The Yuan Dynasty was defined by Qubilai Qa’an’s adoption of many elements of Chinese administration and his successful conquest of south China; however, the qa’an’s later decades were spent in efforts at further conquests that strained even his immense wealth and delayed the integration of the newly conquered territories. Under his successor and grandson, Temür, the empire turned to a more sustainable style of laissez-faire rule. From Temür’s death in 1307 on, however, the regime was roiled by succession conflicts, often pitting steppe-based candidates against those with more experience in the south. In these conflicts, the legacy of Qubilai Qa’an became a useful tool for those opposed to further adoption of Chinese-style methods. These conflicts exhausted the regime’s coffers and left it vulnerable to severe climate change in the mid-fourteenth century; the resulting unrest toppled the dynasty. Still, the Yuan left a legacy of unification for China’s succeeding Ming dynasty.

One of the biggest questions in the study of China’s history is related to the impact of the Mongol conquest. The Mongols governed through multiple languages, and ruled ethnically and culturally distinct groups, in part through the adoption and adaptation of Chinese institutions. The reign of Qubilai Khan (1260–1294) laid the foundations of Mongol rule as the Yuan dynasty, establishing government administration that incorporated steppe patrimonialism emphasizing kinship and loyalty with Chinese bureaucracy. The Yuan capital, Dadu, the site of modern Beijing, was a planned political center that reflected the steppe origins of Mongol rulers as well as Chinese urban design. The Mongol conquest influenced artistic expression in a variety of ways, simultaneously continuing earlier traditions and introducing new ones. Both painters and poets left a rich legacy that can be used to reconstruct the multicultural and multiethnic world of Yuan cultural life. Regional differences mattered, especially the distinction between north and south following the loss of the north to the Jurchen in 1127. After the Mongol conquest, north and south were reunified, and Neo-Confucianism was adopted as orthodoxy by the Yuan government, clearly visible in the approved interpretations of the Classics for the examinations when they were restored in 1315.