[Dark Wanderer]

why is it, that the yuan-dynasty ruled over the whole of china only about 90 years (in essence less than 90 because of the urprising beginning in den 1350es), which is quit a short time compared to the over all-china-dynasties?

(I have the impression, ta talk of the Mongols as "barbarians", which supressed China, has become really a clichee´; don´t think, that this was completely true - from the position of a peasant an orthodox confucian state was also a suppressive one, chinese or not .. so it´s simply not enough to say, yuan rule ended because of being suppressive.)

This post has been edited by Dark Wanderer: 26 December 2005 - 11:36 PM

[Yun]

A major reason was that the mid-14th century was a very bad time for China, with the bubonic plague (Black Death), famines, and a serious flooding of the Yellow River. This caused many people to join milennarian religious sects like the White Lotus, and these sects eventually exploited the discontent to launch rebellions. Another factor was ethnic animosity - the Confucian literati in the south resented the fact that Arabs, Persians and Central Asians were favoured for government positions by the Yuan court, and that they were given less privileges than these foreigners. Thus they supported the rebels, something that was seldom the case in other dynasties because conservative Confucians tended to be pro-government and anti-rebellion.

Also, the Yuan dynasty faced frequent succession struggles because of the lack of a strong system of primogeniture. The court was plagued by infighting and this weakened its ability to administer the country and suppress rebellions.

Lastly, the paper money system introduced by the Yuan, while being quite an advanced concept, failed in implementation and resulted in runaway inflation. Another cause of social instability and discontent.

[Craig]

Yun, on Dec 26 2005, 10:05 PM, said:

A major reason was that the mid-14th century was a very bad time for China, with the bubonic plague (Black Death), famines, and a serious flooding of the Yellow River. This caused many people to join milennarian religious sects like the White Lotus, and these sects eventually exploited the discontent to launch rebellions. Another factor was ethnic animosity - the Confucian literati in the south resented the fact that Arabs, Persians and Central Asians were favoured for government positions by the Yuan court, and that they were given less privileges than these foreigners. Thus they supported the rebels, something that was seldom the case in other dynasties because conservative Confucians tended to be pro-government and anti-rebellion.

Also, the Yuan dynasty faced frequent succession struggles because of the lack of a strong system of primogeniture. The court was plagued by infighting and this weakened its ability to administer the country and suppress rebellions.

Lastly, the paper money system introduced by the Yuan, while being quite an advanced concept, failed in implementation and resulted in runaway inflation. Another cause of social instability and discontent.

The death of Khublai may have been a factor also. Without the force of his personality, and administrative knowledge, the Yuan fell apart. The Mongols had more in common with the Sung peasentry than the Confucians or the Sung rulers. Khublai adopted Chinese ways and blunted a good deal of the ethnic resentment.

[jiangji]

Craig, on Dec 27 2005, 03:19 PM, said:

The death of Khublai may have been a factor also. Without the force of his personality, and administrative knowledge, the Yuan fell apart. The Mongols had more in common with the Sung peasentry than the Confucians or the Sung rulers. Khublai adopted Chinese ways and blunted a good deal of the ethnic resentment.

I think he do play a part in the decline of Yuan dynasty.

[l0ckx]

from what i understand, the mogol empire was very nomadic. Troops would march through different areas, conquer, then move on. The soldiers wives and children would also follow. This ultimately led to the fall of the yuan. After 90 years of constant movement, they needed rest.

[General_Zhaoyun]

Although the Mongols under Kublai Khan had used the han-chinese method of ruling China, a somewhat comtemptible policy was its division of the Yuan society into 4 different classes as follow:

1. Mongols (蒙古人) - Mongols
2. Shemuren (色目人) - Tanguts, Muslims
3. Han-chinese (汉人) - Khitan, Jurchen, Han-chinese of former Jin empire
3. Southern-people (南人) - Han-chinese of Southern Song dynasty and other southern people

The Mongols were the upper most classes, followed by Shemuren, Han-chinese and Southern people.

This creation of 4 different classes is what causes the conflict between different ethnicities in China. This is one reason for the short-life of Yuan dynasty.

[Yun]

Quote

2. Shemuren (色目人) - Tanguts, Muslims

Semu also included Central Asians and the relatively small number of European merchants and missionaries in China.

Is the Yuan system based on how long ago a certain people were conquered? For example, Central Asia and Xi Xia were the first conquests by the Mongols, followed by the Jurchen-Jin, and lastly the Southern Song. Thus those conquered earlier were likely to be more loyal than those recently conquered. If so, then the system was not as "contemptible" as the Chinese like to see it as, and was instead quite pragmatic. Of course, the southern literati hated the feeling of not being on top as they had always been in the Song dynasty.

Quote

from what i understand, the mogol empire was very nomadic. Troops would march through different areas, conquer, then move on. The soldiers wives and children would also follow. This ultimately led to the fall of the yuan. After 90 years of constant movement, they needed rest.

On the contrary, it is said that the Mongol troops of the Yuan got too sedentary in their city garrisons and their military skills and discipline deteriorated.

[Craig]

Yun, on Dec 31 2005, 07:35 AM, said:

Semu also included Central Asians and the relatively small number of European merchants and missionaries in China.

Is the Yuan system based on how long ago a certain people were conquered? For example, Central Asia and Xi Xia were the first conquests by the Mongols, followed by the Jurchen-Jin, and lastly the Southern Song. Thus those conquered earlier were likely to be more loyal than those recently conquered. If so, then the system was not as "contemptible" as the Chinese like to see it as, and was instead quite pragmatic. Of course, the southern literati hated the feeling of not being on top as they had always been in the Song dynasty.
On the contrary, it is said that the Mongol troops of the Yuan got too sedentary in their city garrisons and their military skills and discipline deteriorated.

Yes. The system as practiced by Khublai was the reason the Yuan lasted as long as it did. He also was even handed and allowed freedom of religion. The fall of the Yuan wasn't due to the system of governing instituted by Khublai, it was due to the subsequent Mongol rulers ignoring Khublais principles. Freedom of religion ended with Khublais death and Mongols reverted to their own customs and dress, because the plaguue cut them off from the other Mongol lineages. They stopped integrating into Chinese society and became paranoid and isolated' . Tibetan Buddhism became favored by the Mongols and the Han had to carry the Tibetan monks goods and be subservient to them, thus accentuating the foreignness of the Mongol rulers.

[wan sui yeh]

Well, theYuan dynasty rule is short lived mainly because of two main factors:

a) The manner in which the mongols govern China is bound to fail, since the Middle Kingdom is cultural superior to them and to rule a nation such as China using their inferior tribal ways is disastrous. As we can see there other alien regimes throughout chinese history that is more lasting because they realise to rule China you have to be sinicise to certain extent, you see the northern minorities need to be Chinese in order to rule CHina as the nation is far superior to them in terms of culture and technology not too mention population size. THis explains why the former regime of Jin and the Latter regime of Ching was far more longer lasting than Yuan.

Secondly, the Yuan fail mainly because after the demise of Khubilai Khan, the dynasty was led by inferior men and the internal strife within the goverment becomes more prevalent in the later periods as faction fought for control over the nation and its weak minded rulers.

Do you not agree with me?

[Borjigin Ayurbarwada]

The Mongols never used tribal system to rule China. You need to get some basic understanding of the Yuan bureaucracy. Not only have they adopted the original Jin-Song administrative system, they even rennovated it. In the central bureucratic level, they kept only the Meng Xia Sheng and divided the 6 boards into three right boards and three left boards. In the regional level, they created the administrative structure of Sheng, which is alot larger than Zhou of the Tang era.


The masses always held the power in China, the regime can only manipulate them and keep them at least content. However, if they failed to do such, coupled by famine and natural disaster, there is nothing that the regime can do to millions of peasant uprising, no regime, whether native or foreign could face mass peasant rebellion. Not until the PRC came to power was the power of the masses realized and effectively utilized.

[General_Zhaoyun]

I think, one main reason for the Short rule of Yuan dynasty was due to the discriminatory policy initiated by the Mongols Ruling Class.

The Mongol rulers divided Yuan citizens into 4 main ethnic class, with hierachical rank from top to bottom as follow:

1. Mongols.

2. Shemu Ren 色目人 (Colored Eye People) - referring to muslims people living in Xinjiang region.

3. Han-chinese (refer to Khitan, Jurchen living in former Jin dynasty)

4. Nan-Ren 南人 (Southerners - referring to han-chinese living in former Song dynasty)

The Confucian scholars were made the bottom-most class, and the Southerners (the majority of the whole population) was made the bottom-most class. They did not enjoy the priviledge unike Mongols or Khitan or Jurchen, and were often discriminated.

This discrimination invariably led to a hatred of the ethnic han towards the Mongols, giving it a cause to scourge conflict. When food problems or drought appeared, it thus gave opportunity for rebel leaders such as Han Shantong, Zhang Shicheng, Chen Youliang, Zhu Yuanzhang etc to rebel against Yuan.