Portrait of Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty
We often see strange theories on the Internet such as whether the Yuan Dynasty was Chinese or not, which are not worth refuting. Recently, I was asked, if according to your words, the Yuan Dynasty is also China, why did Zhu Yuanzhang overthrow it? They said, according to what you said, Zhu Yuanzhang should not have overthrown the Yuan Dynasty! This logic is even more absurd!
What I want to say is that the legitimacy of Zhu Yuanzhang's rebellion against jiangshan has nothing to do with the nationality by which the dynasty he overthrew was established.
In the ancient Chinese traditional political discourse system, a common sense is that the heavens were born with so many people, and the people themselves could not manage themselves, so the heavens sent monarchs to manage the people. But Heaven gave birth to the monarch for the sake of the people, not for the sake of the monarch. So, if the monarch is bad to the people, the people have the power to overthrow the tyrant. In the Book of Shang, it is said: "After touching me, you will abuse me." "It means that what is good to me is my sovereign, and what is not good to me is my enemy." In the book mencius, it is also emphasized that it is natural and reasonable for the people to overthrow the tyrant, and as a monarch, he is a one-man thief who is condemned by everyone. After Confucianism became the official ideology, the revolution remained a highly affirmed and noble act, occupying the moral high ground. This has nothing to do with what kind of people the rulers are.
The overthrow of the brutal Qin Dynasty was an important historical achievement of Liu Bang
From the traditional political practice after the Qin and Han dynasties, revolution is also a norm. For example, Liu Bang overthrew the Qin Dynasty and became the Son of the Great Han Dynasty, and his legitimacy was based on the fact that he overthrew the tyranny of the Qin Dynasty and saved the people from water and fire. Later generations repeatedly copied Liu Bang's model, whether the insurgent himself was a poor peasant or a warlord with a certain status. For example, in the last year of the Sui Dynasty, Yang Xuangan, the first to raise an army, said in the text he announced that his family was rich and extremely popular, and he was said to be able to enjoy a happy life, and the reason why he risked raising an army was to save the people from hanging upside down. When Huang Chao raised his army, he also aimed the spearhead at the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, and regarded himself as the liberator of the people of the world. According to their logic, everyone is of the same nation, and there is no need for the common people to rebel against the emperor?
Specifically, Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Yuan Dynasty, and there must be elements of ethnic contradictions. After all, the founders of the Yuan Dynasty and the people of the Central Plains belonged to different nationalities, and the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty even carried out a line of national oppression, ranking the people of the Central Plains as the lowest. But, more often, it was also due to the overthrow of tyranny. You can read the edict that Zhu Yuanzhang promulgated when he went out on the Northern Expedition. In this essay, although Zhu Yuanzhang shouted the slogan of "expelling the Tartars and restoring China", he stressed that it should always be Based on China to control Yidi, not Yidi to dominate China. However, Zhu Yuanzhang did not deny the legitimacy of the Yuan Dynasty's rule over China, he said that the Yuan Dynasty entered the Central Plains, "since the Song Dynasty fell, di north of the Yuan Dynasty entered China, within the four seas, and did not surrender. Moreover, in the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, "at that time, the Emperor Ming was good enough to maintain the world." Zhu Yuanzhang said that the key reason why he raised an army was because in the late Yuan Dynasty, "there was a division of poison and abuse", and the people had to raise troops to save the world.
Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang's legitimacy in establishing the Ming Dynasty was based on the overthrow of tyranny, not simply national restoration. If the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty were not Mongols, but Han Chinese, Zhu Yuanzhang's rebellion also had legitimacy.