Seeking to rule the vast domain they had annexed, the Mongols under Ögödei Qa’an established a capital in Qaraqorum in Mongolia. But Qaraqorum did not have the resources or water supply for a large city. After the war (1260–1264) between Qubilai Qa’an, based in China, and Arigh Böke, centered in the steppes, the victors shifted the capital to Dadu, around modern Beijing. Although Qaraqorum and Mongolia may have lost their significance with the transfer of the capital, they remained vital as the Mongols’ homeland, and various Mongol leaders (and their enemies) sought to control these regions. The Yuan court sought to govern Mongolia as a typical Chinese province but was stymied by its inability to control mobile herders. Yet when it was forced out of China by the Ming dynasty, it retreated to Mongolia as the Northern Yuan dynasty and lasted for several centuries.

This chapter explores the nature and consequences of the previously unprecedented possibility of religious exchange across Eurasia made possible by the Mongol Empire.

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.