The History of China - #189 - Yuan 10: The Third Rail

Episode Date: April 8, 2020

Temur Khan's death without an heir sparks a power vacuum within the Yuan court - two brothers will come to power together, but only one will be able to sit the throne at a time, who will succeed? Meanwhile, as money issues continue to plague the empire, the Mongol nobility get more and more fed-up with the Yuan Borjigins' continual shift toward Chinese-style reforms. Time Period Covered: 1307-1323 CE Major Historical Figures: Khaishan (Külüg Khaghan/Emperor Wuzong) [r. 1307-1311] Ayurbarwada (Buyantu Khaghan/Emperor Renzong) [r. 1311-1320] Shidebala (Gegeen Khaghan/Emperor Yingzong) [r.1320-1323] Grand Empress Dowager Targi [d. 1322] Empress Bulukhan [d. 1307] Khosila, Prince of Zhou Prince Ananda [d. 1307] Grand Councilor of the Right, Harghasun [d. 1307] Grand Councilor of the Right, Temüder [d. 1322] Grand Councilor of the Left/Right, Baiju [d.1323】 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Four hundred years ago, a trio of tiny kingdoms were perched on some damp islands off the coast of Europe. Within three short centuries, these islands would become the centre of an empire which ruled a quarter of the globe and on which the sun never set. I'm Samuel Hume, a historian of the British Empire, and my podcast Pax Britannica follows the people and events that built that empire into a global superpower. Learn the history of the British Empire by listening to Pax Britannica everywhere you find your podcasts. Or go to pod.link slash pax.

Hey all, before launching in today, let me give you a recommendation that you should check out the Mid-Atlantic Podcast by Roy Field Brown. It is chit-chat about politics and culture from both sides of the Atlantic and part of the Agora Podcast Network. So go ahead and download it today wherever you get your fine podcast episodes. Once again, that is Mid-Atlantic Podcast by Roy Field Brown. And now on with the Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 189, The Third Rail When last we left the Yuan Dynasty, it was in a bit of a pickle. Its second emperor, Temur, had died in 1307, just one year after the death of his only heir, leaving the empire once again in flux as to what the proper line of succession

should, or even could, be. Today, then, we'll get into several of the Yuan's short-lived and relatively unhappy successors to the imperial throne, and their individual policies that were so at odds with each of their predecessors that we all might need neck braces by the end of this episode. The body of the 41-year-old Temur hadn't so much as cooled off before factional infighting broke out over who the next emperor should be. Temur's wife, Empress Bulukhan, headed one such faction, apparently able to sufficiently put down her own grief over her husband and son's deaths aside to take up the reins of office. She meant to do this quite literally, by enthroning Temur's cousin, the child prince Ananda, as the next great khan, but with her ruling in truth as regent.

This immediately raised the hackles of those who would form the anti-Bulakan faction, and instead supported the candidacy of two princely brothers, Kaishan and Ayurbarwada. Each side had its own set of advantages. Prince Ananda's backers, for instance, could claim that the boy was the son of Janjin's younger brother, Prince Mangala, making him a generation senior to Kaishan and Ayurbarwada. As for Empress Bulakan herself, it was a long-standing and well-accepted tradition for a Khatun to rule during a regency. That initially strong-seeming claim, however, lost much of its luster in the eyes of many upon closer inspection.

Yes, said the partisans of the other side, Ananda may well be Temur's cousin and a senior generation, but he is of a collateral line of the family. He's not of Prince Zhenjin's house, and is therefore ineligible for the throne. Kaishan and Ayurbarwada, however, were Zhenjin's grandsons by the Prince Dharmabala, and thereby direct successors. Also, Ananda was a pious Muslim, which was a definite mark against him amongst the imperial Borjigins at Dadu, who were of a decidedly Buddhist bent. Moreover, rather than being some kid, the two brothers each held impressive resumes in their own respective rites. Kaishan, the elder brother, was a notable war hero of the steppe, who commanded

no less than the most powerful army in the empire, and had fought successfully against Kaidu Khan and his allies before peace had been reached under Timur. Ayyubarwada, on the other hand, was seen as a paragon of Confucian virtue across the realm, which made him exceptionally popular among the wider Chinese populace of Yuan. Frustratingly, at the time of Timur's death, both of the princely brothers were well away from the capital, while Bulukan and Ananda were, well, you know, right there. And as we've often seen, when it comes right down to it, a lot of times, just being the first butt to sit on the throne can be the deciding factor in a successional struggle such as this.

As such, it came down to the machinations of an inside agent, the Grand Counselor of the Right, Hargasun. As the single most powerful figure in government, besides the ruling emperor himself, which right now there was none, Hargasson was able to effectively delay and defer any and every move Empress Bulacan made, such as refusing to countersign any of her orders, and locking away the imperial seals and treasuries, refusing to let anyone use them at all. All in all, generally grinding the government to a halt and denying the

would-be Empress Regent any ability to legitimize her claim through use of the throne's powers. All the while, he was sending letter after letter to the princely brothers, telling them to hurry up and get here already, since these delay tactics would only work for so long before a knife ended up in his back. It would be Ayyer Barwada who first arrived at the capital on April 4th, 1307, with a contingent of troops granted to him by none other than Counselor Hargasson. He and his legion stormed into the palace, killing outright the Grand Counselor of the Left, the chief supporter of Bulacan's faction, and taking both the Empress and the Boy Prince into custody. It was to be an imprisonment from which neither would emerge alive.

So, that was one burning question solved. But there yet remained another. You see, there were two brothers, but only one throne. Ayyabarwada held the advantage of occupying the capital itself, but he had just personally demonstrated how very tenuous that quote-unquote advantage could wind up being. Meanwhile, his elder brother, the 25-year-old Kaishan, once again commanded the most powerful military in the empire, in addition to being the senior family member and therefore the most obvious choice. Fortunately, this did not come to blows, but was instead arbitrated by the pair's mother, Targi, who brought them into a mutually

acceptable agreement. Ayurbarwada would dissolve his regency and give the throne to Kaishan voluntarily. Kaishan would then, in turn, declare Ayurbarwada to be his heir apparent, not disinheritable by the birth of a son. Ayurbarwada would then, in turn, solemnly swear that he would make Kaishan's son his own heir when the time came. So we'll all get our turn to sit on the big chair. Everybody wins. The subsequent enthronement of Kaishan as the third emperor of Great Yuan and the seventh nominal great Khan of the Mongols was performed two months later on June 21st at the summer capital of Chengdu, after Kaishan had at last arrived there from Mongolia at the

head of a 30,000-manned army. The ritual was performed with all the appropriate pomp and ceremony of a curl-tie of old, but Xiao notes that it was, quote, no more than a ritual performed after the event to provide the necessary aura of legitimacy to the forceful seizure of the throne by Kaishan's faction, end quote. Kaishan would reign as Kulug Khan, posthumously titled as Emperor Wuzong in Chinese, and for just three and a half years. In that brief period, however, he seems to have done his utmost to rule exactly 180 degrees counter to the reigns of his great-grandfather Kublai and his uncle Timur. A break with the

conservationist policies so stark that by 1310, even his own censors were openly questioning just what the heck he thought he was doing, and that make everything the opposite of how it was did not make for a great state policy. Still, his disdain for the Sinified stylings of his predecessors seems to have been a legitimately held conviction of his. Kaishan, you see, had grown up in a far more classically Mongolian environment than the Confucian born-and-raised Mongol elite of the Yuan. Xiao writes, Although for a short while he had shared with Ayurvarwara

the tutorship of the Confucian scholar Li Meng, he apparently was little affected by Confucian culture. He spent all of his early adulthood as the supreme commander of the Yuan armed forces in the steppe and had always engaged in field action. Kaishan exemplified the typical impetuosity and simplicity of a nomadic warrior and was impatient with the bureaucratic rules and administrative precedents so painstakingly instituted by his great-grandfather. Put quite simply, he just didn't trust Confucians, the Chinese, or any of his fellow Mongols who had taken up their non-Mongol ways. He viewed them as weak, soft, and infuriatingly formal. A mere two months after his enthronement, in fact, he outright dismissed Hargisun from his post as Grand Counselor of the Right,

in spite of the critical role that he had played in securing the new Khan for his very throne. From there on out, and for the rest of his brief reign, Kaishan would listen to only his trusted retainers that he'd brought with him from Mongolia. As for the delicate balance of officials, titles, and positions within the court, Kaishan seems to have neither well understood nor much cared about what they were supposed to, you know, do. Instead, he handed political offices and titles to his friends and supporters like they were party favors. In 1307, for instance, he created no fewer than 19 of his Mongol favorites as imperial princes, 14 of whom were enfeefed as Idza Wang, or princes of the first rank. And never mind that long-standing, though unwritten

rule that only the sons of a great Khan could be made princes of the first rank. What did Kaishan care? He was the great Khan now. It was his rules that mattered. As such, of the 14 newly minted princes that year, only two were sons of a Khayan. He was no less spin-thrift with the other ranks as well. The same censor who rebuked Kaishan's policy of doing the opposite of whatever Kublai did, his name was Zhang Yanghao, wrote bitterly that actors, butchers, and even monks were being given ministerial and secretarial titles, and artisans, that long-standing Mongol favored class, were being indiscriminately promoted to dukes and

even imperial counselors. Though this sounds a lot like some of the exaggerations that one might find from embittered writers, it's actually confirmed to have been the case by corroborating sources and accounts. What this swelling of the imperial court, with functionless, arbitrary, supernumeral ministers meant, of course, was that the throne was obliged to pay them to do nothing. And as we've pointed out time and again, and as we will definitely continue to do, money was a bit of a problem for the Yuan dynasty overall. This only served to exacerbate things. In 1307, it was reported that the court had absolutely ballooned and now had 14 secretariat ministers and four chief censors. The following year, the Bureau of Military Affairs

reported that it had gone from having six chief officials to 32. This practice was further compounded by Kaishan just really not being that super interested in the actual job portion of his job. Instead, he appointed hundreds of his imperial guardsmen, the Kashyyyk, as quote-unquote court attendants, and then empowered them with sweeping authority to make decisions on his behalf while disregarding all the proper bureaucratic channels. This can be made to sound like a bold, straight shooter willing to cut through the needless red tape and get the job done, but in practice, it was quite the opposite. The court attendants, again, very well paid already, could use their broad authority to game the system in their own favor.

It was bluntly rank cronyism at its worst. But of course, it didn't end there. Kaishan's personal expenses were far larger than Temur's, as were his annual gifts to his fellow Mongol princes. Massive new construction projects, such as new Buddhist temples at the two capitals, as well as one on Mount Wutai, new residences for the court officials, and even a whole new imperial palace called Zhongdu, in between Dadu and Xiongdu, intended to serve as a stopover

residence for the annual journey between the summer and main capitals. All of these required vast sums of money, which was something the UN government was critically short on. A mere four months into his reign, the official monetary statement from the Secretariat reported back that while tax revenues had that year amounted to 4 million tails on paper, only 2.8 million had actually arrived into the imperial coffers. The other 1.2 million had just vanished, skimmed into various purses all along the way. In that same period, Kaishan's government had already been forced to spend more than 4.2 million tails, meaning right off the bat, he was running an effective deficit of more than 1 million tails million taels, meaning right off the bat, he was running an

effective deficit of more than 1 million taels of silver. And that was only four months in. Quote, the total government expenditure for the year 1307 was 10 million taels of paper notes and 3 million peacles of grain. End quote. And 3 million peacles works out to about 150 to 160 tons, depending on how you measure it. So, yeah, pretty bad. In an effort to combat this, Kaishan did the dumb thing and threw money at the problem, borrowing almost 11 million taels from the monetary reserves, as well as selling salt production licenses in order to try to make up the deficit.

Shockingly, the idea of pouring even more money into the already bottomless financial pit didn't solve the problem, but in fact made it worse. Weird, right? At last, with every other option exhausted, and even further past the economic event horizon than he started out, Kaishan tried his Hail Mary play. Now, you might think he could have tried, say, I don't know, firing all those extra officials who got paid for doing nothing, or maybe cutting back on those massive palace building projects. I mean, certainly his officials, pretty much to a man, were just about screaming at him to do yes, that, exactly that. But as per usual, Kaishan heard what his Confucian

officials said, took it to heart, and then resolved to do exactly the opposite. All his buddies would keep their cushy non-jobs, and the temples and palaces would be built to spec. Instead, Kaishan would do nearly the unthinkable. He would raise taxes. In order to get this done, the Great Khan resurrected the Department of State Affairs, dormant since even Kublai had realized that the people really super didn't like having a bunch of foreign Muslim coin counters relentlessly squeezing them for every last cash coin that they could.

Nevertheless, in 1309, it was time to bring the department roaring back to life. Central to the department's mandate to somehow stick a big enough bandaid on the severed financial artery of state, they did the whole monetary reform magic trick that finance ministers had already done twice before, which was out with the old paper money and end with new paper money that could only be converted at a terrible exchange rate, in this case, 1 to 5. All those old Zhongzhong and Ziyuan bills, well, now they're worthless. You gotta get those crisp new Jida Yinchou bills worth 20% of what you used to have saved. Well, actually, they were a 5 to 1 exchange rate from the Jida bills and the Jiayuan bills of 1287.

The Jiayuan bills had themselves been evaluated at a 5 to 1 exchange rate from the Zhongtong notes of 1260. So what that means is, yeah, if you'd been holding onto those original notes for the past 40 years, they were now worth about 4% of what they'd been initially. In 1310 alone, the year that these new Zhejiang bills were rolled out, the government issued 1.45 million taels of them, the equivalent of three and a half times more than any year prior in yuan history, the previous peak output having been 1302. And into the money pit it all got shoveled. Surely it would fill up soon if we just kept pouring more in. Stunningly, however, that didn't work, and instead made matters even worse in a textbook hyperinflationary style. Needless to say, it was an action foredoomed from the outset,

as we, looking back, are certainly well aware. Perhaps, therefore, it was for the best that Kaishan Khan did not live long enough to see the totality of his failure, because quite suddenly, on January 24th, 1311, the 31-year-old Great Khan died from causes unknown. Poisoning seems a likely option, as he had certainly done much to engender the hatred and suffering of just about everyone outside of his immediate clique of favorites, but it seems that if there was foul play,

the culprit was never caught. Another possibility, of course, is that Kaishan met the same fate as befell so many of the Bojging clansmen. He may have drank himself to death. In any event, there were very few tears shed for his passing. What followed Kaishan's death, of course, was the accession and enthronement of his younger brother, the now 26-year-old Iyer Barwada. His enthronement as Boyantu Kayan, the Blessed Khan, and Chinese temple name as Renzong, the Benevolent, was a truly singular and unique moment in the Yuan dynastic history. A truly peaceful and smooth transition from one emperor to his duly selected heir. Given the clear brotherly affection evident in the personal relationship and ability to rationally resolve their own potential successional dispute,

it's tempting to imagine that they must have been of similar mind when it came to policy decisions as sovereign. Little, however, could be further from the truth. Ayurbarwada, you'll recall, was every bit the yin to Kaishan's yang. He was a devout Confucian and believed deeply in the Chinese-based ethical and bureaucratic systems. As such, following his peaceful accession, he began his reign with a full reversal of his brother policies, back to policies

far more akin to Timur and Kublai. In addition, he initiated a brutal and bloody political purge of any and everyone in the imperial government that had aided or abetted Kaishan's disastrous three-year national nightmare. Only three days after his enthronement, on January 30th, 1311, the new-new Great Khan abolished the hated Department of State Affairs and had all five of its Samuren chief ministers arrested and then put to death. Those Jida paper bills that they'd been forcing everyone to exchange? Yeah, they're cancelled. The old Zhongtong and Jidio notes were fully reinstated at their old rates. All those extra officials? Yeah, they're cancelled. The old Zhongtong and Zhijiaoyuan notes were fully reinstated at their old rates. All those extra officials? Yeah, they're fired. The vast construction

projects? Halted in their tracks. Into these ministerial vacancies, Ayurveda appointed, of course, an overwhelming number of Confucians to the top-level positions, notably even including Han Chinese to important posts, including his old mentor, Li Meng. Thus, even early on in Iyer Berwada's rule, he quickly moved the needle of the Yuan state firmly back to the path of becoming more Chinese and Confucian in character. Probably the greatest step undertaken in that regard, however, was the revival of the Imperial Civil Service Examination for Imperial Officials, which had been formally abolished by Kublai at the formation of the Yuan since he wanted to select his own officials rather than via a formal testing process. Xiao writes, Confucian scholars had not before played an important role in the Yuan government,

mainly because their type of learning had never in the earlier reigns been regarded as an appropriate basis for bureaucratic recruitment. Although most of the high-ranking officials were filled in accordance with ascriptive criteria, through either hereditary or use of the yin privilege, that is, appointment to a lower office by virtue of one's father's nomination, most of the officials in the middle and lower ranks came into service by way of service as clerks. Consequently, most of the officials were not educated in Confucianism, nor were they Confucian in their political orientation. ranks came into service by way of service as clerks. Consequently, most of the officials were not educated in Confucianism, nor were they Confucian in their political orientation. Ayyubarwada, with his new gaggle of Confucian ministers no doubt guiding him along,

meant now to rectify that. Granted, it wasn't going to be an across-the-board change. For Mongols and Samu officials, the exam would be optional, but there would still be a benefit to taking it and passing. Successful candidates would be appointed to one grade higher than they would normally be eligible for. For the Chinese literati class, the examination was mandatory to be considered for political office, but was nevertheless a far more open door to career advancement than any of them had been offered since the beginning of the dynasty. The exam was successfully re-implemented beginning in 1313, and with a thoroughly Neo-Confucian bent of testing of understanding the four books and five classics, being sure of course to stipulate that it was to

be the progenitor of Neo-Confucianism himself, Zhu Xi's version, and commentaries, that would be the officially mandated testing version, as well as current affairs of state. Notably missing in this revived exam was the test of personal literary skill, as had been the case in the exams of the Song and Jin systems. Not only were the tests optional for Mongol and Simud candidates, but they were also shorter and easier. Moreover, there was implemented an equal representation system under a racial quota that provided 75 candidates of each of the four racial groups at every provincial level of government. And that does sound fair and nice, until one remembers that the Mongols and Simud combined

made up perhaps 1-2% of the empire's total population of somewhere between 60 million, which is the official Yuan census number, and 120 million, which was the combined populations of northern and southern China just prior to the Mongol conquest. As a brief aside here, we've got to understand that the Yuan-era census data is generally understood to be very defective, and China's true population at this time was likely closer to or exceeded 100 million. Since as violent as the Mongols were in their conquests, it's pretty unlikely that they managed to commit such a vast slaughter that the population was still half of that of 1220, even 90 years later. It seems far more likely that the census takers were just bad at

their jobs. Anyways, the point of the racial quotas was to be sure to not unduly upset the ruling classes or to make them feel as though their interests might be threatened by too many Chinese taking their government jobs. And it certainly never even remotely approached that level, and by design. Metropolitan exams, for instance, were restricted to just 100 successful candidates at a time, for a grand total in the remainder of the Yuan period of 1,139 successful Chinese candidates, or just over 4% of the total ranked civil officials in that same period. The privileges of the elite were therefore kept safely intact, while also just cracking the door open to some new native talent.

Xiao writes that, in spite of its limited nature, it Southern Chinese scholars especially benefited, as hitherto they had been largely excluded from the government under the Yuan. Moreover, the examination system encouraged the Mongols and the Semu, especially those who did not belong to elite families, to study Chinese thought, thus accelerating the sinicization of the alien conquerors. End quote. In all human history, there are few stories like that of ancient Egypt. On the banks of the Nile, these people created one of the most enduring and significant cultures. Their tale comes to life in the History of Egypt podcast. Every week, we explore the tales of this amazing culture, from the legendary days

of creation and the gods, all the way to Cleopatra, and everything in between. The History of Egypt Podcast is written and produced by a trained Egyptologist. We go much deeper than your average documentary or magazine article, to uncover tales of life, great endeavors, and the amazing arc of a mighty kingdom. The History of Egypt podcast is available on all podcasting platforms, apps, and websites. Come, visit ancient Egypt and experience a legendary culture. Another area in which Iyer Barwada's Confucian lifestyle shone through was in his commitment to record-keeping, and especially codification. Since its foundation under Kublai, the UN had never comprehensively codified its laws, likely owing to the understandable Mongol reluctance to be bound by a hard and fast set of rules in their own conquered kingdom

that could potentially be used to undercut their own power base. This has obviously caused no small amount of strain and anxiety amongst the Chinese officials, who were like, what do you mean there's no comprehensive set of laws about everything? It is true that in the final years of his reign, Kublai had ordered the formation of a partial codex of laws, the Zheyuan Xin Ge, or the Zheyuan-era New Statutes. But again, that was only partial, and dealt primarily with non-criminal matters. Iyer Barwada, however, set his government to work straight away in rectifying that defect in his government, directing the secretariat to begin systematizing all of the various laws, proclamations, and regulations that had been enacted since Kublai's reign into a single legal code.

The initial stage of collecting and editing the statues was a laborious process, taking more than five years to complete in 1316. Yet the second phase of the process, that is, reviewing the Codex for Errors, Omissions, etc., would wind up taking even longer. Ira Barwada would not even live to see the product of his own order to systematize the Yuan's laws, as its final draft, the Dayuan Tongzha, or Comprehensive Institutions of Great Yuan, was published in 1323, more than two years after the emperor's death. It still wasn't a total statutory code on the order of, say, the Justinian Code or the legal codes of Song and Jin, which had, after all, been the de facto law of the land for many decisions within Yuan until the Dayuan Tangzhi, but it was still notable for demonstrating the maturing sophistication of the conquest dynasty

attempting to systematize its laws in accordance with its own particular and evolving sense of justice, rather than just some combination of old statutes from the previous regime combined with ad hoc imperial orders. Ayurvarwada's commitment to the Confucianization of the Yuan Empire is further evidenced by his support of translating notable Chinese books and literary works into Mongolian. These included the Confucian classics, the Book of History, and the Book of Filial Piety. The Song era extended meaning of great learnings, and quite a few works that show the Yuan Emperor's fascination with the last truly great era of the Chinese Imperium, the Tang Dynasty. Not one, but two works on the greatness of the reign of Tang Taizong were translated,

as well as the Tang era Essentials of Government of the Zhenguan period, again, Taizong's period, and Taizong's own Please Don't Mess Us Up guidebook to his own son and heir, the Di Fan, or Plan for an Emperor. Other notable translations were the great Zhizhi Tongjian by Sima Guang, the Oxiang's Biographies of Women, Tang-era Studies of the Spring and Autumn Annals, as well as a newly published work, the Nongseongjiyao, or the Essentials of Agriculture and Ciriculture, an important work to make accessible, especially to the wider Mongolian public, so as for them to better understand the ins and outs of this newfangled farming stuff. It is clear that Ayyubarwada took his duty as the son of heaven

seriously, and wished in that very vein to advance the sinicization of the Mongol and Simu ruling class in a particularly Confucian manner, while also extensively studying the rule of the greatest of all time, the Ubermensch himself, Emperor Tang Taizong. In spite of Ayurvada's grand ambitions to turn Yuan into a reborn Tang empire, his lofty ideas didn't get very far before they hit a brick wall. And that brick wall was the entrenched aristocratic privileges of the Mongol elites and the princes of the blood. As you'll recall, it was by a tradition older than the Yuan itself, dating back to the great primogeniture Genghis Khan himself, that Mongol princes were afforded their own appanage manorial estates, within which there were virtually great kaiyans unto themselves, able to effectively ignore any attempt at reform or legal statute

that didn't suit them, while absolutely expecting to be paid annual gifts from the central government. To call the prospect of challenging this system a touchy subject is to vastly understate the issue, to the point that even Kublai had mostly left well enough alone on that front. Xiao writes, Further reduction of the prince's powers was politically hazardous, for it would have entailed a frontal challenge to one of the most fundamental principles of the Mongol-Yuan Empire. It was the well-understood third rail of 14th century dynastic politics. You touch it, and you die. And yet, Ira Barwada would just go ahead and give it a little test poke anyways. In the winter of 1311,

he ordered the abolition of the jargachi, which were essentially the prince's own private judges who oversaw crime and punishment within their fiefdoms. The emperor ordered that from there on out, all Mongolian violators of imperial law would be subject to the jurisdiction of the imperial battalion system to which they legally belonged. This, therefore, seemed to be stripping the princes of their ability to have direct jurisdiction over the Mongols under them. And the grumbling in Mongolian increased. In 1315, the emperor, urged by his grand counselor of the right, a man named Temeter, who we'll get back to in a minute, ordered that the prince's right to appoint their own

Daragachi overseers was to be taken over by the official central office of the imperial secretariat. Atwood gives us some more general information on the role of the Daragachi in the Yuan dynasty. Beginning as a general term for any sort of boss or chief, the role of the Darugachi expanded and mutated within each of the Khanates in the Great Mongol Nation, in accordance with the particular governmental and social stylings of the native population. In the Persian Ilkhanate, for instance, they served as auditor generals and field commanders, and in the Golden Horde, they oversaw the sedentary and metropolitan areas of the native Rus princes. In Great Yuan, the office of the Daragachi was, from Atwood, quote, transformed into a type of local official.

In each district, the magistrate, the assistant, and a clerk would discuss all business with the Daragachi, who controlled the seal that made any document valid. Daragachis were supposed to serve for only 30 months and be Mongols or Semurans, while the officials were ethnic Chinese. In fact, however, tenure was often for much longer, and the rules on ethnicity were frequently subverted. The princes would initially be left to appoint deputy Daragachi, but this was once again widely seen as a naked power grab at what they viewed as their incontrovertible rights and powers within their own lands. A feeling which was affirmed less than a year later when even the deputy Daragachi was snatched away into the secretariat's purview. This time, the grumblings turned into outright protestations that this administration had broken the covenant set up

by Genghis Khan with his brothers and sons, as well as the more formalized system set forth by Kublai, and they were precedentially very much in the right. In the face of such accusations, even the great Khan and emperor and his powerful secretariat were forced to back down and rescind the laws in 1317, or else risk open rebellion by his own princes. Having already rubbed salt into their faces with this Daragati situation, Ayurbarwada was in little position to do much about the princely gifts that he had to pay out annually, and seemed to understand that well enough to not really even try. They would stay at roughly the same rate as that of his late brother, Kaishan.

This was at least somewhat offset by the fact that, as a rigorous disciple of Confucianism, Emperor Ayurbarwada was committed to a scaling back of excess governmental spending, as we've seen. On the flip side of that same Confucian coin, however, was that he was likewise committed to reducing the suffering of the people by cutting taxes to be as low as possible, which meant that, in terms of revenue, he was cutting expenses by a little, but income by even more. As such, the fiscal situation only continued to worsen. Here, Grand Counselor Temeter would step in once again in 1314, and implement a new set of policies aimed at generating more state revenue while at least nominally not raising new taxes. Temeter was in fact the favorite and protege of the Empress

Dowager, Ayurvadas and Kaishan's mother, Targi, which made Temeter was in fact the favorite and protege of the Empress Dowager, Ayurbarwada's and Kaishan's mother, Targi, which made Temeter effectively impossible for even the emperor to control. In this instance, his most important contribution to the raising of state revenues was the renewal of the Jingli Land Resurveying Program. First proposed during Kublai's administration, it would have the landowners of several key regions resubmit the size of their holdings in order to discover land holdings that had been fraudulently omitted from previous surveys. Property owners would be required to submit their report within 40 days,

with severe punishments if they were found to be under-reporting yet again. The thought was, therefore, that all the previously undocumented lands that this new survey would turn up could then be taxed, thereby simultaneously expanding governmental cash flow while also making the system as a whole more equitable. After all, only the people who'd been cheating in the previous systems and had been paying way less taxes than they should have been would be negatively affected now. Who could complain? Xiao writes, quote, Indeed, in the former Song territories, rich landowners often did not pay taxes on their estates, but the poor still had to pay taxes even on land that they had already sold, end quote.

Yet, when this system, which looked great on paper, was actually put into practice, local officials proved to be either largely so overzealous or so corrupt that matters only got worse for the little guy. This, of course, had never happened before ever in Chinese history, and, you know, never would again. It was entirely unforeseeable and a complete and total shocker, you know, just like every single other time. Insert eye roll here. As a result of this official bungling, by the fall of 1315, a serious revolt had broken out in Jiangxi province, with its leader proclaiming himself the King of Tai. It was swiftly put down, as was another within two months, but still, it forced the central government to recognize that, however spiffy their little reform project

had seemed in blueprint, it just needed to be scrapped entirely. Heck, they even cancelled and then refunded the taxes on the lands that had been voluntarily declared already. Grand Counselor Temeter, though of distinguished Mongol nobility himself, owed his rank, position, and scope of power, more than any other of his qualities, to the patronage and protection of the Empress Dowager. He had come into Empress Targi's favor during the brief reign of Kaishan, and for the rest of his career and life would use that as a trump card against any and all opponents. It was in fact Targi who appointed Tamir as Grand Counselor in 1311, just two months before Ayurvarwada's formal enthronement, and perhaps even directly against

the soon-to-be Great Khan's wishes. After being transferred briefly from the Secretariat Department in 1313, he was triumphantly returned to office the following year, and at that point even more secure in his position than he had been before, he became even more corrupt and despotic as per the accounts of the Book of Yuan, quote, promoting and demoting officials according to his whims, end quote. As is typical in such situations, Temeter's capriciousness set many against him in an opposing court faction. Their building resentment reached its apex in the summer of 1317, when more than two score of his political enemies simultaneously impeached the Grand Counselor on charges of corruption,

extortion, tyrannical behavior, and inciting factionalism. They had made their case airtight, such that neither Temeter nor his patron the Empress Dowager could shake the charges, and he was placed under arrest. Yet that didn't mean that Empress Targi's protection held for nothing. By her actions, she managed to have his punishment reduced to merely losing his office and being dismissed from court. Even that wouldn't last very long. Less than two years later, he had, again with Targi's help, found his way back into power, and in perhaps an even more opportune position than even Grand Counselor. He was appointed this time to the office of Taizatai-she, or the Grand Preceptor of the Ere Parent, the now 17-year-old Crown Prince Shidabala. When Abeveyev knew, but very

similar charges were once again raised against him by his enemies, this time Empress Targi's sway carried the day, and they were dismissed, with several of the accusers being publicly flogged, and many others forced into exile and retirement. Thus, though no one knew it yet, for what would be the last six months of Emperor Ayurveda's life, Temüter's hold on the UN government was supreme. The faction that backed Temüter, apart from the Empress Dowager herself, that is, was not ideologically motivated per se. Instead, they were to a man, Mongol and Semu nobility, of the old guard, whose primary aim was to maintain the status quo and their own position of power and prestige within it. It stands to reason, then, that they would find themselves aligned against

the Confucian-Reformationist ideals and policies of the emperor. Against this, Ira Barwada proved particularly weak on two key fronts. First was the fact that Tamir's patron was no less than his own mother, and his deeply Confucian leanings meant that even when his own strength of office lay in the balance, he was loath to speak or act against her, or otherwise seem filially impious. The second was that, as a reformer himself, seeking to push the court into a more overtly Chinese-centric direction, he naturally received significant pushback from the conservative elements of his own people. Xiao writes, The policy threatened to undermine the traditional political and economic privileges of the imperial princes and the Mongolian and Samu officials.

There just wasn't much support to be found among any group that actually mattered. As such, in spite of his great desires to remake the Yuan Empire in his Confucian image, in this and in many other of his endeavors, Ayurbarwada would prove far more of a failure than a success. Iyer Barwada's personal name, based on Sanskrit, meant Mountain of Longevity. As such, it's more than a little ironic that, much like his elder brother Haishan, he would drop dead at a startlingly young age, only 34, on the first day of March, 1320, and much like his brother, for unexplained reasons. He had reigned, idealistically, though mostly ineffectively, for one month shy of nine years. In one final little twist of irony, Ira Barwata, the paragon of Confucian virtue and

filial piety, had decided to renege on his deal with his pre-deceased brother. You remember their little deal at the beginning of the episode, in 1304, where Ayyubarwada had ceded the throne to Kaishan, who made him his heir in turn, but on the condition that the younger brother make Kaishan's son heir after him? Well, with Kaishan dead and buried and all that, that promise suddenly seemed a little bit less pressing. As such, in 1316, he'd gone ahead and named his own son, Prince Shidabala, as his heir. And that brings us to the final portion of today's episode, yet another of the first, last, and onlys of the Yuan Dynasty, the accession and brief reign of the 18-year-old Crown Prince Shidabala as Gegeen Khan, Emperor Yingzong, the brave, beginning on April

19th, 1320. This would mark the one and only time in the Yuan dynasty's imperial succession that it would be both peaceful and according to the Chinese principle of primogeniture, i.e. the eldest son inheriting the throne from his father. At his right hand, once again where he certainly felt he well and truly belonged, was the once more grand counselor Tamudur. And behind the throne, in a silken shade, still sat the now grand Empress Tawajar, Targi. In order to ensure that his son's succession would go unchallenged, Ayurvara had wisely promoted the eldest son of Kaishan, his nephew Kosala,

as the Prince of Zhou, and then sent him on his merry way far, far away from the capital as of 1315. Shidabala, in the meantime, was declared the crown prince and given all the associated titles, honors, and promotions to office that one would expect necessary to ensure that he understood the reins of government when, you know, the time came. As such, when it did, four years later, there were no dissenting voices in court. That did not mean, however, that Shidabala's reign would enjoy such harmonious unanimity. Not by any stretch of the imagination. With Grand Preceptor Temeter now promoted by Targi's hand to Grand Counselor for the third time, he enjoyed even more power over the youthful monarch than he had over even his father before him. Again, from Xiao, quote,

In order to root out any lingering opposition to his supremacy, Tamir instituted a reign of terror, fabricating charges against his political enemies, real and perceived alike, and executing many of them, and demoting or exiling many more. With startling swiftness, the thrice-over Grand Counselor became far more of a dictator than a servant of the throne. The young Gagin Khan, however, did not merely sit with his hands folded while his chief minister terrorized the court. A devotee of Confucian thought as well, much like his father before him. Shidabala, quote, showed a political independence and resolution beyond his years,

end quote. He defied his grandmother Targi when it suited him, even before his accession to the throne, apparently inciting such rage in the Empress Dowager that at one point she bellowed, we should not have raised this boy. As such, very much in not only contravention of his grandmother's and grand counselor's wills, in the summer of 1320, Shidabala unilaterally promoted his personal favorite, the 22-year-old Baiju, as a grand counselor of the left, in direct opposition to Temudur, who was Counselor of the Right. This was something of a masterstroke, as Baiju, young though he was, was of such an illustrious Mongolian background and heritage that his presence could not but bring many of

the old guard Mongol aristocracy over to his side. Baiju was the descendant of one of the near-demigods among the Mongolian pantheon, Mukhali. Mukhali had been one of Genghis Khan's trusted nokhur, the companions and inviolable paladins of that first and greatest Mongol court. Moreover, he was also the son of Antong, the historically popular Confucian stalwart and ground counselor of Kublai, who had famously opposed the extortionary practices of the hated Semu finance ministers of that era. In short, his breeding was impeccable. At least as important, he was himself of unimpeachable character and education. Having received a top-notch Confucian education, he'd gone on to become the Commissioner for

Ritual Observances as of the year 1315, and was highly regarded among the Confucian literati. Thus, the Kayan and Baiju formed a young and vigorous team able to circumscribe Tamir's influences in various ways and protect Confucian scholar-officials from Tamir's persecution. This butting of heads would not need terribly long to reach a climax. Only two months after Shidabala's coronation, a conspiracy was alleged that some, claimed to be partisans and favorites

of both Tamadar and Targi, were planning to dethrone him in favor of his younger brother, Prince Udus Bukha. Initially unsure of just how exactly to respond, Shidabala turned to Grand Counselor Baiju. The young minister urged his emperor to take swift and decisive action against this burgeoning plot against his position and life, and to execute all of the accused before his grandmother or right counselor could intervene. This was done, though Temeter himself managed to not only escape any official sanction, but was actually granted a portion of the executed conspirator's property in the aftermath. Time, however, seemed to be very much on the young Kayan's side. Both Temeter and Empress Targi's health were rapidly declining in their advanced age, at which point Shidabala could rightly claim that more of their duties, responsibilities,

and powers' needs must be re-delegated to a younger and far more vibrant figure, one like Baiju, you know, for the good of the realm. The pair of plotters went swiftly into their respective graves at that point. Tamadar was first, succumbing to death in October of 1322, and the Grand Empress Dowager Targi following just one month later. In the half year to follow, Shidabala and Baiju did their best to thoroughly scour the court of their lingering supporters and partisans. Emperor Shidabala was, for the first time in his young life, his own man and completely free of his grandmother's influence. Confucianism

would be the unquestioned moral and governing principle of the realm, and Buddhism, to which Shidabala was a devout adherent, would be its favored religion. Between the youthful and energetic Kayon and his newly promoted Grand Counsel of the Right, Baiju, it seemed that the Yuan Empire was at last ripe for another long and successful reign. Unfortunately, in spite of their expunging of the late Temeter and Targi's influence from the imperial court, traces yet remained, and shortly they would prove to be Shidabala's downfall. On September 4th, 1323, the Great Khan and his party had set out from the summer capital of Shangdu back to the main capital of Dadu. Some 15 kilometers south of Shangdu, at a place called Nanpo, the imperial party had encamped for the evening. As the company slept, the censor-in-chief

Tengshi and the Asud Guard Corps, under his command, stormed into the camp and slaughtered both Baiju and Emperor Shidabala as they slept. They had hardly acted alone. Other named conspirators against the Khan's life were the manager of the Bureau of State Affairs, the commissioner of the Grand Agricultural Administration, an ex-manager of the Secretariat, as well as five Borjigin Princes of the Blood. The assassins, still slick with imperial blood, rushed back to Dadu and seized control of the government, and then sent out fast riders to Mongolia to inform the Prince of Jin, Yesun Timur, of their actions and to invite him to come at once and claim the throne.

The reasons for this bloody conspiracy were various, of course, but they centered around a single overriding dissatisfaction. The Kayans continued push to reform the government into a more Confucian Chinese direction. This is evident enough among the ministers, who were all, or almost all, residual partisans of Tamir's Mongol old guard clique, but probably even more evident in the five imperial princes who conspired against Shidabala. Quote, the princes as a group seemed to have had ample reason for resenting Shidabala Kayan. Twice in the short reign, he had cancelled their annual grants to the princes because of financial stringency, an act unprecedented in the history of the dynasty. Moreover, in order to increase imperial authority, Shidabala seems to have been

stricter than his predecessors when enthifing princes and to have attempted to discipline them more stringently. He had carried out these actions in disregard of the traditional privileges of the imperial clansmen, thereby prompting them to revolt. In other words, whereas his father had only gently poked the third rail of Mongolian politics and been sufficiently jolted back, Shidabala, in his youthful naivete and impetuosity, had gripped that third rail two-handed, with predictably deadly results. And so, next time, Prince Yesun Temur, the eldest son of the eldest son of Crown Prince Zhenjin, would arrive from his posting in sacred Mongolia to Shangdu in early October of 1323 to take up the mantle of both Emperor of China and Khayyam of Mongolia, as the Nine Iron Khan. Thanks for listening.

The Civil War and Reconstruction was a pivotal era in American history. When a war was fought to save the Union and to free the slaves. And when the work to rebuild the nation after that war was over turned into a struggle to guarantee liberty and justice for all Americans. I'm Tracy. And I'm Rich. And we want to invite you to join us as we take an in-depth look at this pivotal era in American history.

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