Original subtitles

After Khubilai Khan’s death in 1294, his\h successors ruled over the most powerful\h\h

kingdom on earth, the Yuan Dynasty. A little over\h 70 years later the Dynasty was pushed from China,\h\h

their rulers a shadow of the men Chinggis,\h Möngke, and Khubilai had been. Today,\h\h

we take you through the combined\h economic, environmental and political,\h\h

and military factors that led to the Mongols\h losing the Mandate of Heaven, and China itself.

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By the time of Khubilai Khan’s death in 1294,\h\h

he had outlived his designated heir, passing it\h instead onto his drunken grandson Temür Öljeitü.\h\h

In the almost 40 years from Khubilai’s death\h to the ascension of Toghon Temür Khan in 1333,\h\h

nine khans were enthroned: of them, only Temür\h Öljeitü reigned over a decade. Rampant alcoholism\h\h

and assassinations meant few khans lived past 35.\h Temür Öljeitü attempted to continue the policies\h\h

of his grandfather, but within a year the treasury\h was nearly empty, almost totally spent in lavish\h\h

gifts for the princes after his enthronement. He\h learned too of the intense corruption of the Yuan\h\h

court. The quota for court and capital officials\h was set at 2,600 persons. In the first year of\h\h

Temür Öljeitü’s reign, it was found to be over\h 10,000. A 1303 investigation led to some 18,000\h\h

clerks and officials being charged with bribery.\h In typical fashion, Temür Öljeitü lacked the\h\h

commitment to push through with charges, and\h most of the accused maintained their posts.\h

While it has been common to attest the Yuan\h Dynasty’s economic failings to corruption and\h\h

lavish gift-giving—of which there was no shortage\h of— recent studies have highlighted a greater\h\h

struggle. The fourteenth century was the start\h of the Little Ice Age, a global climatic shift\h\h

towards generally cooler and wetter temperatures.\h These strongly affected the Asian monsoon season,\h\h

which in the fourteenth century manifested into\h a general trend of intense colds and snowfall in\h\h

the Eurasian steppe, droughts in north China and\h unending rains and typhoons in southern China.\h\h

These began to be felt in the very first years of\h Temür Öljeitü’s reign. In 1295, typhoons struck\h\h

the Yangzi River delta; the Yellow River broke\h its banks in multiple places and caused repeated\h\h

flooding; and a dry spell from the previous years\h resulted in plagues of locusts that eradicated\h\h

crops and continued for the rest of the decade. In\h Mongolia, harsher winters starved herds and forced\h\h

thousands south to seek support from the Khaan. These ecological problems directly tied to the\h\h

Yuan’s economic woes. Khubilai continued the\h Song policy of huang zheng, government-provided\h\h

disaster relief in the form of cash, grain,\h rice, animals and other supplies. It fit well\h\h

into Khubilai’s efforts at reconstruction and\h relieving the burdens of the lower classes.\h\h

None of Khubilai’s heirs dared repeal such a\h law, for it was a basis of Yuan legitimacy.\h\h

However, in a century of unprecedented climatic\h disasters over a vast geographic area, this was an\h\h

impossible burden. The detailed Chinese records\h and the Yuanshi reveal a dynasty facing yearly\h\h

crises. From 1272 until 1357, there was a major\h famine somewhere in China almost every other year;\h\h

over 56 earthquakes were recorded;\h super typhoons on the southern coast\h\h

coincided with super snowstorms in the steppe.\h Exceptionally cold winters and unexpected frosts\h\h

meant certain crops could no longer be grown in\h the north. The densely populated Yangzi River\h\h

Delta, home to one of the most economically and\h agriculturally vital areas of the empire, suffered\h\h

annual droughts, flooding, epidemics, starvation,\h and typhoons which destroyed towns and farmland,\h\h

causing thousands more to die in the ensuing\h famines. In 1301 alone, a spring drought in\h\h

the Yangzi Delta was followed by a massive\h typhoon; arable farmland was destroyed for\h\h

50 kilometers along the coastline, and a 40 meter\h high wave pushed 280 kilometres inland. 17,000\h\h

were killed during the storm, and 100,000 starved\h in the aftermath. Only a month later flooding\h\h

displaced people in Manchuria; a freak August\h snowstorm killed herds in Mongolia in Mongolia;\h\h

the imperial capital of Dadu was flooded; and a\h locust plague struck Hebei province. Survivors\h\h

needed government relief. Grain and rice shortages\h caused the Yuan to cover costs only with cash,\h\h

and to provide more cash, more had to be printed,\h to the point it outstripped government revenues.\h\h

Inflation was the result, and Yuan paper money\h became ever more worthless over the 1300s.\h\h

With seemingly unending waves of natural\h calamities and an ever-more worthless currency,\h\h

it seemed the Yuan were losing the Mandate\h of Heaven, the right to rule China.\h

On Temür Öljeitü’s death in 1307 without surviving\h children, factions formed around his nephews.\h\h

His nephew Qaishan was a man of the steppe with\h no love or understanding of Chinese culture.\h\h

Hoping to rule like a nomad through his noyad\h - Mongol military elite, lavish gifts, princely\h\h

titles, and palaces were spent on his friends\h and allies. Four months into his reign, Qaishan\h\h

found he spent over a year’s worth of government\h revenue. In a panic, he spent the rest of his\h\h

reign trying to address this, increasing taxes\h and collecting debts cancelled by Temür Öljeitü.\h\h

A new currency was put into circulation,\h based on an exchange of 1:5 with the old.\h\h

The volume of currency printed in 1310 was 7 times\h higher than the three previous years, succeeding\h\h

only in furthering inflation. On his death, in\h 1311 he was succeeded by his brother Ayurburwada.\h\h

The new khan unleashed a violent purge of his\h brother’s officials, reversed his policies,\h\h

and abolished his currency. Ayurburwada wanted a\h more traditionally Chinese-Confucian government,\h\h

and reinstated the civil service examination\h system to choose officials. He promoted the\h\h

translation of Chinese classics in Mongolian, and\h began the codification of the Yuan legal system.\h

Such was the ongoing back and forth with each\h new khan, with the top layer of government\h\h

usually suffering a bloody overhaul and total\h reversal of policies with each succession.\h\h

Ayurburwada died in 1320, aged only 35: his\h son and successor, Shidebala spent most of\h\h

his reign battling Ayurburwada’s powerful\h mother, only to be assassinated in 1323.\h\h

His successor, his cousin Yesün-Temür, was likely\h involved in the plot, and after only five years on\h\h

the throne died in 1328 of illness, also only\h 35. Yesün-Temür’s eight-year-old son Ragibagh\h\h

was enthroned at Shangdu on the efforts of\h Yesün-Temür’s Chancellor, but the plan went awry\h\h

when the Central Capital at Dadu was seized by the\h head of the powerful Qipchaq Guard, El-Temür, who\h\h

placed Prince Tüq-Temür on the throne. El-Temür\h violently seized Shangdu, and young Ragibagh Khaan\h\h

disappeared in the chaos. Soon after, Tüq-Temür’s\h older brother Qoshila returned from his exile in\h\h

the Chagatai Khanate. In August 1329 they met\h in a warm reunion, Tüq-Temür recognizing his\h\h

brother’s overlordship. Four days later Qoshila\h was dead, and Tüq-Temür returned to the throne.\h

But Tüq-Temür did not enjoy power for\h his efforts, for El-Temür of the Qipchaq\h\h

and his ally Bayan of the Merkit held real\h power, reducing the Khaan to a figurehead.\h\h

The Khaan dedicated his reign to studying\h Chinese classics, practicing his calligraphy,\h\h

and suffering immense guilt over his\h brother’s murder. When he died in 1332,\h\h

he had declared his brother’s son Irinjibal\h as his heir in place of his own minor son.\h\h

An aging and ill El-Temür reluctantly agreed, and\h the six-year-old Irinjibal was duly enthroned as\h\h

Great Khan… only to die two months later. The\h court pressured El-Temür to recall Irinjibal’s\h\h

exiled older half-brother, Toghon Temür, though\h not before El-Temür married his daughter to him.\h

Toghon Temür was the longest-reigning\h Yuan sovereign after Khubilai,\h\h

ruling from 1333 until his death in 1370. At\h first he, like his predecessors, was a puppet.\h\h

On El-Temür’s death, his ally Bayan took his\h place. He desired restoration to an imagined\h\h

“good old days,” under Khubilai, and sought to\h enforce separations between Mongols and Chinese\h\h

which had blurred over previous decades. Chinese\h were banned from many government offices,\h\h

forbidden from learning Mongolian and\h other west Asian languages, the civil\h\h

service examinations cancelled, the general\h population disarmed and their horses confiscated.\h\h

Yet Bayan also wanted to make the government\h more efficient by cutting court expenditures,\h\h

and reducing stress on the empire’s population\h by decreasing the high fees on the salt monopoly,\h\h

encouraging agriculture, and improving and\h speeding up the government relief system.\h\h

All his efforts were, of course, signed off by\h young Toghon Temür, who lived in fear of him.\h

Bayan’s centralization of power, and willingness\h to respond to rumours of threats with great\h\h

violence, galvanized resistance to him,\h including by his own nephew, Toghto.\h\h

In spring 1340 Toghto and Toghon Temür\h exiled Bayan, who died a month later.\h\h

With him went the last of those who wanted\h to go back to the ‘old ways,’ succeeded by\h\h

those who recognized, and even celebrated,\h the sinicization of the Mongol dynasty.\h

The new generation of court leadership was\h symbolized by Toghto. Only 26 years old at Bayan’s\h\h

ouster, Toghto was well educated and raised to\h prominence by his uncle. Unlike Bayan, Toghto\h\h

had no misconceptions about restoring things to\h Khubilai’s time. To Toghto, Chinese culture and\h\h

Confucianism were to be appreciated. Believing all\h dynastic problems could be solved with a steady\h\h

hand and powerful government, Toghto sought\h to centralize and strengthen the Yuan with a\h\h

variety of reforms. His first period as chancellor\h saw the removal of the last of Bayan’s allies,\h\h

the restoration of the civil service examinations,\h greater incorporation of Confucian scholars into\h\h

government than ever before, and actual visibility\h to Toghon Temür Khaan. The Khaan finally gave\h\h

a decree denouncing his uncle Tüq-Temür for\h murdering Qoshila, and had Tüq-Temür’s surviving\h\h

son executed. Toghon Temür’s own son Ayushiridara\h was entrusted to Toghto to be raised and educated,\h\h

and Toghto put great energy into molding the\h boy into an ideal, Confucianized Mongol ruler.\h

Throughout this political upheaval,\h the environmental crises only worsened.\h\h

The flight of Mongols and other peoples\h of the northwest grew so bad that in 1323,\h\h

39% of the money printed was spent on\h trying to send the refugees back with aid,\h\h

before ultimately forbidding anyone from leaving\h Mongolia on pain of death. Intense flooding every\h\h

year of the 1320s annihilated croplands,\h and inflation only continued to rise, and\h\h

the population grew ever more agitated. Over Tüq\h Temür’s three year reign, 21 rebellions broke out.\h\h

No new revenues could be found\h to pay for these expenditures\h\h

while the costs of relief, war, the court, and\h corruption continued to soar alongside inflation.\h

While Chancellor Toghto imagined carrying\h out great works to dazzle his contemporaries,\h\h

his plans were cut short by the environment.\h This was a decade of annual earthquakes,\h\h

unseasonal snowstorms eradicating entire\h herds, severe flooding, widespread famine,\h\h

drought, and epidemic; including, in the opinion\h of some scholars, the start of the bubonic plague.\h\h

For the general population, the field\h of frustration finally began to bloom\h\h

into violent uprisings in the 1340s. In 1341,\h there were over 300 bandit uprisings across\h\h

central China, including the Red Turban\h Movement. So-called for their red headbands,\h\h

this was a number of loosely connected groups\h which espoused a radical Confucianism calling\h\h

for a drastic change of society through military\h means to return to an older, ‘purer’ China.\h

Toghto resigned his position in 1344,\h allowed his successor to take the blame,\h\h

then returned triumphant in 1349 when recalled\h by the court. As by then Toghon Temür Khaan\h\h

had grown bored of governing, Toghto was\h now the dominant figure of the Yuan realm.\h\h

Toghto ordered the printing of great sums of\h money to tackle his greatest scheme: forcing\h\h

back the Yellow River to once more enter the sea\h south of the Shandong peninsula. Back in 1344,\h\h

20 days of nonstop rain caused the River to break\h its banks and flood numerous districts and cities,\h\h

cutting off the Grand Canal and draining into\h the Huai River, which caused it to rise and\h\h

threaten the salt fields in Shandong and Hebei\h provinces. All before settling into a course\h\h

north of the Shandong Peninsula. The threat\h to the salt fields was a particular concern,\h\h

as the salt trade and its taxes provided\h six-tenths of Yuan yearly revenue, while the\h\h

Grand Canal needed to be kept open to transport\h rice and grain north to feed the capital of Dadu.\h

There was intense opposition to the\h project to reroute the Yellow River,\h\h

but Toghto forced the plan through. Printing\h 2 million ingots worth of a new currency to\h\h

pay for it, from May to December 1351, 150,000\h labourers, and 20,000 soldiers dug a 140-kilometer\h\h

long channel to successfully reroute the\h river. Once more the Grand Canal was fed,\h\h

the salt fields were protected and the Yellow\h River exited into the sea south of Shandong.\h

Toghto’s project was designed to protect the\h producers and economy of the Yuan Dynasty,\h\h

but it accidentally sparked off its ultimate\h collapse. The large gathering of workers,\h\h

hungry and weak from years of famine, punished by\h cruel overseers trying to meet a strict timetable,\h\h

and paid in money only a little above\h worthless, was fertile soil for the Red Turbans.\h\h

Even as work continued on the canal, a massive\h revolt erupted in the Huai River valley.\h\h

The Yuan were taken by surprise, and a\h number of cities fell in quick succession,\h\h

with few city walls having been\h rebuilt after the initial conquest.\h\h

In the first engagements, the government forces\h were poorly prepared and beaten back, including an\h\h

army commanded by Toghto’s brother. These were not\h the highly mobile horse archers of the conquest\h\h

but generally, local Chinese militias\h commanded by Mongols and Central Asians.\h

But Chancellor Toghto was custom-made for this\h emergency. He immediately organized the defense,\h\h

raised new armies, and conscripted militias. New\h training and command structures were implemented.\h\h

He knew he had to tread carefully, lest mismanaged\h and underpaid troops join in the revolts. In a\h\h

dizzying juggling effort, Toghto constantly\h shuffled larger military units, transferring\h\h

and reappointing commanders around the empire to\h prevent them from forming alternate powerbases.\h\h

The Yellow Army, mostly Chinese volunteers under\h Mongol and Turkic commanders in yellow uniforms,\h\h

became Toghto’s “nationwide\h apparatus of pacification,”\h\h

as termed by historian John Dardess. Leading\h the most important campaigns himself,\h\h

Toghto began to halt, then push back, and finally\h overrun the rebellion. By the end of 1352,\h\h

Toghto had brought the Huai\h River valley back under control.\h\h

Methodically, they retook cities and by the end\h of 1354, Toghto was about to crush the final\h\h

major figure of a largely broken movement, Zhang\h Shicheng, now isolated in his capital at Gao-Yu.\h

And at the last moment, Toghon Temür Khaan\h snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.\h\h

For unclear reasons, the Khaan ordered Toghto\h dismissed at the start of 1355. A short-sighted\h\h

and inept monarch, perhaps fearful of Toghto’s\h growing might, yet at the same time unable to\h\h

replace him, Toghon Temür ensured that Toghto’s\h carefully balanced military machine collapsed\h\h

instantly, much of the army deserting, and the\h Red Turban rebellion exploded with new vigour.\h\h

Toghto, a loyal servant to the end, accepted his\h dismissal and was assassinated the following year.\h\h

Toghon Temür sat almost idle as the Red Turban\h warlords fought for the right to succeed the Yuan;\h\h

after the battle of Lake\h Poyang, this was Zhu Yuanzhang,\h\h

who soon declared the Ming Dynasty. Toghon Temür\h had little power over his remaining commanders,\h\h

who fought each other as much as the Red Turbans.\h By the end of the summer of 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang,\h\h

now enthroned as the Hongwu Emperor, sent his\h trusted general Xu Da to take Dadu. Toghon\h\h

Temür and his heir Ayushiridara fled to Mongolia\h only days before the arrival of the Ming armies,\h\h

and on the 20th of September, 1368, Dadu came into\h Chinese rule for the first time in over 400 years.\h\h

The Hongwu Emperor renamed the city to Beiping,\h meaning ‘pacified north.’ In time the city\h\h

became the capital of the Ming Dynasty and was\h renamed to Beijing, the name it holds today.\h

Aside from a few Yuan loyalists who held out\h for another twenty odd years, Mongol rule in\h\h

China ended in 1368. The Yuan Dynasty, contrary\h to common depictions, had responded vigorously\h\h

to a dramatic climatic emergency, but could not\h overcome such a massive crisis. Few states though,\h\h

could have survived such a threat while\h simultaneously suffering rampant political and\h\h

economic turmoil that was continually compounded\h by the environmental crisis. In this respect,\h\h

it remains impressive that the successors of\h Khubilai Khaan last even 70 years. More videos\h\h

on Mongol history are on the way, so make sure you\h are subscribed and have pressed the bell button to\h\h

see it. Please, consider liking, commenting, and\h sharing - it helps immensely. Our videos would be\h\h

impossible without our kind patrons and youtube\h channel members, whose ranks you can join via the\h\h

links in the description to know our schedule, get\h early access to our videos, access our discord,\h\h

and much more. This is the Kings and Generals\h channel, and we will catch you on the next one.