When the Mongols invaded China in the thirteenth century, China already had a long and sophisticated tradition of historical and bureaucratic writing; moreover, a large population of literate elites produced written records in great numbers and multiple genres. Chinese records, together with those in Persian, provide the largest trove of sources available for the Mongol Empire. These consist of transmitted sources, often reprinted in later centuries; stone inscriptions surviving from the Mongol era; and newly excavated sources. Genres include official histories, unofficial histories, bureaucratic documents, legal records, travelogues, contracts, miscellaneous notes, gazetteers, genealogies, encyclopedias, and other assorted literary output. Furthermore, Mongolian texts such as the Secret History of the Mongols are preserved in Chinese characters, used phonetically to represent Mongolian words. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of these varied sources, organized roughly by genre.

Although Mongol authority built its empire through military might and administration, the cultural construction of empire happened through artistic exchange. Visions of desire, beauty, and power – as well as the materials that made creativity possible – were essential to the ideological projects of Mongol imperial reach. As governors of a Eurasian-wide commercial empire, Mongol rulers required effective visual representations of their power that could easily be understood by diverse audiences. This could be achieved through widespread dissemination and integration of material culture. Reliance on already recognizable symbols of authority that could be adapted and repurposed for contemporary political goals was both expedient and effective.

Koryŏ (918–1392) encountered the Mongols in the early thirteenth century. A horrific war, political intervention, and relentless pillaging traumatized Koryŏ immensely. However, in the latter half of that century, diplomatic protocols and a marital relationship between Koryŏ and Yuan were established. Later on, Koryŏ people met new individuals and cultures, took advantage of certain political opportunities generated by the empire, and enlarged their range of trade operations through the Mongol-induced global network. Their view of the outside grew more and more open, while they gained a new appreciation of their traditional way of life. Overall, the Koryŏ case shows us how Mongol imperial policies were implemented in initially conquered regions, how the people there coped with such experiences, what kind of Yuan legacy was reflected in their society, and what kind of merging between cultures occurred.

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.

In recent years, archaeology has become increasingly important in the study of the Mongol Empire in East Asia. Historically, the remains in China, Korea, and Siberia have been investigated, but when archaeological research on the Mongolian plateau began at the end of the twentieth century, many significant materials were found. Those have provided useful information on the formation process of the Mongol Empire. Notable sites are the Avraga ruins, where an iron workshop that supported Chinggis Khan’s military power and his mausoleum were found; and Qaraqorum, capital of the United Empire. Newly acquired archaeological materials have been analyzed in collaboration with natural scientists, illuminating aspects of daily life such as clothing, food, and housing, as well as climate change and its impact on the rise and fall of the Mongol Empire.

Gender relations on the Mongolian steppe were crucial to Mongol military successes and the rise of the world empire. Women’s labor within nomadic camps freed up men for wartime mobilization. Elite women were directly involved in policy decisions at the highest levels, and, like elite men, might control large armies and estates. Some were Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist, and served as patrons of these religions for their nomadic followers and for conquered people. Royal women also influenced public affairs through their marriage ties, and could thereby empower their male and female relatives for generations. The first section of this chapter discusses women and gender relations during the expansion of the United Empire, including marriage practices, women’s work, women’s participation in politics, and examples of powerful women in Mongol history. The second section covers women in the western khanates, and the third looks at women and gender in China during the Mongol Yuan dynasty.

The two failed Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281 launched a new phase in the history of Sino-Japanese trade, during which religious institutions played an even more important role. This chapter shows that despite the occasional conflicts between Chinese officials and merchants from Japan, Sino-Japanese trade continued on a large scale with the direct participation of prominent Japanese monasteries in both Kyoto and the newly developed political and religious center of Kamakura. Monasteries directly sending trade ships to China, often in the name of financing monastery construction, constituted a further development in the integration of religious and trade networks predating the Mongol invasions. In the mid-fourteenth century, increasing piracy and the changing political environment in both China and Japan prompted monasteries to adopt precautionary procedures to secure their profit, including signing contract-like documents with the merchants they commissioned.

The Tang dynasty (618–907) went into steep decline as a result of the Huang Chao Rebellion (874–84). The imperial government and the emperor himself became the tools of regional warlords, each maneuvering for his own power in an increasingly uncertain political and military milieu. These struggles were played out in the final decades of the Tang dynasty and beyond, lasting until the mid-point of the tenth century, when the various factions and power groupings of the late Tang had become so enervated by constant warfare and the deaths of the principal players that a new generation of ambitious power-seekers rose to the top. Steppe influence remained important in these conflicts and indeed, from the retrospective standpoint of the Jurchen Jin dynasty (1115–1234) and then the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1272–1368), the intervening control of north China by the Chinese Song dynasty (960–1279) almost seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

This chapter explores the emergence of blue-and-white porcelain in Jingdezhen. This has often been told as a global story that included cobalt from Central Asia, arriving in China by means of Islamic merchants who circulated throughout Eurasia, as did consumer demands from Central Asia. The emergence of cobalt blue decorations on the large dishes that were popular in the eating practices of the steppe and in Central Asian societies is often seen as a story of regional adaptation to global tastes, but this chapter adds a local dimension. It argues that the production of blue-and-white ceramics benefited the circulation of local technologies, especially the application of metal-based pigments onto the unglazed surfaces of ceramics to create line-drawings and brush-painted decorations. That process started in the northern kilns, especially in the wide region in which Cizhou and Cizhou-type ceramics were manufactured. Over time, the kilns in the south also started to apply painted decorations with brushes under the application of the glaze, as objects, ideas and people moved southwards. Jizhou played a key role in the transmission and circulation of materials and technologies.

Trained violence was a central forum for establishing the relationship between Chinese dynastic governments and their subjects. Because training in the use of violence (martial arts), along with access to weapons, determined an imperial subject’s effectiveness in carrying out violence in the service of the state, or in resisting the will of the state, imperial governments were always concerned to confine skills and weapons to those loyal to the state. Not only did different dynasties solve that problem differently at the beginning of their rule, the institutions governing training in violence changed over time in response to a government’s evolving society and external threats. Seen in this light, a state’s control over trained violence and access to weapons is a direct reflection of that state’s evaluation of its subjects’ loyalty and commitment to dynastic goals.

Chapter Two explores how court officials tried to come to terms with Zhu Di’s deep engagement with the steppe and its leaders. Zhu Di’s five steppe campaigns were more than military conflicts. Zhu Di visited the sites – sometimes ruins – of former Yuan palaces and lodges. He offered commentary on the Yuan ruling house, which accentuated his status as successor to the Great Yuan and as a ruler uniquely qualified to pass judgment on fellow sovereigns. Zhu Di’s actions challenged civil officials in many ways. They had to praise a sovereign who openly flouted the founder’s precedents. They celebrated the emperor’s newest subjects, men who drank blood, consumed raw liver, and exulted in physical strength. Court ministers’ writings depicted a style of rulership obviously connected to men from afar in ways that simultaneously satisfied their sovereign’s demands and minimized dangers to the polity and to themselves.

The Conclusion offers observations about what the study’s main findings reveal about Ming rulership and the Ming throne’s place in east Eurasia. It argues that the Ming throne actively sought allies in Eurasia through political patronage, economic support, and a rhetoric that highlights the ties of good faith and loyalty between the emperor and Mongol nobles at home and abroad. The Conclusion also briefly critiques New Qing History exceptionalism, suggesting that the Ming throne’s engagement in Eurasia is one chapter in a far longer story of China’s deep ties to neighboring polities.

Using the unusually rich historical sources generated by the Tumu crisis, Chapter Four offers a reconstruction of Ming rulership in east Eurasia in the mid-fifteenth century. Chapter Four demonstrated that the fifteenth century’s first half saw a multigenerational, multifaceted competition among Mongol, Oirat, and Ming ruling elites to turn the Chinggisid legacy to their advantage. Each developed a genealogy or pedigree of rulership, which it advertised to its neighbors. The best-documented example, that of the Ming dynastic house, trumpeted the superior attributes of the rulership of Zhu Yuanzhang and his descendants. Just as emphatically, the Ming throne denied the qualifications of rival lords such as Toqto’a-Buqa and Esen. The Ming ruling family and its close supporters tried to persuade several audiences, including Jurchen chieftains, the Choson throne, and Oirat and Mongol leaders, of its historical vision of the past and the present.

Chapter Three is a group biography of Mongols in the early Ming throne’s service. Zhu Di and his advisers depicted Esen-Tügel’s decision to join the Ming dynasty in 1423 as a submission, which proved Zhu Di’s superior attributes of rulership. The emperor’s martial prowess, munificence, and ability to recognize men of outstanding ability regardless of their origin won the allegiance and service of a proven Mongol warrior and leader. As was often the case, this dramatic moment – an oath of personal fealty – commanded chroniclers’ attention, but the bigger story had yet to unfold. Imperial patronage continued for much of the remainder of the fifteenth century. It took material form in housing, wages, and personal gifts. It also came in the guise of tax exemptions, prestigious titles and posts, opportunities for advancement, and the throne’s conspicuous protection. Successive emperors displayed their favor through material, financial, political, and honorific means. Such patronage extended to hundreds of Mongolian men, their families, and their descendants for decades and decades. Men from afar embraced this face of rulership. At the same time, it was a pattern of behavior that many civil officials rejected, in part because they felt that such generosity came at their expense.

Chapter Five uses the Tumu crisis to shed light on two more facets of Ming rulership in east Eurasia. The first is the Ming court’s deep commitment to secure allegiance among neighboring elites, and the second is the striking commensurability between the Ming throne and Mongol (including Oirat) nobles. Both issues throw into relief contemporary awareness that Ming rulership did not occur in isolation but rather coexisted with other centers of power and authority. Ming rulers strove to shape the perceptions and actions of neighboring lords, great and small. Drawing on its military, economic, ritual, and rhetorical resources, the Ming court established itself as east Eurasia’s premier patron. The Oirats’ rise showed that the Ming court’s influence might be challenged, but in the mid-fifteenth century, no one – even Esen – seriously contemplated toppling, much less replacing, the Ming dynasty.

Chapter 8, “South of the Clouds,” moves from the Mongolian steppe to Yunnan, the southwestern kingdom of the Prince of Liang, a Chinggisid noble and Great Yuan supporter. In the mid-thirteenth century, the Mongols conquered Yunnan, a previously independent kingdom (Nanzhao), as part of its broader war against the mighty Song dynasty in China. Mongol governance in Yunnan shaped power sharing among local elites in ways that influenced their response to Daidu’s fall in 1368, the Great Yuan’s diminished power, and the Ming court’s efforts to win recognition. This chapter charts Zhu Yuanzhang’s diplomatic and military offensives in Yunnan with particular attention to his attempts to turn local experience of Mongol rule to his advantage.

Chapter 6, “A Precarious Tale” explores the role of war, military men, and court drama in the early Ming’s rivalry with the Great Yuan. It also addresses the precarious nature of the early Ming court’s Chinggisid narrative. All contemporaries understood that military force was essential for political legitimacy. Field commanders defeated Great Yuan armies, conquered its lands, captured Chinggisid nobles, and seized key political emblems such as seals of state. Thus, military commanders also figured in the story that the early Ming court told of the Great Yuan.The Ming court widely disseminated news of high political theater, for instance the reception of Chinggisid nobles in Nanjing. However, both court drama and military commanders repeatedly disrupted the Ming court’s carefully scripted stories about inescapable Yuan defeat and inevitable Ming triumph. Commanders lost battles. Some were declared traitors. Political theater failed to go according to plan; on occasion it was dramatically undone by senior figures in the Ming court.