Kublai Khan's successful accession to the throne and the consolidation of the throne

In fact, long before Kublai Khan's class went north, in order to prevent the incident, he had already sent his able advisers Lian Xixian and Zhao Liangbi to the north first, on the one hand, to spy on the movements of Ali Buge and others, and on the other hand, to carry out persuasion activities among other princes to win them to side with Kublai Khan. By the time Kublai Khan returned to Shangdu Kaiping, Lian and Zhao had made a major breakthrough in their struggle for the throne, and they persuaded Kublai Khan's half-brother, Tacha'er, the eastern kings, Brother Xiangxiang, Kula Ku'er, Yadu, Hedan, and Azugi of the Western Provinces to support Kublai Khan's succession. At the same time, Kublai Khan also sent emissaries to Hulagu on an expedition to Persia to win his support. In this way, among the Mongol kings, only Ali Bu brother did not support Kublai Khan's succession, and he was actually in an absolutely isolated position.

After receiving the support of the overwhelming majority of royal families, Lian Xixian, Shang Ting, Zhao Liangbi, and others strongly advocated: China's ancient precept is to preemptively strike people, and latecomers control people, the current situation is very clear, the people have elected the great king to succeed to the throne, only Ali Buge tried to resist, although the king greatly surpassed Ali Bu brother in power, but could not follow the Procedures of the Mongols to elect the Great Khan step by step, but should preemptively attack, so as not to change the situation and cause passivity.

Kublai Khan, in accordance with the instructions of the Chinese strategists, took measures that surprised Ali Buge and his gang, completely abandoning the custom of convening a king's assembly that the Mongols had to follow to establish a new king, and with the support of Hulagu and others, he held a enthronement ceremony on his own, announcing to the world that he had become the Great Khan of the Mongols, which is what is called the Xue Chan Emperor in Mongolian history, and is called the Yuan Dynasty Ancestor in Chinese history.

When Ali heard kublai khan proclaim the throne, he hastily announced his succession as Great Khan of the Mongols in Helin, and at the same time assigned his henchmen and appointed a group of generals to prepare to defeat Kublai Khan by means of armed conflict.

At this time, although both sides had declared themselves emperors, a fierce struggle was still needed to achieve the final victory. The key to victory is to see who controls the Sichuan-Shaanxi-Gansu-Gansu region first. At that time, Ali Buge controlled the Helin area in mongolia, Kublai Khan controlled the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River merged with the Yangtze River, the Southern Song Dynasty controlled the area south of the Yangtze River, and the Sichuan-Shaanxi-Gansu-Long region in the upper reaches of the Yellow River became the key to the victory of both sides. Both Ali Buge and Kublai Khan knew this, so after they ascended the throne, the first military and political deployment they adopted was invariably the appointment of Shaanxi Xuanfu envoys. Ali Buge appointed Liu Taiping and the general Guo Weiga to set up Shangshu Province in Shaanxi and Sichuan, and united with the general Huntaha, who had expressed support for Ali Bu brother, who was garrisoned around Liupan Mountain, and sent people to contact The Sichuan generals Milabu and Zhuo and Qiertaibu, preparing to send troops to attack Kublai Khan at the same time. Ali Buge's plan was to use the army in the Sichuan-Shaanxi-Gansu-Gansu region to form a right-wing encirclement of Kublai Khan, and form a pincer against Ali Buge's military deployment in the north of the desert.

At the same time, Shang Ting suggested to Kublai Khan: "The army in the south should be temporarily withdrawn to defend The Capital Kaiping and the Central Capital Yandu to prevent the attack of Ali Brother." The army in the west, on the other hand, should occupy a strategic position as soon as possible in case of an attack on my right flank by Ali Buge's army. Kublai Khan then appointed Lian Xixian as the envoy of Shaanxi Xuanfu, ordered Yaktmur to command the army west of the Yellow River, and coordinated Lian Xixian's political actions in Shaanxi, and at the same time ordered the general Shi Tianze to lead the troops along the Yangtze River to retreat, temporarily relaxing the military pressure on the Southern Song Dynasty.

At this time, both Lian Xixian and Liu Taiping rushed to Shaanxi to take office. Liu Taiping set off before Lian Xixian and walked to the halfway point, and when he heard that Lian Xixian had also come to Shaanxi to take up his post, he changed horses and did not change people, did not eat, drink or sleep, and arrived in Shaanxi two days earlier than Lian Xixian.

Although Liu Taiping arrived first, he did not have the advantage, because Ali Buge had sent Aledar and Liu Taiping to serve in the Shaanxi region, and during their tenure, they used the superior position of the Mongols to blindly abuse the local Han people, which made the local people hate them to the bone. Now that they had heard that the two had come again, everyone was terrified, afraid of being abused by tyranny again. The Shaanxi people, on the other hand, were full of good feelings for Lian Xixian, because when he was the envoy of Jingzhao Xuanfu in the past, he practiced benevolent government according to the Confucian idea of governing the country, cracked down on the strong and powerful, and governed the people well, and was deeply loved by the local people.

Kublai Khan and Ali Buge sent them back to Shaanxi because they had both served in Shaanxi and were familiar with the local situation. However, the quality of the two sides is different, the political achievements are different, so the people's hearts are also different, which directly determines the outcome of the contest between the two sides in Shaanxi.

Although Lian Xixian arrived two days later than Liu Taiping, Liu Taiping did not get the support of local military and civilian officials, and everyone was perfunctory, but secretly waiting for Lian Xixian's arrival. Sure enough, as soon as Lian Xixian arrived, everyone fell to him and immediately controlled the military and political power in Shaanxi, while Liu Taiping became a lonely man and could not command anyone to do things for him.

When Lian Xixian took control of the military and political power in Shaanxi, Liu Taiping secretly sent people to contact the Mongol army Huntahabu stationed in the Liupanshan area. As soon as Lian Xixian arrived, he also wanted to stabilize Huntaha and send someone to appease him. HunTaha secretly sent people to Jingzhao, ready to cooperate with Liu Taiping inside and outside to attack Lian Xixian. But the city gate guards captured their emissaries and brought them to Lian Xixian. After interrogation, Lian Xixian completely grasped their plan, so he did not wait to report to Kublai Khan, and immediately made a decision, sent people to act separately, hunted down Liu Taiping, Goraga, Milabu, Zhuo, And Qiertaibu, and ordered the commander-in-chief Wang Liangchen to lead an army to hunt down Huntaha at Liupan Mountain. Lian Xixian lived up to Kublai Khan's great trust and completely controlled the situation in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu, allowing Kublai Khan's great cause of becoming emperor to gain a crucial point.

Then, following Liu Bingzhong's advice, Kublai Khan established the Ten Roads Xuanfu Division in the Han areas, and appointed a group of loyal and effective officials to serve as various Xuanfu envoys in order to gain firm control over the Han areas. Among these envoys, there were many Han intellectuals whom Kublai Khan had sought after many years, such as Song Zizhen, Zhao Bi, Wang Pan, Zhang Dehui, Yao Shu, Zhang Wenqian, and Lian Xixian. These people were not only Kublai Khan's powerful advisers, but now they also became Kublai Khan's right-hand men on the side of the town. After dispatching this group of powerful assistants, Kublai Khan also sent people to summon all the famous Han intellectuals from all over the country to Kaiping, such as Liu Yu of Zhending, Hao Ziming of Xingzhou, Hu Zisuan of Zhangde, Feng Wei of Yanjing, Wang Guangyi, Yang Shu, Li Yantong, Zhao Hezhi, Han Wenwen of Dongping, Zhang Fang, and others.

At that time, the Mongol army often regarded the Han chinese as victories and private slaves in the war, and there were many Confucians among them. Of course, Kublai Khan could only pay attention to the more famous Confucians, and he would not care about these ordinary Confucians who had become private slaves. As an emperor, this is also a common thing, which is not surprising. However, Gao Zhiyao, who had advised Möngke to pay attention to Confucianism, had now become a Hanlin scholar of Kublai Khan, and he specifically told Kublai Khan about this matter: "Treating Confucians as slaves has not been done since ancient times." His Majesty is taking Confucianism as the guideline for governing the country, and it is advisable to abolish this system in order to guide the world to attach importance to Confucianism. Kublai Khan attached great importance to this opinion, and immediately sent special envoys to tour various places, and all Confucians who became private slaves were screened and restored to freedom, thus obtaining thousands of Confucians. However, some Mongolian nobles expressed dissatisfaction with this, thinking that how could there be so many Confucians, and there may be fraudulent Confucians, please pay attention to Kublai Khan. Kublai Khan therefore asked Gao Zhiyao whether he was too lenient and excessive.

Gao Zhiyao replied: "This is like gold, its color is dark and light, but it cannot be said that it is not gold." These Confucians are high and low in learning, and it cannot be said that they are not Confucians. When Kublai Khan heard this, he was very happy and said, "You have saved a lot of talents for me." Kublai Khan ordered officials everywhere to select learned and knowledgeable Confucians and submit them to the list for selection by the imperial court. Although these people could not directly enter Kublai Khan's think tank like those famous Confucians, they also gradually infiltrated into the official government at all levels under the protection of Kublai Khan's policy, and used Confucianism to ease the harsh rule of the Mongols over the Han People.

After the failure of Liu Taiping and others' trip to Shaanxi, Ali Buge learned that the Huntaha troops stationed at Liupan Mountain had not yet suffered heavy losses, so he jointly sent troops with him to launch a military attack on Kublai Khan. He sent Aldar to lead the Mongol native forces from north to south from Helin, while Huntaha's troops attacked from west to east, in an attempt to redeem the political defeat with military victory. However, Kublai Khan had already anticipated this step of Ali Bu Brother, and he had allowed the southern troops to retreat in advance and let the Western troops occupy strategic positions, just to prevent this. By the time Ali did not act, he was actually one step behind, and as a result, he still could not defeat Kublai Khan militarily, and Huntaha, Aldar and others were all killed. After Kublai Khan won the battle, he was even more unforgiving, leading his army to personally conquer Helin and completely eliminate Ali Bu brother. Ali's brother was unable to seize the throne, the battle was lost, and the powerful generals were also killed, and they fundamentally lost the ability to compete with Kublai Khan, so they had to flee north in a hurry, far away from Qianqian Prefecture (present-day upper reaches of the Yenisei River in Russia). Kublai Khan asked Emperor Zong to move his troops to stay in Helin to prevent Ali bu brother from making a comeback, and he himself returned to Shangdu Kaiping.

After this battle, Kublai Khan consolidated the throne and took control of the situation, although Ali Bu Brother soon joined forces with other Mongol tribes to counterattack Kublai Khan, but it was the end of the crossbow and could not shake Kublai Khan's throne. After several battles, Ali did not brother to the point of being alone. After Kublai Khan executed several of the clan kings who supported Ali Bu Brother, he adopted a policy of pardon for Ali Bu Brother and asked him to return to Helin, but soon he also fell ill and died, and Kublai Khan had no opponents. Later, although the warlord Li Xuan, who occupied Shandong, took advantage of Kublai Khan's battle with Ali Bu ge and had no time to look east, he failed to form a climate, and the rebellion was quickly put down. Kublai Khan also took the opportunity to remove some local clans who had long held great military and political power, thus eliminating internal unstable factors, which changed the situation of "a group of subjects using power and many governments" that existed during the reign of Wo Kuotai, and also laid the foundation for the later destruction of the Song Dynasty.

After Möngke's death, Kublai Khan was able to ascend to the throne of God from among the Mongol kings in one fell swoop, which seemed natural to posterity, and everyone expected it, but it was not. If Kublai Khan had not long had the ambition to become an emperor, paid attention to recruiting Han intellectuals, formed a think tank with abundant talents, and carefully implemented the imperial strategy, so that he had all the conditions for ascending the throne and made full preparations for a smooth succession, I am afraid that when the opportunity really came, he would never have won the throne so smoothly, and even if he had the strength to seize the throne, it would be difficult to consolidate the rule of foreign races and become a generation of British lords in Chinese history after succeeding to the throne.