China

n 1271 he gave his dynasty the name of Yuen or Original, and he took for himself the Chinese title of Chitsou, although it will never supersede his Mongol name of Kublai. Summoning to his court

r the present site of Pekin, and was made for the first time capital of China by the Mongols. There were, according to Marco Polo, twelve gates, at each of which was stationed a guard of 1,000 men, and the streets were so straight and wide that you could see from one end to the other, or from gate to gate. The extent given of the walls varies: according to the highest estimate they were twenty-seven miles round, according to the lowest eighteen. The khan's palace at Chandu or Kaipingfoo, north

a nominal indifference. At first he treated with equal consideration Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Christianity, and even Judaism, and he said that he treated them all with equal consideration because he hoped that the greatest among them would help him in heaven. If some doubt may be felt as to the sincerity of this statement, there can be none as to Kublai's effort to turn all religions to a political use, and to make them serve his turn. Some persons have thought he showed a predilection for Christianity, but his measures in support of Buddhism, and of his friend the Pakba Lama, are a truer indication of his feelings. But none were admitted into his private confidence, and his acts evinced a politic tolerance toward all creeds. But his religious tolerance or indifference d

ministers attended by a host of servitors, and protected from enemies by 20,000 guards, the flower of the Mongol army; the countless wealth seized in the capitals of numerous kingdoms; the brilliance of intellect among his chief adherents and supporters; the martial character of the race that lent itself almost as well to the pageantry of a court as to the stern reality of battle; and finally the majesty of the great king himself-all combined

against China. In 1266 Kublai sent two embassadors by way of Corea to Japan with a letter from himself complaining that the Japanese court had taken no notice of his accession to power, and treated him with indifference. The mission never had a chance of success, for the Coreans succeeded in frightening the Mongol envoys with the terrors of the sea, and by withholding their assistance prevented them reaching their destination. The envoys returned without having been able to deliver their letter. Kublai decided that the Japanese were hostile to him, and he resolved to humble them. He called upon the King of Corea to raise an auxiliary force, and that prince promised to supply 1,000 ships and 10,000 men. In 1274 he sent a small force of 300 ships and 15,000 men to begin operations in the direction of Japan; but the Japanese navy c

ny in the Mongol camp and fleet. Still the fleet set sail, but the elements declared themselves against Kublai. His shattered fleet was compelled to take refuge off the islets to the north of Japan, where it attempted to refit, but the Japanese granted no respite, and assailed them both by land and sea. After protracted but unequal fighting the Mongol commander had no choice left but to surrender. The conquerors spared the Chinese and Coreans among their prisoners, but they put every Mongol to the sword. Only a stray junk or two escaped to tell Kublai the tale of the greatest defeat the Mongols had ever experienced. Thirty thousand of their best troops were slaughtered, and their newly-created fleet, on which they were founding such great expectations, was annihilated, while 70,000 Chinese and Coreans remained as prisoners in the hands of the victor. Kublai executed two of his generals who escaped, but it is clear no one was to blame. The Mongols were vanquished be

merical disadvantage the Mongols were in no way dismayed by their opponents' manifest superiority; but seldom has the struggle between disciplined and brute force proved closer or more keenly contested. At first the charge of the Burmese cavalry, aided by the elephants and artillery, carried all before it. But Nasiuddin had provided for this contingency. He had dismounted all his cavalry, and had ordered them to fire their arrows exclusively against the elephant corps; and as the Mongols were then not only the best archers in the world, but used the strongest bows, the destruction they wrought was considerable, and soon threw the elephants into hopeless confusion. The crowd of elephants turned tail before this discharge of arrows, as did the elephants of Pyrrhus, and threw the whole Burmese army into confusion. The Mongols then mounting their horses, charged and completed the discomfiture of the Burmese, who were driven from the field with heavy loss and tarnished reputation. On this occasion the Mongols did not pursue the Burmese very far, and the King of Burmah lost little or no part of his dominions, b

s of a fanatic were sufficient to shake the emperor on his throne, and such was Kublai's apprehension that he banished all the remaining Sung prisoners to Mongolia, and executed their last faithful minister, who went to the scaffold with a smile on his face, exclaiming, "I am content; my wishes are about to be realized." It must not be supposed from this that Kublai's authority had vanished or become effete. It was absolutely supreme over all declared enemies, but below the surface was seething an amount of popular hostility and discontent ominous to the longevity of the

merly commenced by carrying all before him. He won seventeen separate engagements, but the further he advanced into the country the more evident did it appear that he only controlled the ground on which he stood. The King of Annam was a fugitive; his capital was in the hands of the Mongols, and apparently nothing more remained to be done. Apachi, the most experienced of the Mongol commanders, then counseled a prompt retreat. Unfortunately the Mongol prince Togan would not

tion of those who purchased the right drove the Chinese to the verge of rebellion, and made the whole Mongol regime hateful. Several tax farmers were removed from their posts, and punished with death, but their successors carried on the same system. The declining years of Kublai's reign were therefore marred by the growing discontent of his Chinese subjects, and by his inability or unwill

,000 men, and all the troops Nayan could bring into the field were 40,000, while Kaidu, although hastily gathering his forces, was too far off to render any timely aid. Kublai commanded in person, and arranged his order of battle from a tower supported on the backs of four elephants chained together. Both armies showed great heroism and ferocity, but numbers carried the day, and Nayan's army was almost destroyed, while he himself fell into the hands of the victor. It was contrary to the practice of the Mongols to shed the blood of their own princes, so Kublai ordered Nayan to be sewn up in a sack, and then beaten to death. The war with Kaidu dragged on for many years, and there is no doubt that Kublai did not desire to push matters to an extremity with his cousin. Having restored the fortunes of the war by assuming the command in person, Kublai r

lthough he conquered their country, he never vanquished the prejudices of the Chinese, and the Mongols, unlike the Manchus, failed completely to propitiate the good will of the historiographers of the Hanlin. Of Kublai they take some recognition, as an enlightened and we

yan died, leaving behind him the reputation of being one of the most capable of all the Mongol commanders. Whether because he could find no general worthy to fill Bayan's place, or because his temperament was naturally pacific, Timour carried on no military operations, and the thirteen years of his reign were marked by almost unbroken peace. But peace did not bring prosperity in its train, for a considerable part of China suffered from the ravages of famine, and the cravings of hunger drove many to b

aos. The enterprise, commenced in a thoughtless and light- hearted manner, revealed unexpected peril and proved disastrous. A large part of the Mongol army perished from the heat, and the survivors were only rescued from their perilous position, surrounded by the numerous enemies they had irritated, by a

r, although Haichan left two sons. Palipata's reign of nine years was peaceful and uneventful, and his son Chutepala succeeded him. Chutepala was a young and inexperienced prince who owed such authority as he enjoyed to the courage of Baiju, a brave soldier, who was specially distinguished as the lineal descendant of the great general, Muhula. The plots and intrigues which compassed the ruin of the Yuen dynasty began during this reign, and both Chutepala and Baiju were murdered by conspirators. The next emperor, Yesun Timour, was fortunate in a peaceful reign, but on his death, in 1

to his arrogance was largely due the aggravation of the Mongol difficulties and the imbittering of Chinese opinion. He murdered an empress, tyrannized over the Chinese, and outshone the emperor in his apparel and equipages, as if he were a Wolsey or a Buckingham. For the last offense Chunti could not forgive him, and Bayan was deposed and disgraced. While these dissensions were in progress at Pekin the Chinese were growing more daring and confident in their efforts to liberate themselves from the foreign yoke. They had adopted red bonnets as the mark of their patriotic league, and on the sea the pi

met with prompt and summary punishment. By this conduct he gained the confidence of the Chinese, and his standard among all the national leaders became the most popular and attracted the largest number of recruits. In 1356 he captured the city of Nankin, which thereupon became the base of his operations, as it was subsequently the capital of his dynasty. He then issued a proclamation declaring that his sole object was to expel the foreigners and to restore the national form of government. In this document he said, "It is the birthright of the Chinese to govern foreign peoples and not of these latter to rule in China. It used to be said that the Yuen or Mongols, who came from the regions of the north, conquered our empire not so much by their courage and skill as by the aid of Heaven. And now it is sufficiently plain that Heaven itself wishes to deprive them of that empire, as some punishment for their crimes, and for not having acted acc

the Hoangho, which river he crossed in the autumn of that year. The Mongols appeared demoralized, and attempted little or no resistance. Chunti fled from Pekin to Mongolia, where he died in 1370, and Suta carried the capital by storm from the small Mongol garrison which remained to defend it. Choo hastened to Pekin to receive the congratulations of his army, and to prove to the whole Chinese nation that the Yuen dynasty had ceased to rule. The resistance offered by the Mongols proved surprisingly slight, and, considering the value of the prize for which they were fighting, quite unworthy of their ancient renown. The real cause of their overthrow was that the Mongols never