Monarch Profile: Yesun Temur Khan of Mongolia

The great Mongol emperors who ruled after Kublai Khan are often divided by historians into two groups; those who governed more in keeping with Chinese traditions and those who governed as more traditional Mongol conquerors. As all were Mongols, that influence was a constant but among them all, Yesun Temur Khan is usually regard as the farthest removed from any sort of Chinese influence at all. He was born in Outer Mongolia in 1293, the son of Kammala, the firstborn son of Zhen Jin who was a son of the great Kublai Khan. Kammala was granted the prestigious title of “Jinong” with control over the Gobi Desert and the final resting place of Genghis Khan. For a time, it was thought he might be a contender for the throne of the Mongol Empire but was passed over. Nonetheless, he had a prestigious position and upon his death in 1302 his son Yesun Temur succeeded him as Jinong. Throughout the reigns of Kulug Khan, Ayurbarwada Khan and Gegeen Khan, Yesun Temur built up a powerful position for himself, became quite successful and with his powerful army was acknowledged by other Mongol princes as their representative on the steppes of the north, particularly those who held to the traditional Mongol ways.

His great chance came in 1323 when Shidebala Khan was assassinated by a group of Mongol princes whose tribute he had cut in what was a more Sino-style Confucian reign. Empress Dowager Targi had placed him on the throne (though she later came to regret it) because of his connections with the Khunggirad clan and Yesun Temur was welcomed to take the throne because his mother likewise belonged to the same clan and because he could be counted on to rule in a more traditionally Mongolian fashion, essentially jumping over the two previous reigns to that of Khaishan Khan. Some historians have since speculated that Yesun Temur was himself one of the conspirators in the assassination of Shidebala Khan, yet other evidence suggests that he had tried to warn the Emperor of the plot against him but was too late. In any event, he was looked to for leadership and on October 4, 1323 on the banks of the Kherlen River in Mongolia he was handed the badges of office, the imperial seal and thus became Yesun Temur Khan, tenth Great Khan of the Mongols and Emperor Taiding of the Great Yuan (as he was known in China). Two of those who had instigated the downfall of Shidebala Khan were accorded high rank immediately with the Grand Censor Tegshi becoming effectively the Minister of War and Esen Temur appointed Grand Councilor.

No doubt they felt highly pleased with themselves but that didn’t last long. Once Yesun Temur Khan was told what these men had done and that by appointing them to high office he would appear to have been complicit in their crimes, Yesun Temur immediately had them dismissed and executed for treason. With that action, those loyal to Shidebala recognized Yesun Temur as a fair leader they could trust and called on him, likewise, to take the throne and to punish those who had murdered his predecessor. This, Yesun Temur did, sending troops to Dadu and Shangdu where the rebellious officers were executed and the princes who had supported the coup were all sent into exile. Regardless of the justice of this, Yesun Temur equally had in mind that if he left these men alive they would see him as their own creature and attempt to control him and would likely murder him as well if he failed to please them. Traitors can never be trusted. The Chinese tried to persuade him to go even farther and massacre anyone connected with those who had brought down the last Great Khan but Yesun Temur refused to do this, regarding the guilty as sufficiently punished, granting an amnesty to the rest and even returning the property of the guilty men to their families.

Still, if the plotters had wanted a “more Mongolian” Mongol Emperor, that is certainly what they achieved in Yesun Temur Khan. He reigned in the traditional style of a Mongol chieftain from the steppes. In the official history of the Yuan Dynasty he is quoted as saying, “The Empire is a family of which the Emperor is the father” and that is how he tended to rule. Chinese officials were dismissed and he appointed new ministers from Mongolia, from the ranks of those he trusted and who had proven themselves loyal to him. He also reverted to the traditional Mongol practice of religious freedom and impartiality. Where Shidebala Khan had been influenced by the Buddhist Lamas to restrict Islam, Yesun Temur Khan stopped all persecutions and extended religious benefits (such as exemption from conscript labor) to Muslims and Christians. This did not mean these were rewarded and others were punished though as he also continued to support Confucian and Buddhist temples and, like most, still showed favor to the Lama-Buddhist community.

In his rule of the Mongol Empire, he favored those who he knew best, the other princes and nobles of the Mongolian steppes though, unlike some others, he preferred to live more simply and objected to the wasteful spending he witnessed at the imperial court. Peking (as it would later be known) was still a cosmopolitan place, despite the change in leadership styles and it is believed that Yesun Temur was the Great Khan met by the Catholic friar Blessed Odoric of Pordenone during his extensive travels in the Far East. During his reign, one of the important acts of Yesun Temur was the division of the Mongol Empire into eighteen departments whose oversight was placed in the hands of an advisory council called the “Lords of the Provinces”. However, Yesun Temur did not have a great interest in day-to-day administration and like most Mongol princes, tended to dislike bureaucrats. The “Exalted and Decisive Emperor” lived only to the age of 34. He died quite suddenly and unexpectedly on August 15, 1328 in Shangdu (Xanadu). He was succeeded by his son Tugh Temur but as he was overthrown barely a month later he is seldom listed amongst the Mongol emperors.

MM Video: The Great Yuan Empire

Monarch Profile: Shidebala Khan

Shidebala, Gegeen Khan, Emperor Yingzong of the Great Yuan, was the son and heir of Ayurbarwada Khan and his accession is the sole example of the throne of the Yuan passing peacefully from father to son throughout their reign. Ever since the Mongol conquest of China the throne had passed back and forth between those who favored adopting aspects of the Chinese civilization to solidify and maintain their empire and those who felt that success would only come by holding fast to their Mongol traditions which had brought them to power in the first place. As we have seen, Temur Khan was (slightly) more inclined to Chinese methods, Khaishan Khan ruled in nomadic Mongol style and Ayurbarwada had swung back the other way to heavily favor Chinese administrative policies. The reign of Shidebala was to see this division continue and tensions ran very high between the two factions, each convinced that their way was the only way that the Yuan Empire could be maintained. For Shidebala it would result in tragedy.

Shidebala was born on February 22, 1303 to Ayurbarwada Khan (Emperor Renzong to the Chinese) and his wife Radnashiri of the Khunggirad clan. His early life was dominated by his grandmother the empress-dowager Targi and her favorite minister Temudur, a rather villainous fellow who was appointed tutor to the young prince and his grandmother worked to assure his eventual accession to the Mongol throne. His father, however, had taken care that he be educated in Chinese style as well so as to continue his policies of reliance on Confucian doctrines and traditions, suitably Chinese, to rule China. In 1316 he was declared crown prince and heir to the throne and on April 19, 1320 he succeeded his father Great Khan of the Mongols and Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty. For the empress-dowager it seemed that all had gone according to plan and she could become the effective ruler of China and the vast Mongol dominions.

Convinced that they could dominate the young emperor, Empress Targi and in particular Temudur, were quick to enact their own policies and Temudur began exacting revenge against his own political enemies. Also targeted by him were the pro-Chinese supporters of the more Sino-oriented policy set down by Ayurbarwada. However, Shidebala was not the helpless babe many took him for. He was Chinese educated and tended to favor Confucian policies of administration (the Chinese did have a pretty long and successful record when it came to administering a large empire) but he was, like all of the Yuan emperors, still a Mongol. He was not weak, not pliant and would not allow others to flout his authority or work against the vision that he had for the Mongol Empire. Confucian scholars came to him for protection, which he extended, and he stood up against the persecution Temudur was bringing down on them.

Shidebala Khan showed great promise. He had strength of character, was very well educated (he could recite Tang dynasty poems from memory and was an accomplished calligrapher) and a devout Buddhist. When he stood up against Temudur and showed that he was his own man and would not be dominated by others, his exasperated grandmother, the Empress dowager Targi, lamented that, “We should never have reared this boy!” He replaced Temudur with a new chief minister named Baiju and though Temudur later tried to return to court and humble himself, the Great Khan would not have him back and he died embittered around 1322, in roughly the same period as his patron the dowager empress.

As emperor, Shidebala began enacting many reforms to try to bring under control the political and economic chaos that had been growing for a very long time, much of it due to the lack of a consistent policy on the part of the dynasty. He showed favor to the Confucian scholars and to the Buddhist lamas but took a rather dim view of Islam and there was some persecution of Muslims. This antagonism, however, should not be too surprising considering that there are probably no two religions that stand in starker contrast than Buddhism and Islam. The renewed emphasis on Confucianism also led to a somewhat more restrictive role for women than was traditionally the case in Mongol society.

However, what was most important was the efforts by Shidebala to bring about economic reform and stamp out corruption. Patronage had run rampant in the empire and efforts to stop this in particular had the effect of making Shidebala very unpopular with many Mongol princes. His dismissal of Temudur and his appointment of Chinese officials also caused bitter feelings among many who felt the new Khan was taking their empire in a non-Mongolian direction. Five princes colluded with the supporters of the late Temudur to launch the “Nanpo Coup” on September 4, 1323. The Emperor and Baiju had stopped at Nanpo on their way from Xanadu to Peking and it was there that the conspirators struck and assassinated them both. The next Khan would take a much more Mongol purist style as ruler though even he (Yesun Temur) was outraged by the murder.

Shidebala had shown great promise and one cannot help but speculate about what would have happened had he lived out his reign. Might the Yuan Empire have been put or a more solid setting that might have allowed it to endure longer? In any event, as it happened, the “tradition” continued as the pendulum swung back in the opposite direction. As a result of this, Shidebala has the unique position of being one of the few non-Chinese rulers of China that Chinese history tends to speak favorably of. Considering how they were treated by him and his father compared to their predecessor and successor it is no wonder that Shidebala Khan, or Emperor Yingzong as they would have called him, in one of the most highly regarded of the Mongol emperors by the Chinese even today.

Monarch Profile: Khaishan Khan

Khaishan Khan was the second Emperor of the Yuan dynasty after the great Kublai Khan. He was born in 1281, the second son of Darmabala and Dagi of the powerful Khunggirad clan and the brother of Ayurbarwada (a future Great Khan). In his youth he was given command of the army in Mongolia that defended the Yuan Empire against raids from Central Asia. One of his most formidable enemies in this arena was Kaidu, a great-grandson of Genghis Khan and long standing enemy of the Yuan going back to the reign of Kublai with his force of mostly Muslim central Asian warriors. In 1289 Khaishan was defeated by him and nearly killed but in 1301 Kaishan defeated Kaidu who died from his wounds. Temur Oljeitu Khan awarded Khaishan the title of Prince of Huaining in 1304 in recognition of this victory.

Victories over other enemies earned Kaishan a great reputation among the Mongol princes and the Mongol and non-Mongol soldiers alike. When Temur Oljeitu died with no male heir his nephews were left to struggle for the throne. Khaishan emerged victorious and successfully assumed the position of Great Khan of the Mongols or Emperor Wuzong of the Great Yuan in 1308. After a rather rough coming to the throne he named his brother Ayurbarwada Crown Prince and heir to the throne. He also had a treatise by Confucius on the duty to obey family superiors and by extension the emperor translated into Mongolian and distributed throughout the empire. However, his reign was to be very unlike traditional Chinese styles.

Khaishan Khan had come up and gained his fame as a nomadic warrior on the steppes of Mongolia and that is how he ruled the Yuan Empire. He had never been trained in the art of statecraft and acted as a traditional Mongol chieftain on an exceptionally large scale. He lavished gifts on the Mongol princes and high officials, spent vast sums on the construction of new Buddhist temples and palaces. Rather than confine himself to the established bureaucratic class he appointed new officials from a variety of backgrounds, Buddhist and Daoist priests, actors, butchers, artisans and so on. To keep the economy afloat he sold licenses in the state monopolies and tripled the amount of paper money which naturally led to high inflation.

This, combined with the greater military spending he naturally favored made Kaishan Khan very popular amongst the Mongol princes but increasingly unpopular with the Han Chinese. He did show favoritism toward the Buddhist religion but was also the first Khan to have the Buddhist and Daoist clergy pay taxes. Most of the military spending went to defending the borders but there was some small expansion when his forces completed the conquest of Sakhalin island. With the continued financial problems he carried out his long-standing wish to restore hard currency with the issuance of new copper coins but this still had little effect. Khaishan Khan died in 1311 after only about three years on the throne and, as planned, was succeeded by his brother.

Monarch Profile: Temur Khan

Temur Oljeitu Khan, Emperor Chengzong of the Great Yuan, was the grandson and successor of the storied Kublai Khan, founder of the Yuan Dynasty. Inheriting a well established empire from his grandfather he made no great conquests but further consolidated the dynasty, built up internal improvements and expanded Yuan influence over a number of independent states which accepted tributary status around the Yuan Emperor of China and Great Khan of the Mongols.

Temur was born in 1265 the son of Crown Prince Zhen Jin and although Kublai favored him to succeed him on the throne he was never named as heir. He accompanied his grandfather on military campaigns and was entrusted with the governorship of Karakorum in 1293. When Kublai died Temur won the throne by showing himself to be the better spoken master of the principles laid down by their most illustrious ancestor Genghis Khan. In 1294 he was formally proclaimed Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and Emperor of the Yuan dynasty. He did his best to carry on the policies of Kublai and to bring about an era of recovery after the expansion and exertions of the reign of his predecessor.

One of his first orders of business was to recover from the failed wars that marked the final years of Kublai’s rule against Japan and Vietnam. Although he called off plans for further campaigns against Japan the Japanese shogun resolutely refused to accept even nominal status as a Mongol vassal and launched a number of attacks on the coast. In Vietnam, however, after repelling three previous Mongol invasions the Viets were content with having independence in return for no further harassment and Emperor Tran Nhan Tong (third emperor of the Tran dynasty) recognized the Great Khan as his feudal overlord. Temur Khan released all the Vietnamese emissaries he had been holding and a peaceful tributary relationship was maintained for the rest of the Yuan reign between the Mongol Empire and Vietnam.

At home Temur Khan attracted the best and brightest to his court regardless of their background and had Mongols, Chinese, Persians, Christians, Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims and others among his officials. He respected and praised the Chinese Confucian system but did not follow it exclusively. The Tibetans continued to rise in prominence in his government and in a very surprising move Temur Khan banned the sale of alcohol in Mongolia since, then as now, alcoholism was proving problematic among his people. He did not increase taxes and even cut them back on certain occasions and for certain groups. We also have Temur Khan to thank for the portraits he ordered painted of all the Mongol emperors.

Over time Burma, Cambodia and Thailand all recognized the Mongol Emperor as their titular overlord. In 1297 this drew Temur Khan into an internal conflict in Burma when his vassal was attacked and dethroned. Persia became a tributary state for a time under the local Mongol-descended leader and there was an appeal for a sort of reunification of the successor states of the empire of Genghis Khan but nothing came of it and the Mongol Empire remained a loose federation of independent powers with only tenuous ties to the Great Khan.

The biggest problem of the reign of Temur Khan was economics. He did what he could to make things run more smoothly but it was a daunting task with the money necessary for recruiting talented officials (1/3 of them from outside of China and Mongolia), the expenditures of producing all official documents in formal and common Chinese, Mongolian, Uighur and Persian as well as moving the entire court between two capital cities was enormous and inflation weakened the paper currency in use. Nonetheless, aside from this area, it was a prosperous, powerful and peaceful empire that Temur Khan left behind at his death in 1307 at the age of 42.

Historic Day for Far East Monarchy

It was on this day in 1271 that Khublai Khan of Mongolia founded the Great Yuan Empire, establishing the Mongol dynasty that was the first time all of modern China had been conquered and ruled by a foreign nation. As Emperor, Khublai was a wise and tolerant ruler and along with military strength the economy improved and Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Daoism all lived together peacefully in his far-reaching and cosmopolitan realm. The Mongols would continue to rule China as part of the Great Yuan Empire until roughly 1368 when they were overthrown and replaced by the Ming dynasty, the last native Han dynasty to rule Imperial China.

Monarch Profile: Kublai Khan

Although overshadowed by his famous grandfather Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan could probably be considered one of the great monarchs of world history. He came to power in 1260 upon the death of his older brother Mongke Khan as ruler of the vast Mongol empire. He is probably most famous for completing the conquest of China (making him the only foreigner to ever conquer all of China) and founding the Yuan dynasty which ruled Imperial China from 1271 to 1368. Although the realm under his actual control was 'limited' to roughly what is now China, Mongolia and southeast Siberia, as the Great Khan of the Mongols he was the titular but influential ruler of the largest land empire in history, covering one-fifth of the earth's surface. He learned the ropes of statesmanship as viceroy of northern China and through the influence of his wise and formidable mother adopted the policies there that he would later use to great success in the governing of his vast realm.

Kublai's mother was Sorghaghtani Beki, a Nestorian Christian, and it was she who ensured that he grew up to be religiously tolerant, learned in administration as well as military conquest and that he would work within the Chinese framework of government rather than trying to rule through occupation and plunder. Trade and agruculture would yield a better long-term economy than the traditional method of simple plundering. Kublai Khan emerged victorious from a small civil war for leadership and in a brilliant campaign completed the conquest of China and laid out the modern capital of Beijing. Kublai protected Confucian scholars and kept Confucianism as the ideal civic model as well as making use of Chinese talent. However, his was also a famously cosmopolitan empire and he employed many foreign experts and advisors. Christianity, Islam, Daoism and Buddhism were all fairly widespread and he entertained envoys from Venice, Flanders, France, Papal Rome and Persia. He improved communications and the agricultural infrastructure in China as well as extending the famously efficient Mongol postal system across the whole country.

Trade, traditionally a despised profession in China, became widespread and resulted in a new, prosperous middle class as well as greater ties with far flung countries. Tibetan Buddhism also experienced a period of growth through the influence of Kublai's favorite wife Chabi, who was herself quite an exceptional woman. Over time Kublai began to suffer the ill-effects of good living and became extremely overweight and suffered many health problems because of it. When Chabi and her son, Kublai's heir, died in 1285 the Khan fell into a dark mood that never left him. He lashed out in efforts to conquer Japan and Vietnam but these were defeated and his health and grown so bad that when he had to confront an uprising in Mongolia he could no longer walk (though the campaign was successful). He died in 1294 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Mongolia as was the custom.