Politics, Economy, and Society in Yuan China

PAX MONGOLICA : THE STEPPE EMPIRE OF THE MONGOLS HIST 1301 | History Politics, Economy, and Society in Yuan China Even while the Yuan dynasty kept some Song principles, such rotating officeholders, it functioned considerably differently from previous Chinese dynasties. The most significant alteration made by Kublai Khan was the substitution of an ethnicity-based class structure for the Confucian system of class divisions based on economic function. The Mongols occupied the highest rungs of the Yuan social hierarchy, followed by non-Chinese individuals of European descent or former steppe occupants like as the Jurchen, Tangut, and Khitan. Chinese people made up the lowest two classes: the Han ethnic group, who had resided under Jin dominion in the north, and the remnant Song Chinese, who were residents of the south. Mongols were not allowed to wed members of these two lowest social levels. Each family's position in the new class structure was recorded in the census records, as was the employment of the head of the home, which was occasionally allocated in the event of a labour shortage. Following the Khitan concept of ruling distinct people groups in various ways, the Yuan dynasty established distinct administrative structures for each of its numerous ethnic groups. The mandarin written test system was abandoned despite the fact that more and more Mongols, including Kublai, the first great khan to read, were becoming educated. The yassa governed over the Mongols and the following two classes, with administrators chosen by the emperor or the senior local Mongol administrator. At the bottom of the four-class hierarchy, the Song Chinese were led by a Chinese administrator and a Mongol or non-Chinese administrator. It was an imperial appointment for both. The Chinese administrator answered to and was supervised by his counterpart. Every one of these roles was periodically filled, preventing any one person from establishing a basis of authority. A few officials over the Song who were not Chinese had not planned to join the Yuan administration. The emperors forced them to carry out administrative duties in exchange for some favour, which was usually the ability to trade. One of these bureaucrats, Marco Polo, was a young merchant and member of a Venetian trade caravan who ended up spending nearly twenty-five years in Mongol lands with several family members. Marco Polo wrote a popular account of the merchants' experiences, which introduced literate Europeans to the wealth of Yuan China. The majority of these hostage officials were Muslim tradesmen from various regions of the Mongol Empire, however the Polos were the most well-known, having been held captive for about twenty years. No matter how competent they were in their positions, these officials were unlikely to build strong relationships with the populace and establish a foundation of support from which to oppose imperial authority. The shortcomings of Kublai's system were revealed after his death in 1294. The mandarin exam system was reinstituted in 1315 by his great-grandson Buyantu, who now made it clear that the government was dualistic. Exams were administered differently (and shorter) to non-Chinese than to Chinese, and between 25 and 50 percent of passers had to be non-Chinese. Yuan censuses showed that Song Chinese accounted for over 90 percent of the population, which increased the impact of this quota. Mongols and non-Chinese found it far simpler to pass than Chinese due to exam disparities and the quota system. Despite the remarkable riches of Yuan China being reported by travellers such as Marco Polo and, to a lesser extent, the Muslim traveller Ibn Battuta of North Africa, economic development had, at best, stalled due to a fall in consumer purchasing power brought on by high taxes and inflation. Inflation was mostly caused by the usage of paper money. Although paper money could theoretically be exchanged for silk or metal, the Yuan government produced far more paper money than it could redeem it for. Paper money was utilised in at least some economic activity when Kublai ordered that currency be used in dealings with the government. However, this meant that the populace was unable to avoid rising inflation as more paper money was printed by succeeding Yuan governments to pay their debts and to compel the populace to get such money in order to file taxes. The quantity of paper money needed to buy the same amount of labour and products increased as more entered the system without any assets to support it. A portion of the inflation-caused tax increase was reinvested in the economy through inefficient and limited industries, depleting the wealth of the overall economy. The government became bankrupt as a result of the Yuan's extravagant spending on costly but ineffective military projects. Most of these were Kublai's initiatives. Kublai attempted, in even more costly operations, to invade Java once and Japan twice by sea. He also attempted to conquer what is now Vietnam twice. Succession disputes sometimes caused times of anarchy and instability. Following the death of Kublai's designated heir and grandson in 1307, seven emperors ruled for the next twenty-six years. As government resource exploitation escalated and inflation undermined the standard of living, resentment simmered under the surface, especially among the Song populace. As if all of that wasn't a daunting enough task for the Yuan, a plague of sickness and mass deaths struck the Hebei region outside of the city in 1331. Ninety percent of the people in that region perished in three years from an odd new disease that became known as the Black Death. Like many of its citizens, the Mongol Yuan government did not last long.