Why was the culture of the Yuan Dynasty much more prosperous than that of the Ming and Qing dynasties? The short-lived Yuan Dynasty, but the thinking is very avant-garde!
In China's more than 2,000 years of feudal history, the Yuan Dynasty was the first feudal dynasty established by the Mongols, and most of us have the impression that the Yuan Dynasty was a particularly vast but short-lived dynasty. This dynasty, from its founding in 1271 to its demise in 1368, was only 97 years short. Of course, we are counting from the time when Kublai Khan made the capital of Beijing and the withdrawal of the Yuan dynasty forces from Beijing. Although the Mongol Yuan forces that withdrew from Beijing continued to use the Yuan Dynasty in mobei, in fact, only symbolic significance remained.
People who know history know that the Yuan Dynasty has always been relatively relaxed in thinking, and they respected the culture of various ethnic groups. Kublai Khan, the founding emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, was very interested in Han culture, but he did not regard Han culture as the official culture of the country, but dominated by Mongolian culture, and Han culture was used in conjunction with other ethnic cultures. In the Yuan Dynasty, many academies were officially built. In what we now call schools, the enrolment rate was much higher than in other dynasties, and the loose policies enabled people to develop ideologically and culturally as never before.
The most representative is the Yuan qu, the Yuan Qu as the name suggests is the opera of the Yuan Dynasty, in fact, these are not formed in the Yuan Dynasty, but the Song Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty and other other places of opera, in the Yuan Dynasty continues to develop, so that these dramas on the historical stage, become a representative form of cultural entertainment. This is in stark contrast to the harshness of the later Ming Dynasty and the literal prison of the Qing Dynasty, which was guided by leniency in culture and drama.
Not only in terms of ideology and culture, the Yuan Dynasty also implemented a relaxed policy on religion, so much so that Marco Polo wrote in his travelogue that the Yuan Dynasty was the most powerful country, under which different races could live, and they could freely believe in their religion without interference, which was a miracle. Moreover, the Yuan Dynasty abolished many strict torture laws, which was in stark contrast to the various severe criminal laws implemented by Zhu Yuanzhang later. Even the Yuan Dynasty absorbed Western culture and did not reject it at all.
In the editor's view, the Yuan Dynasty's way of governance actually has a strong grassland color, and they actually do not know how to rule a country. However, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty were separated from the primitive barbaric way of ruling, so there was a situation of doing nothing and governing the country loosely, so that the culture of all ethnic groups prospered and grew. But it has to be said that the Mongols did have a discriminatory policy against the Han people, the Han people could not be the high officials of the Yuan Dynasty, and many powers could only be assumed by the Semu and the Mongols. This caused dissatisfaction among many Han officials, and the loose management methods led to the rapid rise of Han armed forces, so that peasant uprisings in the late Yuan Dynasty were everywhere. By this time, the Yuan Dynasty had become corrupt to the point where it was no longer an opponent of these armed forces.