Chapter 14 Chapter Thirteen: The Mongol Interlude

Marco Polo was a super tourist before travel became an organized enterprise.He went to China without any intention of doing business for profit, nor did he have the piety of a missionary to save sentient beings.Just because of curiosity, the pre-Renaissance Europe has been greatly explored.According to the standards of the day, he left an unusual record that has involved every corner of the world.Even though he accepted legends easily, and he himself likes to exaggerate, but he said it from his own experience, which naturally touched the interest of others, and made them feel happy too.He often mentions in the book: "You can't believe it until you see it with your own eyes", which constantly teases readers and makes them have to stretch their imagination again and again to appreciate all kinds of bizarre things in distant and exotic lands.

The great man of his generation is Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan.When the young Ma Ke entered and exited the court of Kublai Khan, the navy of the Yuan Dynasty was gathering to destroy the remaining fleet of the Southern Song Dynasty in 1279 AD.At the end of this battle, the "Great Khan" became the sole ruler of China, which was unprecedented in the history of foreign rule.From then on, the founder of the Yuan Dynasty and the visitor from Venice treated each other with courtesy and established a relationship of mutual admiration.Marco Polo has been an official since then. He has accepted various errands from the Great Khan and provided him with meaningful information.

Marco Polo called China Cathay; the Chinese in the south were called "Manzi" (manzi).Beijing became "Cambaluc", which is what the Mongols call Khan-baliq.The Chinese commonly call Hangzhou "Xingzai", and Marco Polo changed it to Quinsay. The European visitor regarded Chinese banknotes as a great anecdote.Asbestos, from the high mountains, was crushed and split "like the fibers of trees" and "used as cloth."Coal is "a kind of stone that burns like wood" and is mined from the mountains and burned to generate heat. From Marco Polo's records, we can observe Kublai Khan from another angle.Obviously, as a leader, he has both insight and alertness.His ambition is to defeat the invasion, but he also sincerely intends to satisfy the most basic needs of the people under his rule.He treats religion more or less as a tool.Faith can be used as the solidifying force of his ruling empire to enhance unity; it can also be used as a subversive and destructive appeal, enough to disintegrate it.Therefore, his tolerance for various sects varies according to their influence on his own governance strategy.Marco Polo had a favorable opinion of Kublai Khan's enlightened despotism; but he was never ambiguous when he should be criticized.He once said: "Many people with bad intentions often have the tendency of rebellion." In another place, he said: "All Chinese hate the regime of the Great Khan because he sent so many local government leaders. For the Tartars, there are still more Semu people, who regard the Chinese as slaves, which they cannot tolerate." The reader can also see from this that the Great Khan's method of overriding China by hereditary rights did not succeed. , had to be controlled by the power of conquest.So he couldn't trust the native people, so he had to put power in the hands of the Tatars, Semu people and Christians.These were attached to his royal family and served him faithfully, as did the (other) foreigners.

The Mongols can grasp the superior position in the world situation, which is unique in history.Its population is only about 1 million, but their martial arts have made almost all of Eurasia under their control, so that the survival of the extremes of the East and West is extremely limited.Due to the unity among the families and the hard-working character of the shepherds, the Mongols have excellent soldiers.In the past, Liao of Khitan and Jin of Jurchen had already given full play to the tactics of the large cavalry regiment.But Genghis Khan and his successors expanded it to the extreme and became invincible.Their troops are disciplined and move with lightning speed, and their battle plans are well-planned.The knights could live on the milk of their mares for days, if not weeks, if necessary.Psychological warfare was widely used, such as having refugees march ahead of the ranks and spreading rumors that if the invaded city dared to resist, the day of siege would be inflicted with brutal brutality and unbridled destruction.Wherever military and technical talent was available among the conquered populace, they were often drawn upon as best they could.When the Mongols attacked Baghdad, an Islamic country, in 1258 A.D., a Chinese general participated, and 1,000 Chinese engineers threw incendiary bombs with the siege artillery and crossbows. When he attacked Fancheng in Xiangyang 10 years later, Kublai Khan called in two Persian engineers to design a heavy artillery crossbow capable of throwing 150-pound rocks.

Genghis Khan died when he attacked Xixia in 1227 AD.His empire was divided into four parts: the Golden Horde (Golden Horde), including most of Russia, Moscow and Kyiv (Kiev); the Persian Khanate from the Afghan border to the Iraqi border; Between the two, it extends eastward, summarizing today's Soviet Central Asia and China's Xinjiang. Only the Great Khan has the right to rule the above three khanates.His own domain stretches from the deserts of Mongolia in the north to the shores of the China Sea in the south.At that time it was only a vision, but it did not become a reality until 50 years after the death of the world's greatest conqueror.

According to Genghis Khan's family law, the Great Khan was elected.Kublai Khan did not go through this process to obtain this status.He called himself the Great Khan in 1260 AD, and fought with his younger brother Arik-Buga (Arik-Buga, Yuan people translated this name as Ali Buga, following Confucianism to accuse him of being disloyal to his elder brother) when he was fighting for the title. meet.After his victory, he still had to contend with a coalition of central Asian Mongol leaders led by his brother Kaidu, who insisted on maintaining Genghis Khan's family law.As of the day of Kublai Khan's death in 1294 AD, the conflict between the two parties had not ceased.Although he himself conquered the Southern Song Dynasty, he also used troops to the northwest to stop the nomads and prevent China from being ravaged by them.It's just that the power of such a great khan to lead the khanates is lost in name and reality.Kublai Khan didn't mind in this regard, he focused on China and tried to monopolize East Asia.In 1271 AD, at the instigation of Han Chen, he founded the Yuan Dynasty.The last chapter mentioned another eight years, that is, in 1279, the resistance of the Southern Song Dynasty was completely destroyed, and only then did he become a Chinese-style emperor.

When many historians mention Kublai Khan, they think that his expedition to Japan was unfavorable, because this battle also produced the legend of the Japanese "Kamikaze".The Yuan Dynasty used troops against Japan twice. In the expedition in 1274 (the Southern Song Dynasty was not completely destroyed at that time), North Korea was used as a springboard, and 800 large and small ships were used in the combined fleet, carrying 25,000 Mongolian and Korean soldiers.After occupying several small islands along the coast, they landed in Hakata Bay, Kyushu on November 20.After completing the fortifications, the Japanese army waited for reinforcements to arrive.The outcome of the battle was undecided that day, and the wind swept across the country at night; when the Mongols decided to retreat, there was chaos. According to Korean records, as many as 13,000 people drowned in the sea.

The expedition in 1281 AD had been multiplied several times after the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty.The northern offensive force consisted of 40,000 Mongolian and Korean troops and 900 ships, still advancing along the first route; the southern army, led by General Fan Wenhu of Song Dynasty, had 3,500 large and small ships and carried 100,000 troops, and set sail from Zhoushan Island, Zhejiang Province .The scale was unique in history at that time, and this record was not broken until the end. Also like the first expedition, the coastal islands were easily occupied, and the troops successfully landed in Hakata Bay.Only between the two battles, the Japanese had built a line of stone walls along the beach to hinder the movement of the Mongolian cavalry, so the expeditionary force made little progress.Fighting continued from June to July without a decisive breakthrough. Another typhoon came in August, and hundreds of ships were sunk.The naval and army generals, including Fan Wenhu, led the giant ships to escape, and the number of sergeants drowned was innumerable.The remaining troops on land were arrested and beheaded collectively by the Japanese army on the beach.The "Yuanguan Tomb" in Guoduo Bay today shows the referee of "Kamikaze".The North Korean side stated that the number of losses was slightly higher than half of the participants, and the death toll in China and Mongolia was unrecorded.Japanese records pointed out that the Mongolian light cavalry could not produce strength, while the Chinese army was poorly equipped and demoralized.

The Japanese beheaded Kublai Khan's envoys twice, and made his expeditions fail twice. Kublai Khan was extremely angry, so he prepared a third expedition to maintain his reputation.Various preparations began shortly after the second failure. Shipbuilding was carried out along the entire coast of China, from the north to the Korean Peninsula, through the Bohai Bay and the northeast of China today. Merchant ships were also requisitioned, and supplies were collected in large quantities. All were recruited, and even the pirate prisoners were spared and given official posts in order to go to Japan to do their crimes and seek meritorious service.In 1285 AD, 1 million shi of rice was transported from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River to North Korea, indicating that the dispatch of the army was imminent. However, at the beginning of 1286, an unexpected order abandoned all preparations. "History of the Yuan Dynasty" stated that "the emperor used Japan to be far away from the islands and barbarians, and the power of the people was heavy, so he stopped conquest of Japan, called Abachi to go to the palace, and still scattered the civilian ships." In view of his current weakness, Kublai Khan had to have moral courage when he issued such an order.

From a historical perspective, the defeat of the Mongols proved that before the development of modern technology, it was extremely difficult to make a land power also a sea power.To maintain a large fleet and bear its losses, the price paid is too high.For sea adventures force large numbers of people to come and go in opposite directions from their daily lives.When preparing for the third expedition, Kublai Khan already felt the difficulty of appeasement of Annan and Burma.In 1293 AD, he sent troops across the sea to attack Java, but failed to achieve the desired results. Although the expeditionary force successfully landed, they suffered setbacks and suffered heavy casualties when the natives counterattacked.It seems that in the later years of Kublai Khan, the greatest land power in world history had reached the limit of its development and expansion.

The Chinese often say that the Mongols won the world on horseback and tried to rule the world on horseback. This kind of criticism is based on facts.But it would be the opposite of the situation to say that the descendants of Genghis Khan completely ignored managerial issues.For example, Kublai Khan spent a lot of time in his life.Study how to manage his vast empire spanning many lands.He is not only restricted by geopolitics, but also by the current situation. The fragments left by previous dynasties cannot be accepted as parts of a whole new order.And his problems at the time did not allow him the leisure to create a new system that would have lasting efficacy. It is also true that Kublai Khan gradually alienated Chinese Confucian officials in his later years. There are several reasons for this: after the fall of the Song Dynasty, the survivors did not descend to the Yuan Dynasty, and there were still rumors of recovery from time to time; I also want to explain to my ministers that his determination comes from his original intention and has not been swayed by the Chinese.In addition, we must also realize that the conquest of Mongolia was indeed subjugated by force; however, there are still geopolitical problems that cannot be solved only by military solutions. The Mongols were too few in number and had a low level of education. Apart from maintaining their military spirit and military organization, they could not maintain the face of race.But their powerful horsemanship and the rough state of daily life are integrated, and they have everything.Therefore, in the Yuan army, they constituted an excellent army, and had a decisive influence in various battles.Other non-Mongolian nomads form another system, and their troops are called "Tanmachi", which usually have a second-level function.After hundreds of years of Khitan and Jurchen rule in North China, the people have mixed personalities. Although they cannot compete with the Mongolian army, they are stronger than the people of the Southern Song Dynasty.What the Mongols called "Han people" actually included Koreans and other races.In the end, the army that surrendered in the Southern Song Dynasty was not disbanded, but was incorporated into the Yuan army according to the original organizational system.The Yuan Dynasty also ordered that households belonging to "military registration" belong to military registration through inheritance, so that it is like a hereditary caste in society. Kublai Khan himself showed no signs of being a racist. He only hoped to create a kind of rule among the tribes, so that the Mongols would not suffer because of their small number.However, during his reign, he did not try to create a Chinese-style civil bureaucracy dominated by writing and ink, nor did he preside over a civil examination.In his educational system, the Mongolian alphabet is at least equal to Chinese characters.With few exceptions, the heads of all units in the Yuan government were always Mongolians. Yuan Zhu was very tired of Confucian scholars using empty titles to sway debates, but he insisted that bureaucrats at all levels must be familiar with documents, which shows that he paid attention to technical details and practiced it himself.This kind of focus was not only during Kublai Khan's tenure, but the successors in the future also paid attention to it.Roughly speaking, compared with the previous dynasties, this focus should be a major reform. At the same time, it is reasonable for the Mongols to propose such a reform, because their victory depends entirely on force, without any moral elements exist. But in doing so, they ignored the underlying fundamentals of Confucian government.It is true that the Chinese bureaucratic government has too many responsibilities but little effect, sometimes sloppy and hypocritical, but it has to deal with thousands of peasants (they are taxpayers), so the government must be clean.The traditional Chinese style of being humble and courteous to others is enough to make many disputes unspeakable, and the social system is formed based on blood relationship and supported by laws, so there is no need for many profound and mysterious principles in jurisprudence, but it involves personal rights and property right now.The government empowers the families to teach and discipline their children, so the yamen reduces their tasks; the bureaucrats are full of talent in poetry and philosophy, and they know that their work does not need to be all accurate and practical, even the judiciary cannot do without relative composition.Since they do not pay attention to the particular circumstances of each locality, they can always use the least common factor as a standard applicable to the whole country, so that the entire civil service is almost interchangeable, and a large empire can use abstract ideas. and ideological governance.Apart from the consideration of the wind direction of governance, other special circumstances are irrelevant.The bad parts of this system are easy to see through, but to change the course, we have to deal with China's vast territory and various complex situations in the country, and are also limited by the level of technical support (such as transportation and communication) of the day. Unrealistic and not as easy as it first appears. China made technological progress again during the Mongol rule: shipbuilding technology reached its peak and did not begin to decline until the Ming Dynasty in the middle of the 15th century; And it was built in the Yuan Dynasty; the Yuan Dynasty began to connect Beijing to the Grand Canal in the south, and the river passed the peak halfway; Japanese books and periodicals, like Marco Polo, expressed their deep impression on the grenades and arson bombs used by the Yuan army; Guo Shoujing was an astronomy He was a scientist, mathematician, and hydraulic engineer who once served in the court of Kublai Khan. Today, some people still think that he was the pioneer of scientists in the world at that time. Many times, the print run reached 10,000 copies in 1315 AD.There are many illustrations of agricultural tools in the book, which seem to be the same as those used in China in the first half of this century, and there has been a gap of more than 600 years.It is also worth mentioning here that two crops in the Yuan Dynasty—cotton and sorghum—began to be imported into China at this time, and they have had a profound impact on the food and clothing of hundreds of millions of Chinese people for centuries. But Khubilai and his successors did not create a social environment to sustain this development.He did not want to accept the supremacy of Confucianism, because in his opinion, the success of Confucianism is equal to the success of the Chinese; the people under his rule not only have different origins of races, but also have different lifestyles. He tried to find a spiritual The power of faith is enough to pass the whole country.Before he became lord of China, he begged Marco Polo's father and uncle to gather for him "a hundred wise men who are proficient in the law of Christ", but we cannot know whether he once considered making the whole people Believe in Christianity.But his acceptance of Lamaism undoubtedly has political motives.In addition to appointing Basiba as the "National Teacher", he also ordered the little emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty who was descended to the Yuan Dynasty in Hangzhou and his mother to go to Tibet to study Lamaism.Although the later whereabouts are not found in the scriptures, historians have aroused their curiosity because of this record: If the young ruler of the previous dynasty, even though he abdicated, was still loved by the survivors of the Song Dynasty, he became a religious leader from then on, and he turned his head to pay respects. What a wonderful wishful thinking for the emperor to bless and pray for the ruler of a foreign race!But we have no way of knowing the rest of the story. Although Phagpa is a national teacher, the influence he and the lamas taught on the Chinese is similar to the influence that Confucianism had on the Mongols and Tibetans—with little effect.At first glance, the concept of karma, entangled with rebirth and reincarnation, is enough to cash in spiritual power to become the authority of the next life, coupled with witchcraft rituals, it should be very attractive to illiterate Chinese farmers.But to be effective politically, the church and the state must be united, and at the same time, the middle-level intellectuals must be eradicated.History has proved that this approach is only effective within a primitive economic circle.China's 13th century was no longer suitable for such a system. Kublai Khan deliberately prevented the influence of the Chinese from being too strong, so he sought talents from all sides.Those employed by the government include Persians, Uighurs, and Eastern Europeans.These people are collectively referred to as "Semu".It probably means "all kinds of eyes".On the whole, however, their influence is not too great.Several of them became Kublai Khan's confidantes and were killed later.When Ahmed Benaketi, the prime minister of the left, was stabbed to death by a Chinese officer, the Yuan Lord executed Li Ke, but later, to appease public anger, he also dealt with Ahmed Benaketi by dissecting his coffin and killing his body.Sangha used Pingzhang Zhengshi (Deputy Prime Minister) to store property, and was also executed because of the impeachment of the ministers.Both were charged with crimes, but the truth afterwards was that both of them attempted to expand taxation and expand financial scope, so they were extremely unpopular.Because the Yuan government has an international color, its organization is extremely difficult to control.Therefore, the subordinates of the two men "greed for profit" outside the capital city, and it was a matter of course.However, according to the records in "Yuan Shi", cultural barriers are the reason for their tragedies.Even if we encounter such deeds in the book today, we have to read the original text repeatedly to understand the traditional political system.If a leader abandons the attitude of grace and generosity, his subordinates will do everything they can.Neither Ahema nor Sang Ge seems to have grasped the subtleties of the plot.When they try to improve administrative efficiency, they may deviate from the traditional scope of loyalty and forgiveness, and their opponents can expand into moral problems because of their technical mistakes, which is called death deserved. After many failed reforms, the Yuan Dynasty's finances have never had a chance to be finalized.The taxation in North China is different from that in South China. In North China, rent adjustment has become a systematic system, that is, taxation is based on households. Although there are still differences, it is possible to make the income of each household equal.This is a relic left over from the Khitans and Jurchens, who needed an equally simple tax system to support their military mobilization.But in South China, the Yuan Dynasty still collected taxes by the mu like the Song Dynasty.Moreover, Kublai Khan, like his father and brother, divided a part of the taxpayer households into "seals" or "casts" as the private income of 150 royals, princesses and civil and military officials.The person who was granted the title sent a broker to the local government to supervise and accept them, but they were not allowed to use the real estate of each household as their own manor, or treat them as serfs. The largest "drop" includes 100,000 households, and the small ones are no more than a few dozen households.Their presence has also spawned countless disputes. On the surface, the level of taxation in the Yuan Dynasty was lower than that of previous dynasties, especially in Jiangnan.On the eve of Xingshi's extermination of the Song Dynasty, Kublai Khan claimed that all exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes levied by the Southern Song Dynasty would be exempted, and only the official Fu would be the master.In fact, he can't keep his word. When he sent troops overseas, he used all kinds of special collections to pay for it. It's just that when these collections stopped, the method of expanding taxation was fruitless, but at least on the surface and in terms of the legal system, the level of taxation was low.Therefore, Kublai Khan was also praised by previous historians, but in fact he neither made comprehensive reforms nor fixed the existing system, making it difficult for his successor in the future.They cannot meet their expenses with regular income, so they have to print a lot of money, causing inflation. From a macro point of view, this stage of the Mongols is a transitional stage between the Second Empire and the Third Empire in China.The Yuan Dynasty inherited the growth and expansion of the Tang and Song Dynasties, and continued to improve science and technology, but it did not invest new fuel to make this movement continue to progress.When it was unable to break through financially, kept tax revenues at a low level, and emphasized "agriculture first," it had actually advanced the Third Reich's restraint posture.The latter can complete this historical transformation as long as they add an introverted and non-competitive style.And this situation also appeared in the Ming Dynasty. The master of entrepreneurship in the past dynasties in China is the person who created the law.When the situation is not stable and everything is flowing, they can decide by force alone, command arbitration, and enforce their will, so they can make large-scale adjustments in history.This situation was most notable during the period when the Mongols took over, because the martial arts of the Mongols tended to overwhelm mountains and seas.Moreover, all the actions of the Yuan Dynasty were monopolized by Kublai Khan, and his descendants could only follow his plan and rarely make adjustments.Having said that, we must not forget that this is largely due to geography.The galloping knight in the saddle conquers most of the farmers who farm small fields by the forces of nature, but lacks the organizational skill to advance both to benefit and combine without preserving the conqueror The true face of culture. Kublai Khan was plagued by gout in his later years, and he never felt comfortable in the intense heat of the south.Before he took the throne as emperor, he went to Shangdu (now Duolun in Chahar) every year between late spring and early autumn, with few interruptions.Subsequent successors also followed this method of returning from spring to autumn.However, the traditional imperial system often requires the emperor to act as an arbitrator. The emperor's long absence from the capital (that is, Beijing, see above) is not a good way to increase mutual trust, and the succession of the throne has also caused major problems.When Kublai Khan died in AD 1294, the throne was passed to his grandson Temur, who reigned for 13 years.In the following 26 years, 8 emperors appeared.Just like the tradition, the alternation of the old and the new is seldom without conspiracy and changes in the palace. It seems to people that the situation is extremely unstable.After these eight emperors, there was the 11th emperor of the Yuan Dynasty. He fell in power for 35 years, but he was also the last emperor of the Yuan Dynasty. Become a dynasty that was expelled from the country. The only major event that Khubilai's successors did not follow the plan of the founder of the dynasty was the restoration of the traditional Chinese imperial examination in 1313 AD.Since then, the trial has been held 13 times.But its purpose is not to form a Chinese-style civil service organization.During the examination, Mongols and Seguo people are a separate subject, with different test cards, and the recruited personnel do not hold important positions, and only accept unimportant official positions in low-level organizations.Many scholars in China were depressed because of this, so they had to develop their talents in other fields. Writing printed editions was one of them. Chinese literature opened a different path, which also brought the Chinese stage into a golden age. With the Mongolian stage of the Yuan Dynasty, it became more and more obvious that China needs a macro history.There are often many deeds in human beings whose long-term rationality in history cannot be glimpsed from a short-term perspective. Even the judgments made by the characters at the time may still have causal factors that exceed their personal experience.Perhaps this is also the reason why Marco Polo had ambivalence when referring to Kublai Khan.Similarly, this may also be the origin of the conflict in Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang's heart. He overthrew the Yuan Dynasty in 1368. When he mentioned "Hu Yuan Ruler" later, he had a deep sense of Han nationalism, but he ignored Yuan Shizu. The tablet of Bilie is enshrined in the temple of the emperors of all dynasties, and is worshiped together with the founder of the Han, Tang and Song Dynasties.