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Conquerors and Confucians:
Aspects of Political Change in
Late Yuan China (Studies in
Oriental Culture)
by John W. Dardess
1973
This is the published version of the book, made available with the
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found at the link below.
Dardess, John W. Conquerors and Confucians: Aspects of Political
Change in Late Yuan China (Studies in Oriental Culture) (Columbia
University Press, 1973)
Published version: http://www.amazon.com/Conquerors-Confucians-
Aspects-Political-Oriental/dp/0231036892
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Conquerors and Confucians
Studies in Oriental Culture Number Nine
THE YÜAN (MONGOL) DYNASTY, 1280-1368 A.D.
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Conquerors
and
Confucians
Aspects of Political Change
in Late Yuan China
John W. Dardess
Columbia University Press „
New York and London 1973 W
R0DD15 255S2
Frontispiece: Reproduced from Albert Hermann s An Histori-
cal Atlas of China, by permission of Aldine Atherton and
Edinburgh University Press.
n 52.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Dardess, John W 1937-
Conquerors and Confucians.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. China—History—Yuan dynasty, 1260-1368.
I. Title.
DS752. D37 951'. 025 72-13308
ISBN 0-231-03689-2
Copyright © 1973 Columbia University Press
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 72-13308
ISBN: 0-231-03689-2
Manufactured in the United States of America
To Margaret
Studies in Oriental Culture
Edited at Columbia University
Board of Editors
Ivan Morris; Professor of Japanese
Wm. Theodore de Bary, Horace Walpole Carpen tier Profes-
sor of Oriental Studies
Ainslie T. Embree, Professor of History
Charles P. Issawi, Ragner Nurkse Professor of Economics
Acknowledgmen ts
I should like to express thanks to Professor
Herbert Franke, to my colleague Lynn Nelson, to Robert
Friesner, and to my wife Margaret for their criticisms and
suggestions on the present work; and to Professor W. T. de
Bary for his most generous help and encouragement. A grant
from the General Research Fund, University of Kansas,
afforded me free time for writing in the summer of 1970.
Although the present project was conceived independ-
ently, I must here acknowledge the original stimulation pro-
vided by the Ming Seminar at Columbia University, where
under Professors de Bary, L. Carrington Goodrich, and Fang
Chaoying I first developed an interest in the problems of
early Ming history; and by the Ming Biographical History
Project, whose editors, Professors Goodrich and Fang, kindly
helped me in the preparation of several late Yiian biographies
and opened to me the gate, as it were, to the present under-
taking. These teachers also guided my dissertation, which
dealt with the late Yiian rebel movements and the Ming
foundation.
Some of the material I have used in this book I first
gathered in Taiwan and Japan in 1965, thanks to a Fulbright-
Hays Award; and I think it proper to mention at this time
the very willing advice and assistance given me then by
Professors Kuo T'ing-i, Huang Chang-chien, and YaoTs'ung-
wu at Academia Sinica; by Chiang Fu-ts ung and Ch ang Pi-te
of the National Central Library; and in Japan, by Professor
Yamane Yukio of the Toyo Bunko, by the staff of the Seikado
Bunko, and by Professors Yoshikawa Kojiro and Saeki Tomi
of the University of Kyoto.
J.W.D.
August, 1971
Contents
Introduction 1
CHAPTER I
The Decline of the Steppe in Yiian Politics
CHAPTKK II
The Rest ora t ion of 1328 31
CHAPTER III
Bat/an and the Anti-Confucian Reaction 52
CHAFFER IV
The Triumph of Confucian Politics 75
CHAFFER V
The Pursuit of **Merit and Profit" 95
CHAPTER VI
The Growth of Yiian Regionalism 119
EPILOGUE
The Last Days of the Yiian Couri in China
Summary and Conclusion 157
Biographical Sotes 171
TABLE
Emperors o f the Yiian Dynasty in China 1
Notes 177
Bibliography 225
Index 237
Introduction
The Yiian Dynasty in China was one by-
product of the great Mongol conquests of the thirteenth cen-
tury. Its founding date seems a matter of choice. It began,
perhaps, in 1215 when Chinggis Qan (Genghis Khan) seized
what is now Peking from the Jiirched Chin Dynasty, although
North China was not fully conquered by the Mongols until
1234. One can also date the era from 1260, when the China-
based prince Qubilai (Kublai) seized the position of Great
Qaghan of the Mongol empire, and established its capital
in Peking. The Mongol occupation had no Chinese-style
dynastic name, however, until 1271, when Qubilai ordered
that it henceforth be known as the Yiian. Finally, only by
1279 was south China brought entirely within the Mongol
fold. If its formal beginning date is 1271, its equally formal
ending date is 1368, when, chased by the armies of the Ming
founder Chu Yüan-chang, the emperor and part of the Yiian
court evacuated Peking and retreated to the steppes.
For a period of time, the larger political entity of the Mon-
gol world empire overshadowed China, which was simply
one of its component parts. As is well known, however, the
Mongol empire did not preserve its unity for very long. The
rise of Qubilai and his establishment of the imperial center
in Peking after 1260 is usually taken as the fateful first step
in transforming the larger Mongol entity into a number of
mutually independent Mongol conquest states: the Yiian
Dynasty in China, the Chaghatai Khanate in Central Asia,
the Ilkhans in Persia, and the Golden Horde in Russia.
The present offering is a political study of the Mongol con-
quest state in China after the Yiian Dynasty seceded, as it
were, from the larger Mongol empire. It attempts to show
that, although the leading political personalities in this later
