KUBLAI KHAN (or KAAN, as the supreme ruler descended from Jenghiz was usually distinctively termed in the 13th century) the most eminent of the successors of Jenghiz (Chinghiz), and the founder of the Mongol dynasty in China. He was the second son of Tule, youngest of the four sons of Jenghiz by his favourite wife. Jenghiz was succeeded in the khanship by his third son Okkodai, or Ogdai (1229), he by his son Kuyuk (1246), and Kuyuk by Mangu, eldest son of Tule (1252). Kublai was born in 1216, and, young as he was, took part with his younger brother Hulagu (afterwards conqueror of the caliph and founder of the Mongol dynasty in Persia) in the last campaign of Jenghiz (1226-27). The Mongol poetical chronicler, Sanang Setzen, records a tradition that Jenghiz him self on his deathbed discerned young Kublai's promise and predicted his distinction.
Northern China, Cathay as it was called, had been partially conquered by Jenghiz himself, and the conquest had been fol lowed up till the Kin or "golden" dynasty of Tatars, reigning at K'ai-feng Fu on the Yellow River, was completely subjugated (1234). But China south of the Yangtsze-kiang remained many years later subject to the native dynasty of Sung, reigning at the great city of Lingan, or Kinsai (King-sz', "capital"), now known as Hang-chow Fu. Operations to subdue this region had commenced in 2235, but languished till Mangu's accession. Kublai was then named his brother's lieutenant in Cathay, and operations were resumed. By what seems a vast and risky strategy, the first campaign of Kublai was directed to the subjugation of the re mote western province of Yunnan. After the capture of Tali Fu, Kublai returned north, leaving the war in Yunnan to a trusted general. Some years later (1257) the khan Mangu himself entered on a campaign in west China, and died there, before Ho-Chow in Szech'uen 59) Kublai assumed the succession, but it was disputed by his brother Arikbugha and by his cousin Kaidu, and wars with these retarded the prosecution of the southern conquest. Doubtless, however, the fulfilment of this task was in his mind when he selected as the future capital of his empire the Chinese city now known as Peking. Here, in 1264, to the north-east of the old city, which under the name of Yenking had been an occasional residence of the Kin sovereigns, he founded his new capital, a great rectangular plot of 18 m. in circuit. The (so-called) "Tatar city" of modern Peking is the city of Kublai, with about one-third at the north cut off, but Kublai's walls are also on this retrenched portion still traceable.
The new city, officially termed T'ai-tu ("great court"), but known among the Mongols and western people as Kaanbaligh ("city of khan"), was finished in 1267. The next year war against the Sung Empire was resumed, but was long retarded by the strenuous defence of the twin cities of Siang-yang and Fen-cheng, on opposite sides of the river Han, and commanding two great lines of approach to the basin of the Yangtsze-kiang. The siege occupied nearly five years. After this Bayan, Kublai's best lieutenant, took command. In 1276 the Sung capital surrendered, and Bayan rode into the city (then probably the greatest in the world) as its conqueror. The young emperor, with his mother, was sent prisoner to Kaan-baligh ; hut two younger princes had been despatched to the south before the fall of the city, and these successively were proclaimed emperor by the adherents of the native throne. An attempt to maintain their cause was made in Fukien, and afterwards in the province of Kwang-tung; but in 1279 these efforts were finally extinguished.
The conquest of southern China had occupied the Mongols during half a century of intermittent campaigns. But at last Kublai was ruler of all China, and probably the sovereign (at least nominally) of a greater population than had ever acknowl edged one man's supremacy. For, though his rule was disputed by the princes of his house in Turkistan, it was acknowledged by those on the Volga, whose rule reached to the frontier of Poland, and by the family of his brother Hulagu, whose dominion extended from the Oxus to the Arabian desert. For the first time in history the name and character of an emperor of China were familiar as far west as the Black Sea and not unknown in Europe. The Chinese seals which Kublai conferred on his kinsmen reign ing at Tabriz are stamped upon their letters to the kings of France, and survive in the archives of Paris. Adventurers from Turkistan, Persia, Armenia, Byzantium, even from Venice, served him as ministers, generals, governors, envoys, astronomers or physicians; soldiers from all Asia to the Caucasus fought his battles in the south of China. Once in his old age (1287) Kublai was compelled to take the field in person against a serious revolt, raised by Nayan, a prince of his family, who held a vast domain on the borders of Manchuria. Nayan was taken and executed. The revolt had been stirred up by Kaidu, who survived his im perial rival, and died in 1301. Kublai himself died in 1294, at the age of seventy-eight.