🐫Kublai Khan
Founding Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, Grandson of Genghis Khan, Who Completed the Unification of China
Those Who Fought the Map Into Being · Generals & Conquerors
The Yuan DynastyGreat Khan of the Mongol EmpireThe Completion of China’s Grand Unification
Who they are
Kublai Khan (1215–1294) was a grandson of Genghis Khan and the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, who founded the Yuan dynasty in 1271, destroyed the Southern Song in 1279, and completed the unification of all China, becoming the first emperor of non-Han origin of a grand unified dynasty in Chinese history. He set his capital at Dadu (present-day Beijing), and in governing this empire of unprecedented vast territory and highly diverse peoples adopted a considerable measure of Han methods of governance while preserving the privileged status of the Mongol ruling class; this mode of governance of "Han methods and old Mongol institutions in parallel" was an important institutional basis for the Yuan dynasty’s rule enduring nearly a century. During his reign he received the Venetian merchant Marco Polo, and by the latter’s account Kublai’s court life was lavish and grand and his administration efficient and orderly; this account, widely circulated through The Travels of Marco Polo, greatly kindled the later European imagination and longing for the Eastern world.
Primary sourcesThe History of YuanMarco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo
Key stories
Destroying the Southern Song, Completing the Grand Unification
Kublai carried on the unfinished cause of his forebears in destroying the Song, at last wholly wiping out the remnants of the Southern Song at the naval Battle of Yamen and completing the final unification of a China divided for several centuries since the warlord separatism of the late Tang; the Yuan dynasty thereby became one of the most vast grand unified dynasties in Chinese history, and its system of administrative division (the province system) long influenced the local governance structure of the Chinese dynasties thereafter.
Receiving Marco Polo
According to The Travels of Marco Polo, Kublai’s court received the Venetian merchant Marco Polo who had come from afar and esteemed him greatly, by tradition giving him office and sending him on official duties and travels across China for more than a decade — the lavish splendor of the Yuan court and the efficient order of its administration depicted in this travelogue circulated widely in Europe thereafter, greatly kindling the European longing for and imagination of the Eastern "Cathay" (China) and indirectly driving the later Age of Exploration’s search for new routes to the East.
Version differences
Whether Marco Polo really reached China, and whether his travelogue contains exaggeration or relayed the accounts of others, is a long-debated topic in Western sinology; though most scholars still incline to hold that he did visit the Yuan dynasty, the details of the travelogue need careful cross-reference with other sources.
Echoes today
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
"Xanadu" and Coleridge’s "Kubla Khan"The English poet Coleridge’s poem "Kubla Khan," by tradition written in an opium-induced dream, unfolds a gorgeous imagining on the image of Kublai’s summer palace "Xanadu," one of the most famous works of English Romantic poetry, at a considerable distance from the historical reality of the Yuan dynasty.