Prince Vijaya initially tried to turn and repel this second force in time to save the capital and the king,

when he realized that he had failed, he submitted to this new ruler, albeit grudgingly. Thus it was that when news reached Prince Vijaya of the Mongols landing their troops, he seized the moment. He sought the invaders out and begged the UN commander's aid in destroying the usurper and retaking his kingdom, to which the Mongols said, sure, but you know, submit to us first. Vijaya readily did so, allying his own forces with the UN expedition. More than that, he had his men provide the Mongols with detailed maps of the Qadiri usurper's own province and Java as a whole. Sailing up the Kali Mas River, the UN fleet encountered and crushed a Qadiri fleet sent to bar their way upstream. Within a

week, forces under Gao Xing had landed within Qadiri province itself, destroying all opposition and reportedly killing some 5,000 defenders. The usurper king tried to retreat, only to find that his palace had already been burned to the ground. And, seeing that there was no way out, he at last surrendered on March 19, 1293. Though his ultimate fate remains unstated, it's fairly safe to bet that the UN commanders showed him all the mercy typical of someone who had raised arms against them,

and had him put to death. So, game over, right? Great success. Just place old Prince Vijaya on the throne, since he's already submitted to us, and then we can just go ahead and collect his tribute and head on home. Job well done. Mission accomplished! Well, don't pop the champagne corks just yet, because we're not done here. Prince Vijaya, well, now, King Vijaya, was given leave to return to his home state, ostensibly to prepare said tribute payment

for Mongol collection. From Rasabi, quote, The leaders of the campaign had been too trusting. Vijaya requested that he be provided with 200 unarmed men from the Sino-Mongol expedition to escort him to the town of Majahpahit, where he would prepare to officially submit to the Great Khan's representatives. The Mongol leaders agreed, not suspecting Vijaya's duplicity. End quote. Yup, that's right, it was a classic double-cross. Vijaya's own forces surreptitiously surrounded the unarmed escort and launched a devastating

ambush. Surprise had apparently been achieved so completely that even Commander Shibi himself barely managed to escape with his life from the Javanese assault. Following up this devastating first strike, Vijaya led his troops against the unsuspecting main Yuan camp, catching them all completely unawares, killing thousands and sending the remainder in a panicked route all the way back to their waiting ships, apparently some 123 kilometers away. In the panic, the Mongols lost all of the spoils and treasure that they had heretofore

collected from the Javanese. Even once the remainder of the troops were aboard, they still weren't out of the woods, because Vijaya's fleet had sailed out against them under the command of their own admiral, Arya Adhikara, who managed to sink several of the UN ships before he was finally driven off. At this point, well and truly demoralized, the three UN commanders had a truly bitter choice to make. It was clear that they were on the ropes against this treacherous new king, and that was bad enough in itself. But once again, it would be the weather that would prove the decisive factor in this unfolding island disaster. I mentioned before how Java, like virtually all of the South Seas and much of coastal China beside, exists in

a monsoon climate pattern. So for those of you who might not know what a monsoon climate pattern is, let me briefly put on my geography teacher hat and give a 30-second rundown. The monsoon winds flow in two yearly cycles, rather than the four seasonal cycles many of us may be more used to. Essentially, during the summer months on either side of the equator, hot, humid air flows inland from the oceans, creating a rainy season. When the weather cools off in the winter, however, the process reverses, sending cold, dry air from the land back out to sea, creating a dry season. What this meant

in terms of going to and from Java in a northerly or southerly direction was that you had to time it right. Specifically, you had a good six months of being pretty much only able to sail north, followed by six months of pretty much only being able to sail south. If you missed that window, you were stuck wherever you were until the next seasonal shift in the winds. And as of this overwhelming defeat at Vijaya's hands as of late April, the Mongols were right down to the wire in terms of the winds almost shifting. They could cut their losses and still sail off and back to China safe and sound, but they would basically have to go right now. If they delayed their departure, even just to see if the situation on Java was at all recoverable or just outright hopeless, then they

would miss out on that window and be stuck on a hostile enemy island for the next half year, during which time they wouldn't be so much as able to even send messengers back to the empire to ask for help because, you know, again, the winds would be against anyone trying. But at this point, everyone agreed that that was tantamount to suicide. They were not going to survive another six months on this death trap. As such, even though they knew beyond doubt that the Great Khan was going to be super pissed off about this, they shoved off and returned to China, docking after a 68-day voyage in June. And they were right. Kublai was definitely not at all happy with yet another costly, embarrassing failure on his hands. Yeah, they'd brought back a few trinkets here and there, some incense, some perfumes, rhino horns, ivory, a map of Java and its population register, as well as a few royal

captives that they'd managed to drag onto the boats with them. But that was nothing next to the cost of this expedition, both in material and prestige terms. And the commanders who'd bungled it were going to be made to pay. The Mongol commander, Shibi, received the harshest punishment, 70 lashes, and one-third of his property confiscated. Uyghur, Ikamuse, managed to avoid the lashes, but he too lost one-third of his property. Only the Chinese general, Gao Xing, avoided punishment from the throne, for he alone had tried to warn his fellow commanders that it was really, really fishy that the prince had asked the Mongols to send 200 guys unarmed to his own

capital, and he tried to warn them against going and refused to go himself. Since his caution, in the Khan's estimation, had been just about the only thing that went right in this disaster, and had likely saved the UN armies from an even greater catastrophe, Gao was instead rewarded with 50 tails of gold for his service. As if yet another fiasco on the high seas wasn't a grievous enough blow to Kublai's already tottering reputation, perhaps an even worse set of damaging events was happening internally. Several significant rebellions broke out in the second half of the 1280s in regions that were, or at least should have been, under Kublai's direct administration and control, which made things especially awkward. First in Tibet, and then in Manchuria, such revolts were a one-two punch to the very basis of Kublai's claims to be the all-powerful monarch and rightful Khan of Khans, either of which could

scarcely have come at a worse time. Though both rebellions were confined to the outlying border regions of UN territory, Kublai understood that it was imperative to crush them quickly and decisively, lest such infestation was allowed to fester and spread into the heart of China. The first rumblings of trouble in Tibet began in 1280, with the unexpected death of Kublai's longtime close ally and effective ruler of Tibet, the Phagspa Lama. This was quite shocking, as the Tibetan ruler was relatively young, only 45 or so, and with no clear cause. This, unsurprisingly, led to quick accusations that he must have been poisoned, with members of Phagspa's own Saskya sect accusing the

civil administrator of Tibet of having done so. The administrator seems to have had virtually no chance to mount any defense for himself, as he was quickly caught by his accusers, imprisoned, and then killed. In order to quell this initial round of dissatisfaction, Kublai destaged an elaborate funeral for the lama, and then appointed his nephew a successor as the imperial preceptor. This new Tibetan figurehead, named Dharmapalarasita, temporarily caused the hubbub to die down. Hi everyone, this is Scott. If you want to learn about the world's oldest civilizations, find out how they were rediscovered, follow the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's descendants over 10 generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms or go to ancientworldpodcast.com.

That's the Ancient World Podcast. However, he was a boy of only 13, and without nearly the commanding presence or experience of his uncle. Already, many of the Tibetan Buddhist sects had been long critical of the Phogspa Lama because of his lifelong close relationship with the Mongols. And this new pubescent preceptor was exactly the same, and perhaps even worse in some of their eyes, since he had been virtually raised from birth by Kublai himself. From Rasabi, quote, Kublai's choice of a boy who had been brought up at the Mongol court as the ruler of Tibet showed poor political judgment.

Dharma-Palarasita would be a visible and intrusive presence in a land that he hardly knew. The Saskya order to which Dharma Palarasita belonged had rivals in Tibet, in any case, and the Bregung, one of these hostile sects, capitalized on the animosity between the new alien imperial preceptor to rebel. In 1285, shortly after the Bregung forces had begun to assault Saskya temples and settlements, as well as the Mongols of Kublai who supported them, Tibetan sources tell that the rebels began receiving assistance from the so-called King of Tzod, Horkhula. This was, in fact, none other than the Khan of the Chagatai Khanate, Duwa Khan,

an ally of Kublai's longtime nemesis, good old cousin Kaidu. Suddenly, this minor internal squabble took on a much more serious air. If Kaidu and his allies were getting involved, that meant the strong possibility of a full-blown international conflict between the Khanate states once more. More even to the point, it meant that they thought Kublai was so weak that they could nose about in his backyard without consequence or reprisal. It was therefore imperative that the old Khan show his estranged kinsmen that he still had a few teeth with which to bite. He appointed his grandson, Tamar Bukha, to lead a punitive force to Tibet, force Dua Khan's armies out, and then crush the troublesome Brigand rebels. Tamar Bukha arrived in Tibet and set about his task with efficiency.

By 1290, he had destroyed the Brigandy, killing 10,000 men in the process, and collapsing the Bregung threat. No further violence erupted in Tibet during the remaining years of Kublai's reign. End quote. Even so, Great Yuan was not yet out of the woods in terms of rebellions sparking up. A second conflagration flitted to life in Manchuria as of 1288, and this one too had international implications. The leader of this rebellion was no ethnic alien, but one of Kublai's own Mongol kinsmen, Prince Nayyan, the great-grandson of either one of Genghis's half-brothers, Belgatai, or possibly his full-brother, Tamuge. Nayyan was an Astorian Christian, like Kublai's

own mother, which marked him out as uncommon, though not unusual, among the Mongols and their kindred of the steppe. Yet it was not his religious faith that finally caused him to rebel, but instead his growing horror at what he saw as Kublai's ever-increasing cynicization, of abandoning the old ways of the horse and bow for the soft agrarianism of the Chinese he lorded over. This put him very much in the same camp as, once again, good ol' cousin Kaidu. Marco Polo tells us much of what we know about Prince Nayan and his rebellion, and he writes of the prince's collusion with Kaidu,

quote, Tipped off about Nayon's supposed treachery, Kublai dispatched his finest general, Bayan, to report to Manchuria and make a survey of what was and what was not actually going on there. The History of Yuan writes that shortly after arriving, Bayan's contingent was set upon by Nayan's soldiers, who attempted to entrap them all. It says, quote, upon Bayan's arrival, Nayan had a banquet for him with a prearranged plot to seize him. Bayan, apprehending it, hurried out with his attendants, and they escaped by three separate routes. End quote. There is some question about

the veracity of this much later account, since, as Rossaby points out, it seems rather likely that Nayyan would allow his quarry to slip out of his grasp quite so easily. It may well have been a later fabrication simply to justify the war that followed and prove Nayon's guilt, but of course that is speculative. In any event, Kublai was convinced, and deemed his rebellious kinsmen a significant enough threat, that, though corpulent, near immobilized by gout and rheumatism, and positively ancient, the Great Khan was determined to personally ride out against Prince Nayan. Before departing, he consulted his royal oracles, who assured him in no uncertain terms that thou shalt return victorious over thine enemies. One detachment he sent out to raid and distract Kaidu so that he would be unable to render aid or assistance to Nayan. Similarly, another force

he dispatched to Liaodong in the northeast to engage and distract another Mongol dissident and ally of Nayan named Kharan. Kublai himself would lead his men against Nayan directly, and he would do so in style. Having long since given up his days of mounting on horseback due to his age, weight, and infirmity. Kublai instead rode out on a massive palanquin, carried by no fewer than four elephants. Marching along with him was the army that would bear him unto his last great battle. Now, Marco gives us some numbers, but they are Marco numbers, so, well, anyways, here they are. Polo says that Kublai's last ride consisted of 360,000 cavalry and 100,000 infantry.

And, yeah, feel free to start laughing, because that's just plain ludicrous at this time and place. To wit, Rasabi writes, quote, Surely those numbers were inflated figures, for a huge number of men and horses could not be fed and supplied on the scant resources of Manchuria. The grass for the horses, for example, would have been insufficient. Kublai could have had no more than several tens of thousands of soldiers. End quote. Ah, logistics. You're a fly in the ointment of every moonstruck Italian. More than just sheer supply limits, a figure on the order of several

tens of thousands is, as we've seen for several decades now, far more in line with the sorts of expeditionary forces the Yuan was dispatching than Plo's imaginary First World War German invasion force. With the other rebel Mongols otherwise engaged, Kublai's force moved quickly against Nayan's camp, and apparently with all the stealth a four-elephant battle platform could muster, surprised the rebel prince and his men. Quote, the two armies faced each other, and the Mongols sounded their drums, their horns, and their voices in so great numbers that the air seemed to tremble. End quote. The order to advance was given, and Kublai's men went forth, proceeded onto the field of battle by a storm of arrow fire as the two armies closed, lances, swords, axes, and clubs at the ready. The battle began in the morning and lasted until midday, when the tide began to definitively turn against Nayan and his men. Quote,

His troops started to flee, and the pursuing Mongol armies caught and killed many of them. As the fight turned into a bloody rout, Prince Nayyan himself was taken captive. His fate as a rebel was already a foregone conclusion, but his status as a prince of the blood still entitled him to a nobleman's death in the traditional, bloodless manner preferred by the Mongols. Again from Polo, quote, He was wrapped very tightly and bound in a carpet, and there was dragged so much hither and thither, and tossed up and down so rigorously, that he died. And then they left him inside it, And for this reason, Kublai made him die in such a way, for the Tartar said that he did not wish the blood of the lineage of the emperor

to be spilt on the ground. In spite of this great victory over Nayan, it did not spell the end of Kublai's problems across the borderlands. Both of the other rebel lords, Kharan and Kaidu, yet remained as potent threats against the Yan territories. In 1289, Kaidu and his army made directly for the old capital of Karakorum. Though he was ultimately driven back, nearly at the city gates themselves, and forced to retreat once again to the open steppes, Kaidu would remain a thorn in Kublai's side unto his dying breath in 1294, and long thereafter, until his own death seven years later, in 1301.

In the final years of Kublai's life, the weight of the throne and his failures as Khan and Emperor, combined with the personal grief he yet suffered from the loss of his most beloved wife, Chabi, and their son, Zhenjin, Kublai gave himself over to any and every excess he could in an attempt to stave off the pain, most notably to food and heavy drink. Court banquets, always lavish affairs, became even more sumptuous as the Khan demanded more of, well, everything. The feasts and even ordinary meals were of overridingly Mongol tastes, heavy with meats, cheeses, and liquors. Quote, Boiled mutton, cooked whole, was the standard fare. Another rich and fatty food supplemented

the meat diet. A typical meal might include cooked breast of lamb, eggs, raw vegetables seasoned with saffron and wrapped in pancakes, tea with sugar, kumis, and a kind of beer made with millet. Banquets, naturally, were even more elaborate. The Mongols did not frown on excess, and overeating, particularly on ceremonial occasions, tended to be the rule rather than the exception. Mongol Khans had traditionally been heavy drinkers, and now Kublai joined them in their vice. He drank vast quantities of kumis and wine. The constant overeating and binge drinking took a heavy toll on the Khan's mind and body, wracking him with pain and infirmities through the 1280s and 90s.

For this, he sought any and every kind of drug, potion, or remedy that he could. Doctors from Southeast Asia, shamans from Korea, fish skins, shoes, and any kind of exotic ingredient recommended as therapeutic, Kublai demanded them all, and yet nothing worked. The pain in his body and in his heart continued to grip him. At last, during the new year of 1294, in a bout of melancholy and depression so severe that he even cast aside the tradition of receiving those who had come to give well wishes to the Great Khan, his old body finally broke down for good and all. He rapidly weakened, and despite all that could be done for him,

on February 18th, the 80-year-old grandson of Genghis Khan died in the Zitan Hall of his palace. Shortly thereafter, the imperial princes and officials arrived to give their condolences to the late Great Khan's chosen successor, his grandson by the deceased Deng Jin, Olzit Timur. Though a curl tie was convened to elect the Great Khan's successor, it was entirely pro forma and paid only lip service to the old ways. Kublai had ensured that his chosen heir would be the only candidate on the ballot. In this, at least, he had well and truly embraced the Chinese model of governance. Within a few days of the old Khan's death, his body departed Dadu as the centerpiece

of a solemn caravan heading northwest and winding its way towards the Khanti Mountains, the ancestral homeland of the Mongols, where he would be buried alongside his predecessors. In this way, at least, he maintained the old ways. No grand mausoleum, tomb site, or staley to his reign was erected. Instead, like Genghis, Ogedei, Goyuk, and Mongke before him, he was buried in an unmarked grave within the bounds of the Ilk Khorek, the region of the great Tabu that would be forbidden on pain of death by loyal Mongolian guardians for centuries to follow. Back in China, in the fourth month of 1294, the newly enthroned Emperor Timur asked the realm's leading officials to decide on a posthumous title and appropriate place to begin construction

of an altar to the great Kublai. The site was chosen some three and a half kilometers south of the capital, and construction began shortly thereafter. There couldn't have been much debate as to his temple name, Shizu, the founder of the dynasty. How does one sum up the life of a figure like Kublai? We might look to contemporary accounts and opinions of the historians, travelers, and world leaders from across Asia and Europe as to how they viewed the first emperor of Yuan. Theirs tended to be full of great praise, especially those in the Western world whose information was reliant on Marco Polo's own glowing accounts.

Still, Polo is not the only source for transmission of Kublai's legacy beyond the borders of the Mongol world. The Persian chronicler Rashid al-Din spread his account of the great Khan far and wide, as did the Korean authors of the Goryosa, and the Hebrew physician and writer, Bar Hebraeus, who both spread glowing accounts of his policies and successes. Chinese Confucian scholars, too, wrote of him as a broad-minded, fair, and balanced ruler and judge of men, who spread civilization, law, and harmony,

and pushed back, contained, and pacified the barbaric elements of the world. In short, an ideal Confucian leader. The Tibetan Buddhist sects out and out deified him as an incarnation of Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. Aldine portrayed him as a beneficent protector of the Muslim world and its faith, and Marco Polo returned to Europe wholly convinced that the great Tartar emperor was just about to make the conversion to Christianity. It's truly a testament to his ability to read the room and say the right thing at the right time, and thereby ingratiate himself to whoever he was speaking. This ability to be a social chameleon is a rare gift in a man born in a position like Kublai's.

Yet in his heart, it cannot be doubted that the man who ordered that a sample of Mongolian soil and wild grass be brought and planted into his personal garden at Dadu was in his heart of hearts ever the Mongol, in spite of what his wilder kinsmen in the steppes might, and often did, say. Like virtually every other notable Mongol leader of his age, his was a life punctuated by military conquests and great battles, the greatest and most stunning of which was surely his utter defeat and conquest and then rule over southern China and his population of more than 50 million people. This in itself was a goal that had been long dreamed and yet never achieved by even one so great as his grandfather. Yet the way in which Kublai succeeded over the southern Song, for indeed there was no other possible way of doing so, is what sets him apart from even Genghis.

Unlike the conquest of Khwarazmia, western Xia, Jin, or even the Caucasus and Russian states, Kublai could not be solely reliant on the overwhelming supremacy of Mongol cavalry to smash the Chinese defenses. The conquest of the south necessitated that Kublai improvise, adapt, and change his strategies, and indeed his very way of thinking, in order to overcome the tenacious Song at their own game. Not just cavalry, but sizable infantry on the scale of which the Mongols had never before conceived. Siege weapons capable of battering down not just the crude huts of other nomads, but the nigh-impenetrable defenses of Chinese walled cities. And navies massive enough and with crews skilled enough to ply the riverways of the south

and contend against the more experienced Chinese sailors, and eventually even onto the high seas beyond. Yet his very success was the proximate cause of the permanent shattering of Mongol unity across Asia. His flouting of sacred tradition in seizing the throne, and his wars against first his brother Arik and then his cousin Kaidu, would result in a fracture that would never heal. It seems undoubtable that somewhere deep down, Kublai must have felt to blame for the final unraveling of his lord-grandfather's dream. Yet from a wider perspective, we cannot blame Kublai for the fracture of the Mongol world. Though his claiming of the throne

triggered that final split, it was in fact foredoomed by no less than his grandfather himself, when the age of Genghis had divided his empire amongst his four sons in an ill-conceived effort to stave off the dissolution of the Mongol Ulus immediately upon his own death. Given that it had been born with such a poisoned pill already in its mouth, it's far more forgivable that the empire just so happened to split under Kublai's tenure. Instead, it's rather incredible that even the semblance of unity persisted among the various Khanates for quite as long as it did. Like all Mongols, Kublai revered his lord-grandfather to the point of deification and worship. It's no accident,

after all, that he made sure to enshrine his ancestor as posthumous Emperor Taizu, the founding ancestor of Great Yuan, even as it became but a single, sinified fragment of Genghis' once pan-Asiatic nation. It's likely that Kublai did go to his grave, looking at the fracture of the Yeka Mongol Ulus as his own fault, one more failure atop the mountain of other failures and disappointments in his final decade and a half of life. Yet, in spite of the Toluid civil war, in spite of the fiascos on the shores of Japan and Java, and in the jungles of Vietnam, for all those letdowns, Kublai was on the whole precisely

the kind of leader that Genghis Khan had so desperately wished to find in one of his own sons. Everything he had hoped Ogedei might somehow turn out to be, and feared that Tolui would be its antithesis. The grandson of Genghis ruled over the Yuan dynasty as the kind of king that one might legitimately hope to be ruled over by. Tough-minded and yet generally fair and calm in his governance, interested in the betterment of the realm as a whole, and from whatever sect, individual, or ideology it might stem from. Willing to acquire the very best talent that he could from wherever it came, and then, critically, actually listen to that advice in good faith and humility, for if he knew nothing else, he knew that he did not know it all. He was willing to learn from the people that he ruled,

rather than merely reign over them. Perhaps that went a bit too much for Genghis's own traditionalist tastes. Yet he still maintained that vital connection with his roots and heritage, something that would almost always prove an Achilles' heel for Mongols long away from their homeland. Though Kublai may have met death mired in the depression of loss, grief, and a spate of embarrassing failures, convinced that he had failed to live up to the frankly impossible and nigh-superhuman shadow of his lowered grandfather. If Genghis might have been looking down from the eternal blue sky on the life and works of his fourth grandson by Tolui, he surely would have seen Kublai as no failure whatsoever. He had done something that neither

Genghis himself nor any other Mongol had been able to do. He had completed the easy work of finally winning his grandfather's empire on horseback. But then, he had been able to do. He had completed the easy work of finally winning his grandfather's empire on horseback. But then, he had been able to do the truly difficult task of dismounting to rule it from the throne. Thus concludes the life and times of the great Kublai Khan. Next time, his own grandson, Ulzit Timur, will attempt to fill his boots as he's enthroned as the Mongol Empire's nominal sixth Great Kayan, the Blessed Iron Khan, and as Great Yuan's second emperor, as Chengzong the Accomplished.

Thanks for listening. The French Revolution set Europe ablaze. It was an age of enlightenment and progress, but also of tyranny and oppression. It was an age of glory and an age of tragedy. One man stood above it all. This was the Age of Napoleon. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast. Join me as I examine the life and times of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters in modern history. Look for the Age of Napoleon wherever you find your podcasts.