Rent
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Hi @Rent,
One area of interest I had in my undergraduate years was the the discourse on Fengjian system of Chinese antiquity. Its interesting that after the rebellion of An Lushan , there were political theorists during the Northern Song period that touted that the concept of Fengjian was rather anachronistic. These said political theorists influenced the statesmen and literati of the Northern Song Epoch and this led to the support of the Imperial Vision of centralization and interventionist policies that would define succeeding Imperial Dynasties. The Yuan implemented the same concept in their foreign policies as seen during their punitive expedition to the Kingdom of Singhasari in present day Java. The 2 failed invasions in Japan was also an example of the political lit that the Yuan Ruling Elite borrowed from the Song literati.
Your view?
Dear Nihonjin1051-San,
The way I see it is that Yuan adopted the Confucians way of thinking but failed to put it to practice before conquering China. They borrowed the system of the Han but failed to implement it correctly after conquering China. In my view, by placing people knowledgable of the system at the bottom of the ladder prevented this system to function as it should. Mongols were skilled at land warfares on horseback, but lacked naval warfare knowledge and diplomatic skills. There were also no check system in place to audit corrupted officials.
Mongols traditions and habits were hard to break. They would have been better off keeping their exiting Mongol system and allow their newly acquired citizen to slowly adapt to them. This government, then, can slowly change and shift as necessary to meet its needs, slowly absorbing Han's philosophies into the Mongolian's system of governance, allowing few capable scholars to rise into suitable positions within its regime. This government should focus on economic growth, its citizens and defense to strengthen itself rather than impulsive invasions into unfamiliar warfares.
After Kublai and his son's reign, the next generations of Yuan Emperors were consider to Mongols to be the illegitimate ruler of the vast Mongolian Empire. This left a huge gap in common understanding and shared ideologies, a break in the chain of orders between the ruling class and the Han class since the Mongolian and Semuren class were never fully sinicized to adapt to the Han system. With this lost of connection, there were no cohesiveness among officials. The new generation of Yuan Emperors were powerless in maintaining orders within their court. Yuan's government subsequently became unstable, which is evidenced to their vulnerability to corruptions and rebellions.
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