But all successful dynasties have a clear advantage, that is, to recruit talents, select talents and abilities. They are good at taking advantage of all kinds of favorable conditions, and they can unite all the forces that can be united and use for their own use. Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, was one of the best.
As a Mongol ruler, in China at that time, there were many regimes. There was not only the Jin Dynasty, which called itself Zhengshuo, but also the Southern Song Dynasty, which lived in a remote corner, and to realize his vision of unifying China, what Kublai Khan had to do was to select talents and abilities, recruit talents, and eliminate the Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty.
Since the age of 29, he has realized the limitations of simple Mongolian staff, and has consciously recruited Han Chinese celebrities in the Central Plains to lay a good foundation for his future national policy and institutional construction.
Among them, Liu Bingzhong, the designer and responsible of the Yuan capital, persuaded Kublai Khan to peacefully occupy Yao Shu in Dali; when Kublai Khan was not sure whether to stop the war and return to the throne of the Mongol Khan, hao jing, who played the "Banshi Discussion", was the most famous.
Throughout the Mongol Empire, under the iron heel, countless dynasties from Asia to Europe were wiped out by it, occupying a vast territory that can be called the largest in the world. In East Asia, after the destruction of the Jin Dynasty, the spearhead naturally went straight to the Song Dynasty.
In 1259, Möngke, the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, was killed by artillery while leading an army to attack Diaoyu City. Kublai Khan, on the other hand, rushed back to The South of the Desert and defeated his brother Abrigo and took the khan's throne.
In 1271, Kublai Khan, at the suggestion of Liu Bingzhong, adopted the meaning of "DaZha Qianyuan" in the I Ching and changed the name of the country to Yuan. On one side is the ironclad lion with strong soldiers and horses, while the other side is the dim-witted Southern Song Dynasty court, Jia Xiangdao and other powerful ministers are in charge, in fact, the ownership of victory can be easily decided.
Despite the bowing of Wen Tianxiang and others, in 1279, the tragic situation of the Battle of Yashan also gave me a glimpse of the last struggle of the Southern Song Dynasty, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians were martyred in the sea, and Lu Xiufu jumped into the sea on his back and died.
Since then, Kublai Khan's Great Yuan Dynasty has unified the Central Plains. However, compared with the selection and ability at the time of his initiation, because of the competition for the Khan's throne with his brother Abrigo (the Mongol tradition was different from the Central Plains Dynasty, it was a system of young sons, so in fact the Khan's throne after Möngke's death should be his younger brother Abrigo), the division of mongolian upper aristocratic society became the first problem that he had to solve at the moment.
Therefore, with a very simple choice, after the unification of the Yuan Dynasty, he decisively chose to side with the Mongolian nobles who were backward and ignorant, and became their "vanguard soldiers and spokesmen".
Compared with the Sinicization education received by many nomadic peoples who entered the Central Plains, Kublai Khan became an "obstacle". Compared with the relatively thorough Sinicization of The Northern Wei Xiaowen Emperor and the Sinicization of the Jin Dynasty, he chose limited Sinicization and implemented differentiated changes on the original homelands of various countries, the Jin Dynasty continued to adopt the Jin Dynasty system, while the Southern Song Dynasty implemented the Southern Song Dynasty system, and as for his hometown of Mobei and Monan Mongolia, he continued to follow the old Mongolian system.
In fact, the implementation of this system has a certain compromise, and it can also quickly stabilize the country that has just been seized. However, the contradiction that comes with this differentiation is that the Mongolian nobles living in the north and south of the desert are not satisfied with the Gobi and grasslands, while the Jin Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty have prosperous cities and commodity trade, so the introduction of a policy is "logical".
Under the hierarchical system, the Han chinese in the Southern Song Dynasty were divided into a fourth class, while the Mongol nobles who were at the top could become increasingly arrogant, plundering and encircling land. At this time, Kublai Khan had long been immersed in self-indulgence, and the original selection and ability of the wise and the reuse of the Han people had long become a blank piece of paper.
Along with this is Kublai Khan's growing extravagance and lasciviousness. In order to be able to raise military expenses and even more to be able to enjoy pleasures, Kublai Khan established a hierarchical system and continuously increased taxes on the Jiangnan region of the Southern Song Dynasty. This also led to one uprising after another, ethnic contradictions, and serious hierarchical contradictions.
As he grew older, Kublai Khan probably realized the crisis and began to take steps to prohibit unrestricted land enclosure by the Mongol nobility and promote agricultural production. But just when the situation was gradually improving, Kublai Khan's favorite wife Chabi died, and three years later, his favorite son Zhenjin died, such a Great Khan of Mongolia who drove horses and crossed Europe and Asia, and finally became overwhelmed by the death of one relative after another. In 1294, Kublai Khan ended his life. In the past eighty years, he relied on the selection of talents and abilities, and the reuse of the Han people to achieve the unification of the world, and the dream of dazai Qianyuan, but he laid the bane of the hierarchy for the demise of the Dayuan Dynasty, and the slaughter of the Han people was also heinous.
Reference: History of the Yuan