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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Kublai Kahn Biography KUBLAI KHAN, kōō'bli kän', or KHUBILAI KHAN (1216–94). Grand Khan of the Mongols and Emperor of China. He was the grandson of Genghis Khan (q.v.), through the latter's fourth son, Tuli Khan. When a boy of 10, he participated in the last campaign of his grandfather. He succeeded his brother Mangu as Grand Khan upon the death of the latter, in 1259, while engaged in a campaign to complete the subjugation of China. This task Kublai carried to a conclusion. Invited by Si Tsong of the Sung dynasty to aid in the expulsion of the Kin Tatar dynasty, he invaded China in 1260 with an immense army, drove out the Tatars, and took possession of north China. He founded the city of Khan Balig (Kambalu) and made it his capital. This was the nucleus of Peking. Kublai maintained only nominally the extended sway of the previous members of his dynasty, the great empire that had been reared by conquest having practically broken up into four divisions (see Mongol Dynasties), but his rule was absolute and efficient in eastern Asia. He was one of the ablest of his race, an organizer and administrator of a high degree of ability and intelligence. He conformed in great measure to the Chinese civilization, which was far in advance of that of his own people. In 1279 he completed his conquest of China by subduing the south, and as the first foreign Emperor founded the Yuen dynasty. His repeated attacks, however, failed to reduce Japan to submission. The Venetian Polo brothers, with the better-known son and nephew, Marco Polo (q.v.), spent some years at Kublai's court and enjoyed his respect and confidence. Desiring to establish some higher form of religion in his Empire, he made them his messengers to the Pope to invite the sending of Christian missionaries to his people. Christendom was too much occupied with its own quarrels over ecclesiastical politics to heed the invitation, and the Khan turned to the Grand Lama, the head of the Buddhists, who was not slow to seize so glorious an opportunity for the conversion of an empire. Kublai Khan died in Peking, in 1294. The Empire he had organized did not long survive under his incapable successors, and in 1368 the dynasty of Yuen was expelled from China. Consult: Yule, Oathay and the Way Thither (2 vols., London, 1866); id. (ed.), The Book of Ser Marco Polo (ib., 1875); Howorth, History of the Mongols (4 vols., ib., 1876–88); L. J. Markae, "Kublai Khan, or the Popes and the Tartars," in American Catholic Quarterly Review, vol. xxv (Philadelphia, 1900). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 378-379. |