Who is Kublai Khan to Genghis Khan? Nomadic civilization’s first attempt at a global system

Some friends often ask who Kublai Khan is from Genghis Khan. The answer is very simple. Kublai Khan is the grandson of Genghis Khan.

Genghis Khan, an outstanding military strategist and statesman in world history, and the founder of the Mongol and Yuan Empires. His real name was Temujin, and his surname was Bor Zhijin. He was Qiyan, Mongolian, and his temple name was Taizu in the Yuan Dynasty. In Mongolian, "Genghis" means "sea", praising him as being as great as the ocean. Born in 1162 and died on August 25, 1227.

Kublai Khan, Mongolian, politician and military strategist. He was the founder of the Yuan Dynasty and was revered as "Xue Chan Khan" by the Mongols. He was also the fifth khan of Mongolia. He is the fourth son of Tolei, and Tolei is the youngest and fourth son of Genghis Khan. Born on September 23, 1215, died on February 18, 1294.

In 1206, Genghis Khan ascended the throne as Great Khan of the Mongolian Empire and unified the various tribes of Mongolia. During his reign, he conquered areas as far as the Black Sea coast in the west and almost all of East Asia in the east, becoming one of the famous empires spanning Europe and Asia in world history.

The Mongolian and Yuan Empire established by Genghis Khan and his descendants included the Yuan Dynasty, Ogodei Khanate, Chagatai Khanate in China, and the Kipchak Khanate and Ilkhanate outside China. Its territory started from the east The Korean Peninsula extends to the Balkans in the west, from Siberia in the north to Indochina in the south, with a total area of ??about 30 million square kilometers. The territory it conquered covers more than 30 countries and a population of more than 3 billion in the world today, including the Chinese civilization, Many ancient countries in the world including Persian civilization, Indian civilization and Roman civilization were vulnerable to the conquests of the Mongol and Yuan Empire.

On December 31, 1995, Genghis Khan was selected as the "No. 1 Person of the Millennium" by the Washington Post. This conclusion is based on the standard of "Who shrunk the earth and brought the world closer in the second 1000 years of human civilization (1000-1999)".

Genghis Khan and his descendants launched a series of Western Expeditions for more than 40 years and established the huge Mongolian and Yuan Empire, connecting the East and the West. He is worthy of the title of "the first man in a thousand years".

Why did the Mongols conquer more land and people in these few decades than the Romans did in four hundred years?

Genghis Khan once asked his eldest son, Bol Jijin Shuchi, who is the happiest person in life? Bo'er Jijin·Shuchi replied that he was happiest in the spring when horses and eagles went hunting. Genghis Khan said, otherwise, the happiest thing in life is to defeat the enemy, seize everything he has, see his relatives shed tears, and accept his wife and daughters.

Genghis Khan did not think that this exaggerated description was derogatory to him. This was an effective way for him to spread fear through the pen of literati. The Mongols were using terrorist propaganda to accelerate their conquest.

As a nomadic people who regard war as production, Genghis Khan regards robbery and destruction as a national policy. This is due to the nature of forest hunting people who regard the world's wealth as prey.

Among forest tribes, robbery is equivalent to hunting and is legitimate. Genghis Khan's tribe originally lived at the junction of the forests and grasslands in northern Siberia. They were forest Mongols and were not as civilized as the grassland Mongols. Every year when prey was scarce, they would go out to the grasslands to rob foreigners. This kind of life depends on robbery. The method has always been regarded as a barbaric act.

In fact, this is not barbarism, but the nature of the hunting people. The forest Mongols' war against foreigners was not a real war, nor was it motivated by a feud. The goal was goods rather than killing. As a result, they have faster actions, smarter thinking and more courageous fighting spirit.

How to rule this huge Mongol and Yuan Empire and what is its political basis. We can get inspiration by comparing Genghis Khan's "Bajuna Pledge" and the United States' "Mayflower Compact" (THE MAYFLOWER COMPACT).

In 1203, Genghis Khan and Wang Han fought for power. Wang Han hunted him and his relatives deserted him. He fled to Baluzuna Lake, leaving only nineteen people around him. Everyone rushed to Baluzhu. At this time, a wild horse appeared on the shore of Nahu Lake. The exhausted people were able to kill it to feed themselves. After eating the wild horse meat, Genghis Khan held up a leather bag containing the muddy water of Baluzhu Na Lake and drank water instead of wine to pay tribute to the warriors. He expressed his gratitude to his subordinates for their loyalty and vowed to never forget it. This is the famous "Balongzuna Pledge".

This event is of great symbolic significance to the Mongols. At that time, there was no unified Mongolian nation in the Gobi grassland in the 11th century. Many small tribes lived scattered here. Blood relationship was the highest social criterion. The closer the blood relationship, the closer the relationship. And these nineteen people came from nine different tribes, including Christians (Nestorians) and shamans, as well as Muslims and Buddhists. According to traditional customs, alliances could not be formed, but Genghis Khan's oaths and actions broke this constraint.

The "Baluzuna Oath" between Genghis Khan and his brothers was based on mutual commitment and mutual loyalty, and this commitment and loyalty transcended blood relations, racial distinctions and religious beliefs .

Since then, no capable general has abandoned Genghis Khan, and Genghis Khan has never punished or harmed any capable general. This record of loyalty is unique among history's great kings and conquerors.

Let’s take a look at the American “Mayflower Compact”: On November 11, 1620, after sixty-six days of wandering at sea, a British ship named “Mayflower” The British 3-masted galleon approached the American land. In order to establish a basis for self-government that everyone could be bound by, 41 adult men among the 102 new immigrants on the ship signed a convention before docking. This convention was called the "Mayflower Convention." This convention became the first of countless self-government conventions in the United States in the future. Its signing method and content represented that the people could decide the method of self-government management according to their own will, and that management would no longer be determined by power above the people.

The Mayflower Compact created a self-managed social structure here, which hinted at many democratic beliefs in the era of kingship and theocracy. This is the first important political document in American history. The impact of this convention on the United States runs from the time it was signed to the present. It is the foundation of the founding of the United States and the fundamental reason for the freedom of belief and law in the United States today.

The "Baluzuna Pledge" and the "Mayflower Compact" are the same in spirit and connotation. They are based on personal choice and mutual commitment and reflect the rights and interests of citizens. obligation. This relationship became a symbol of a new type of homogeneity among Genghis Khan's tribe, which would eventually dominate the Mongol Empire as the basis for its internal unity. This was the political basis for Genghis Khan to establish the Mongol Empire.

The Mongol and Yuan Empire’s attempts to globalize the system. Due to the huge influence of the "Baluzuna Oath", the rulers of the Mongolian and Yuan Empire adopted a more pragmatic style to deal with various relations in the huge empire, and their pragmatic spirit also made them not care about ideological issues. The Mongolian Yuan Empire implemented a policy of religious tolerance. It did not establish ideological idols, did not convict ideological crimes, and did not impose its own system on all its subjects. For example, whether astronomy complied with the Bible, whether writing complied with the rules of classical Chinese, and whether paintings required imams (Ahong). It doesn’t matter if they agree with the government, they only enforce technology, agricultural knowledge and new international norms to break the local elite’s monopoly on ideas.

The Mongol-Yuan Empire spanned the Eurasian continent and had a vast territory. There were also many ethnic groups in its territory, which made religions diversified. It was the Mongol-Yuan Empire that basically adopted a laissez-faire approach to various religions within the territory. His attitude, and even treating him with kindness and courtesy, greatly promoted the spread and development of religion. For example, in the territory of the Yuan Dynasty, various types of Buddhism, including Chinese Buddhism, Lamaism, Taoism, and White Lotus Buddhism, have achieved great development; business travelers and priests from the East and West also traveled frequently, and Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, and Buddhism came from the West. The influence of Judaism also gradually increased.

How could the Mongols do this? Obviously this is related to the baggage of backward technology and no sense of cultural superiority at the beginning of the rise of the Mongol and Yuan Empire.

At that time, China, Persia and Arab countries were all regions with developed culture and technology. Although there were commercial exchanges with each other, the traditional barriers of their respective cultures also hindered the spread of new technologies and new ideas, such as Before the Mongol and Yuan Dynasties, printing, banknotes, firearms, free trade, diplomatic immunity, etc. only existed in certain areas. It was the Mongol and Yuan Empire that promoted them and formed the basis of the modern world system. The institutional innovation and technological innovation that occurred in the Mongolian and Yuan era were unprecedented. This is quite similar to the rise of modern America and is worth thinking about.

After the death of Genghis Khan, the Mongolian and Yuan Empire was divided into the Kipchak Khanate, the Ilkhanate, the Chagatai Khanate, the Ogodei Khanate and the Yuan Dynasty, forming a federal system of government.

Genghis Khan finally recognized the value system of the civilized world and did not use force to conquer the world. During Genghis Khan's long-term conquest process, his goals also changed from the earlier robbery, and gradually formed a sense of mission to establish a unified world empire. Genghis Khan told his descendants that his most important lesson was that defeating an army is not the same as conquering a country. You can only conquer by winning the hearts and minds of the people.

Kublai Khan accepted and understood the teachings of his grandfather Genghis Khan and no longer took the creation of new territories as his only goal. From 1271 to the eighth year of the Yuan Dynasty, taking the meaning of "Great Qianyuan" in the Book of Changes, the founding name was Dayuan, and Dadu (now Beijing) was determined to be the capital.

Kublai Khan’s historical merit lies in his acceptance of Han culture. He was one of the few Mongolian rulers who valued Han culture and respected Confucianism. Kublai Khan established a milder and more humane criminal law system in the Yuan Dynasty than the Song Dynasty. Although he came from a nomadic nation, he attached great importance to the restoration and development of agriculture in the Central Plains. Therefore, Kublai Khan was a relatively successful founder of the new order.

Marco Polo respected Kublai Khan as "the great monarch or emperor of all monarchs" and praised Kublai Khan as "unprecedented in the world since Adam, the ancestor of mankind." A powerful monarch with people, land, and wealth", and believed that this was "the one who has the right to be called this name."

Marx pointed out: Barbaric conquerors are always conquered by the higher civilization of the conquered nations. This is an eternal historical law.

Engels once said: In the long-term conquest, the more barbaric conquerors, in most cases, had to adapt to the relatively high economic conditions that existed after the conquest; they assimilated for the conquered, And most even had to adopt the language of the conquered.

From the time when the Mongols established the Yuan Dynasty and the Manchus established the Qing Dynasty and took control of the Central Plains to unify China, China's relevant historical facts prove the correctness of Marx and Engels's assertions.