The Mongol Empire, formed by the Yuan Dynasty and the four khanates, is known as "the largest empire in human history" and controlled more than 33 million square kilometers of land at its peak.
▲ Yuan Dynasty and the Four Great Khanates
Among them, the Yuan Dynasty, as a dynasty in Chinese history, not only encompassed the control territory of the previous Chinese dynasties, but even the entire Korean Peninsula that chinese dynasties did not include direct jurisdiction. The Yuan Dynasty set up the province of Zhengdong on the Korean Peninsula to directly manage the affairs of the Korean Peninsula.
After the Yuan Dynasty occupied Korea, it was across the strait from Japan. Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, sent troops to conquer Japan twice in 1274 and 1281, but both suffered heavy losses and ended in failure.
▲ The Yuan Dynasty set up the province of Zhengdong on the Korean Peninsula
The sweeping momentum of the Yuan Dynasty seems unstoppable, but why can't it conquer hundreds of kilometers of straits?
1. The Mongols arose and occupied Korea
At the beginning of the 10th century, the great unified Tang Dynasty collapsed, and China has been divided for half a century. The Khitan established the Liao state and seized the opportunity to control the northern steppes.
▲ After the Tang Dynasty, the regimes of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms were established concurrently
In 960, Zhao Kuangyin established the Song Dynasty and unified most of the "Han Dynasty", but the Song Dynasty failed to defeat the minority regime after many wars, and thus failed to restore the great unified territory of the Tang Dynasty.
In the mid-10th century, China was in a juxtaposition of the Song, Liao, and Western Xia regimes, and the Korean Peninsula was the opposite of China.
In the mid-10th century, the Goryeo State eliminated the Silla and Baekje regimes on the Korean Peninsula and realized the reunification of the peninsula. The goryeo state was bordered by the Liao state to the north and was often invaded by the Liao. In resisting the invasion of the Liao, Goryeo's military power increased greatly.
▲ East Asian regimes after the Tang Dynasty
At this time, Japan, which was across the sea from Korea, was also a unified regime, the Yamato State. The Yamato Kingdom imitated the Tang Dynasty system and, after reform, established a centralized system headed by the emperor.
However, the emperor practiced a system of subordination throughout the country, promoted the spirit of the samurai, and promoted the growth of the samurai's power, and some of the samurai also intermarried with the imperial family. By the end of the 12th century, the Japanese samurai clique had emphaticized the emperor and established the rule of the samurai clique with Kamakura as its political center. The shogun of the Kamakura shogunate was the de facto ruler of Japan.
▲The first shogun of the Kamakura shogunate, genrai dynasty
In the 12th century, the Liao regime also had a crisis. The Jurchens, who had originally been controlled by the Liao State, began to rise. The Jurchens established the Jin Dynasty and destroyed the Liao and Northern Song dynasties. China was then in a state of juxtaposition between the Jin, Western Xia, and Southern Song dynasties. Of the three regimes, the Jin Dynasty was the most militarily powerful, and the Mongols living in the north were under the control of the Jin Dynasty.
▲ Jin destroyed the Northern Song Dynasty
At the end of the 12th century, the Mongols began to rise. Temujin established the Mongol Khanate in 1206. After that, the Mongols continued to fight foreign wars, and in 1227 they destroyed the Western Xia, and Temujin died in this year.
Temujin did not explicitly stipulate the succession of the Mongol Khanate, so his descendants fought several wars for the Khan's throne.
▲ Genghis Khan Temujin
After the destruction of the Western Xia, the Mongols targeted their former suzerainty, the Jin Dynasty. The Mongols adopted the strategy of long-distance and close attack, and took the initiative to ally with the Southern Song Dynasty to jointly resist the Jin.
In the process of exterminating The Golden Empire, the Mongol army also invaded the Korean Peninsula. In 1231 the Mongol army reached the middle of the peninsula, and some of the nobles of the Goryeo Dynasty surrendered. But the Mongols' goal was to conquer the Central Plains of China first, so it left only a few officers and soldiers to garrison, and the rest of the troops withdrew from Korea.
In 1232, the King of Goryeo killed the Mongol troops stationed there. To avoid retaliation from the Mongols, the King of Goryeo moved his capital to Ganghwa Island on the sea. Enraged, the Mongols again sent troops to attack Goryeo, all the way to the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula.
However, due to the fact that the Mongol cavalry was not accustomed to water warfare, it was unable to occupy Ganghwa Island, which was only about 1 km away from the land. With Mongol generals being shot with bows and arrows on the battlefield, the second Mongol conquest of Korea failed.
Ganghwa Island is located on the current border between the two Koreas
Lost in the east, harvested in mulberry elm. The Mongol army, which had failed on the Korean battlefield, joined forces with the Southern Song Dynasty to destroy the Jin Dynasty in 1234.
Whether the Mongols destroyed the Western Xia or the Jin, it only took more than 20 years. In the eyes of the Mongols, the Southern Song Dynasty could not even defeat the Western Xia and Jin Dynasty, let alone block their own iron horses. In 1234, the Battle of Songmeng broke out.
The Mongol cavalry was met with fierce resistance from the Southern Song Dynasty, and the two sides entered into a tug-of-war for decades. Between the attacks on the Song Dynasty, the Mongols invaded Goryeo several times. In 1259, the Kingdom of Goryeo surrendered.
The Mongols did not divide Goryeo directly into their territory, but classified it as a vassal state. Goryeo still retained its own national sovereignty and culture, but it was regularly sent to the Mongols to receive quality, help troops, and grain.
Mongolia wanted to use North Korea as a base for its supplies, so it collected a large number of war materials such as food in Korea. This provoked a revolt among the lower classes of the Goryeo state. For example, in 1268, a peasant revolt against the Mongols broke out in Korea.
In 1271, Genghis Khan's grandson Kublai Khan made the capital beijing and changed the name of the country to "Dayuan". Kublai Khan intensified his encirclement and suppression of the rebellious forces on the Korean Peninsula, and after many conquests, he was finally victorious in 1273.
▲ Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty - Kublai Khan
Second, the first conquest of Japan, the light enemy failed
At the time of the founding of the Yuan Dynasty, although the Mongol cavalry had expanded westward into Europe, it had not yet achieved unification with China. The weak Southern Song Dynasty was able to resist the yuan dynasty's nearly 40 years of attacks.
Since the Northern Song Dynasty, although the Song Dynasty could not fight wars, its commodity economy continued to prosper. With the blessing of advanced shipbuilding technology, the large ships of Goryeo during the Song Huizong period reached 1100 tons, and the maritime trade of the Song Dynasty was particularly developed, and quanzhou port was one of the most prosperous ports in the world at that time.
▲ The early Song Dynasty sea vessel - Nanhai No. 1, is said to be able to carry more than 400 tons
Kublai Khan believed that the Southern Song Dynasty could obtain war supplies through overseas trade, so if it wanted to destroy the Southern Song Dynasty, it was first necessary to cut off its trade routes.
The Mongols arose on horseback and were good at cavalry combat, but not good at building sea ships or fighting at sea. The Yuan Dynasty had difficulty cutting off the Southern Song Dynasty's maritime trade through the navy.
The Korean Peninsula, which had been heavily traded with the Southern Song Dynasty, was under the control of the Yuan Dynasty. Kublai Khan believed that as long as he defeated Japan again, he would be able to cut off the foreign aid of the Southern Song Dynasty and force the Southern Song to surrender.
▲ Mongol cavalry
But Kublai Khan not only had to fight the Southern Song Dynasty, but also faced the dilemma of the rebellion of the Mongol nobility. Since the Mongol Empire did not have a clear way of inheriting the Khan's throne at the beginning of its establishment, Kublai Khan also seized the Khan's throne through war, and some nobles did not agree with his position as Great Khan. They took advantage of Kublai Khan's concentration of forces to destroy the Southern Song Dynasty and launched a rebellion.
Kublai Khan had to attack both the Song Dynasty and the rebellion of the king of the domain, and did not have enough troops to attack Japan. The Yuan Dynasty adopted a strategy of political surrender to Japan, sending ministers to Japan four times in succession, hoping to make Japan pay tribute through diplomatic means.
Japan's shogun was the de facto supreme ruler of the country, and the shogun hojo Toshimune at the time refused the Yuan Dynasty's persuasion to surrender. Japan, on the other hand, had long understood the strength of the Mongols in its contacts with the Southern Song Dynasty. In order to avoid an attack by the Yuan Dynasty, Hojo Toshimune ordered that Kyushu and other places close to the Korean Peninsula be prepared for defense.
▲ Hojo Toshizō, the de facto ruler of Japan at the time
After repeated persuasions failed, Kublai Khan decided to take military measures against Japan in order to completely cut off the wings of the Southern Song Dynasty. Although the Yuan Dynasty was undermanned due to two-front warfare, Kublai Khan believed that Japan, a land of bullets, did not require too many armies to conquer.
Kublai Khan demanded that Goryeo fulfill its duties as a vassal state and gather an army to attack Japan. Unable to manufacture sea ships, the Yuan Dynasty entrusted the task of building sea ships to Goryeo, which was relatively advanced in shipbuilding technology. However, the shipbuilding technology of Goryeo itself is still very different from that of the advanced Southern Song Dynasty.
The Goryeo people were already extremely dissatisfied with the exploitation of the Yuan Dynasty, and the Yuan Dynasty demanded that the task must be completed in a very short time. Therefore, the Koryo people cut corners when building ships, and the final ships were suitable for inland navigation, not suitable for the sea.
In October 1274, the Yuan Dynasty sent more than 30,000 Mongols, Han Chinese, Jurchens, and Goryeos, with 900 warships, from Hoppo (near present-day Busan, Korea) on an expedition to Japan. The Yuan Army Group's tactics of warfare were significantly superior to those of the Japanese samurai, and progressed smoothly in the early stages of the war, quickly occupying the beaches of Kyushu Island.
▲A famous Japanese painting depicting the Mongol attack
The Japanese army stubbornly resisted, and the Yuan army continued to win, but it also suffered heavy casualties, and weapons such as arrows could not be replenished. The Yuan army misjudged that the number of Japanese troops was several times that of themselves. For safety reasons, the Yuan army still returned to the ship at night to rest.
It was night, and the Yuan army resting on the ship was suddenly disturbed by a typhoon. Ships built by the Goryeos were not adapted to the harsh environment of the ocean, and these ships collided with each other and sank to the bottom of the sea with the lapping of large waves.
The commander of the Yuan army, seeing the heavy casualties of the troops, and fearing that they would be attacked by the Japanese army again, could only announce the withdrawal of the troops. The first march of the Yuan army failed with the death of more than 13,500 people under the damage of the typhoon.
Typhoons were rare in October, but at this time the typhoon happened to appear and helped Japan defeat the powerful Yuan Dynasty, so the Japanese called the typhoon "kamikaze". After the war, Japan feared that the Yuan Dynasty would strike again, and summed up the experience gained from the resistance against the Yuan Army, and began to build defensive facilities and send heavy troops to garrison the coastal areas near Korea.
After the failure of the invasion of Japan, the Yuan Dynasty adopted a strategy of persuasion against Japan, focusing its main energy on encircling and suppressing the remnants of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Third, unify the world and conquer Japan again
Although the Yuan Dynasty failed in its conquest of Japan, it won the final victory in the war against the Song Dynasty. In 1279, the Yuan Dynasty destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty and swallowed the last piece of territory of the Chinese mainland.
From East Asia to Europe, the Mongols at this time were difficult to find opponents in Eurasia.
▲Red is the territory of the Mongol Empire
In the same year after the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty again sent ministers on missions to Japan. The Japanese shogunate beheaded the emissaries of the Yuan Dynasty in order to show their determination not to submit. This made Kublai Khan very angry.
In 1280, the Yuan Dynasty established the Province of Zhengdongxing, which was the first time in Chinese history that a dynasty exercised direct jurisdiction over the entire Korean Peninsula. The highest official in The Province of Zhengdong was the Left and Right Chancellors, with the Yuan Dynasty appointing officials as the higher-ranking Right Chancellors, while the King of Goryeo served as the less powerful Left Chancellors. Zhengdong, as the name suggests, was responsible for the second crusade against Japan.
▲Goryeo was transformed from a vassal state into a province
Drawing on the experience of the failure of the last conquest, the Yuan Dynasty requisitioned shipbuilders from the former Southern Song Dynasty to build powerful sea ships. But the yuan dynasty's ethnic policy made shipbuilding waves again.
The rulers of the Yuan Dynasty adopted a four-class policy in order to maintain the privileges of the Mongol nobility. The first class is the Mongols, the second class is the Semu people, the third class is the Han people, and the fourth class is the Nan people (the ethnic groups under the former Southern Song Dynasty).
The third and fourth classes are not only far inferior to the top two, but also more financially burdened. For example, the Mongol nobles could enjoy all the property of the Han chinese and other ethnic groups free of charge; killing a Nan was only a fine for a donkey.
The ethnic policy of the Yuan Dynasty caused dissatisfaction among the "Southerners", and shipbuilders and Goryeo people once again cut corners in the process of shipbuilding, resulting in the quality of ships not passing.
At the same time as building ships, the Yuan Dynasty quickly assembled a large army including Han, Mongols, and Goryeo people. In May 1281, Kublai Khan ordered more than 40,000 men of the Eastern Route Army to attack Japan from the Korean Peninsula, while the remaining 140,000 men set out from the Gangnam region and marched in two ways to the Japanese island of Kyushu.
▲The road map of the Yuan Expedition to Japan, green is the first march day, red is the second march day
In order to seize the merits, the commander-in-chief of the Yuan Army could not coordinate the operations, and gave the Japanese a chance. The Eastern Route Army reached Japan first, but due to the lack of reconnaissance of japan's coastal defense deployment by the Eastern Crusader Army, it was difficult to break through the Japanese defense line.
The Japanese learned the lessons of the last war and used small boats to sneak up on the Yuan army ships at night. After several wars, the East Road Yuan Army could not land on the Japanese island, and could only swim in the sea.
The Jiangnan Army had originally set out late, but because of disorientation on the way, it reached the Korean Peninsula again, and waited until a month later to meet the two roads of the Eastern Route Army.
The combined Yuan army still failed to land successfully, and the two sides confronted each other for two months. Due to the long-term life and fighting on the ship, the Yuan army had difficulties in supplying various materials, and a large number of soldiers died of illness. At night, the Japanese sneaked into the Yuan army in small boats from time to time, making the Yuan army tired of coping.
The disaster was not alone, and the typhoon struck again. Under the typhoon, the Eastern Route Army lost 1/3, the Jiangnan Army lost half, and some soldiers close to the coast were slaughtered or drowned by the Japanese.
The Yuan army, which suffered heavy losses, withdrew in a hurry because the commanders of the two route armies were not resolute in their will to fight and their command was not unified. The Second Mongol Crusade against Japan ended in a crushing defeat.
▲ Battle of Mon-Japan
After the failure of the Second Conquest of Japan, Kublai Khan attempted to launch the Third War of Conquest. However, due to the continuous rebellions in the Jiangnan region, such as Huang Hua and many others in 1283, they successively launched anti-Yuan wars in the Jiangnan region.
With kublai Khan's death, the Yuan Dynasty's conquest of Japan was halted. After repelling the attack of the Yuan army, Japan continued to actively prepare for war in order to prevent the Yuan Dynasty from conquering again. However, the Japanese samurai never waited for the invasion of the Yuan Dynasty, and they began to rob the Koryo coast instead, which gradually became the major problem on the southeast coast of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties- the Wokou.
▲ The image of the Wokou in the 15th century
The Yuan Dynasty abolished the province of Zhengdong after the failure of the Second Expedition. However, in 1287, the Yuan Dynasty set up another province of Conquest of the East, with the King of Goryeo alone serving as the chancellor. The province became a mere local ruling body.
By 1368, the Ming Dynasty had destroyed the Yuan, and there had been a change of power on the Korean Peninsula. The Goryeo minister Lee Sung-gyu replaced the Goryeo royal family in 1392 and established the Lee clan Korea, which had been in power for nearly 600 years.
Korea, which gained independence from the Yuan dynasty, became a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty. During the Ming Dynasty, Korea suffered japanese aggression, and even the country fell miserably. North Korea appealed to the suzerainty of the Ming Dynasty for help, and the Sino-North Korean coalition defeated the Japanese invasion and maintained the security of the Korean Peninsula.
▲ Wanli Korean War famous general - Lee Shun-chen
Lee's Korea lasted for nearly 600 years until 1894, when China's vassal relationship with Korea ended in 1894, when Japan, which rose through the Meiji Restoration, defeated the Qing Dynasty in the Sino-Japanese War. The fate of the Korean Peninsula was dominated by Japan and annexed by Japan in 1910 (after World War II, it gained independence again, but the peninsula was divided into Korea and South Korea to this day).
Long-time author | Yang Yangyang
Graduated from the History Department of Yangzhou University| history enthusiast
Responsible editor| Thomas
Graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science| editor-in-chief of the Global Intelligence Officer
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