Yüan (redirected from Chinese yuan)

Yüan (yüän), Mongol dynasty of China that ruled from 1271 to 1368. It was a division of the great empire conquered by the Mongols. Kublai Khan, who adopted the Chinese dynastic name Yüan in 1271, swept down from N China, which the Mongols had ruled since the 1230s, and finally defeated the Sung dynasty in 1279. The Mongols set up a government in some ways modeled on the traditional Chinese administrative system, kept key government positions to themselves, and hired people from Central Asia to serve in the government. The Mongols adopted policies that discriminated against the Chinese, and to prevent rebellion Mongol troops were deployed all over the country. In its early period the Yüan dynasty developed a fine postal system and an extensive network of roads and canals reaching to the distant Mongol domains of Turkistan, Persia, and S Russia. There was continuous overland contact with the West and exchange of products, and in this period gunpowder, the compass, and printing seem to have been introduced to Europe from China. The best known of the European travelers to Yüan China is Marco Polo. Tibetan Buddhism was officially patronized by the Mongol court, but other religions were tolerated. Resentful of alien rule, many talented Chinese withdrew from political life and turned to theater and other forms of artistic activity. As a result the Yüan dynasty was a period of great accomplishments in the theater, arts, fiction, and painting. The Yüan dynasty was overthrown by the messianic religious rebellions that broke out in the 1350s. One of the rebel leaders was Chu Yüan-chang, who founded the Ming dynasty in 1368.

Bibliography

See M. Rossabi, Khubilai Khan (1988); J. W. Dardess, Conquerors and Confucians (1973); E. Endicott-West, Rule in China: Local Administration in the Yüan Dynasty (1989).

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Yüan 

(also Ta Yüan [Great Yüan]), a Mongol dynasty that ruled in Mongolia and China in the 13th and 14th centuries.

The conquest of China was begun by Genghis Khan; under his successor, Ogadai, North China was subjugated by Mongol feudal lords by 1234. In the late 1250’s the Mongol feudal empire in effect disintegrated into a number of autonomous states, one of which was the state of Kublai Khan, who acceded to the throne in 1260. At first the state encompassed Mongolia proper and North China. In 1271, Kublai Khan gave his dynasty the Chinese name of Yüan. In 1279, he completed the conquest of South China by destroying the Chinese Southern Sung empire. The conquest of China was accompanied by massacres, the annihilation of cities, and the destruction of valuable property and cultural artifacts. Mongol feudal lords enslaved a large part of the population of North China. The period of Mongol hegemony in China was marked by economic stagnation. Under Kublai Khan, campaigns of conquest were undertaken against Vietnam, Burma and Japan, all of which ended in failure.

After the death of Temur Khan, who succeeded Kublai Khan and ruled from 1295 to 1307, a bitter struggle began among the pretenders to the throne, which was occupied by eight emperors in succession between 1308 and 1332. During the reign of Tokon-Temur (1333–68), popular revolts began in China (seeRED TURBANS REBELLION OF 1351–68). Protracted struggle by the Chinese people led to the overthrow of the Mongol conquerors, and in 1368 the Chinese Ming Dynasty was founded. In Mongolia, the power of Genghis Khan’s successors declined, and the country split into separate feudal domains.

REFERENCES

Istoriia Mongol’skoi Narodnoi Respubliki, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1967.
Borovkova, L. A. Vosstanie “Krasnykh voisk” v Kitae. Moscow, 1971. (Contains bibliography.)
Tataro-mongoly v Azii i Evrope: Sb. st., 2nd ed. Moscow, 1977.