Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
supervise them and keep close tabs on their activities. Very few
governmental decisions or orders made by Chinese officials were valid
without the cosignatures of the commissars. The Mongols also can-
celed the Chinese civil service examinations for most of the Yuan
dynasty, preferring other methods of recruiting government officials.
In some surprising ways, Mongol rule in China was not as harsh as
might be imagined. Capital crimes and executions in Yuan China were
actually fewer in number than they had been during the Song. Mongols
imposed laws to reduce animal suffering in China and specified quick
and humane means of slaughter. The Mongols did discriminate
against the Chinese, and in particular against the southern Chinese.
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more of a hierarchy of assessed loyalties. That is, Mongols tended to
trust people who had been loyal to them the longest. Central Asians
had mostly submitted to the Mongols during Chinggis Khan's life-
time; the northern Chinese were conquered in 1234; and the Southern
Song Chinese were not subjugated until 1279.
The Yuan period was not a cultural void in China. Painting flour-
ished, as did drama and vernacular literature. A robust debate within
the Confucian tradition occurred as Chinese scholars wrestled with
the question of whether to serve their new Mongol masters. Some
refused to work for the Mongol barbarian invaders, while others con-
cluded that now more than ever, China needed the cultural and moral
influence that Confucianism could exert. Traditional Chinese educa-
tion was maintained in many private academies run by Neo-
Confucian scholars. In fact, it was during the Yuan that the Four
Books, known and largely memorized by every scholar in Ming and
Qing times, were made the authoritative canon of Neo-Confucian
ideology.
The Mongols ultimately failed to maintain order in China and con-
tributed to many of the late Yuan's problems, including inflation,
unemployment, neglect of water conservation projects, and botched
famine relief efforts. By 1368 the Chinese had had enough, and a rebel
leader among them named Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew their dynasty,
sent most of the Mongols packing back to Mongolia, and founded the
Ming dynasty, which was to endure until 1644.
MING RECOVERY: 1368-1644
Zhu Yuanzhang was the first commoner since Liu Bang, the founding
emperor of the Han dynasty, to rise from the status of commoner to
