The Mongols’ Shadow
Like the Timurids, Moghuls, Uzbeks, Muscovite Russia, and the Ottomans, the Ming dynasty was a successor state to the Mongol Empire and its rich nexus of diplomatic, ideological, military, commercial, technological, personnel, religious, artistic, and transportation ties.[1381] The Mongols had asserted a heavenly mandate to conquer the world and demanded strict terms of submission, yet their rhetoric of empire did not dwell on their cultural superiority or insurmountable differences with conquered peoples.
At the same time that they extracted material resources and systematically exploited personnel—from artisans, technicians, and doctors to soldiers, religious figures, and painters, the Mongols also incorporated foreign leaders into a new pan-Eurasian supra-elite.[1382] With their military dominance and dazzling wealth, Mongol rulers built imposing capitals and lavish palaces, richly patronized religion and art, and hosted munificent banquets. Their standards for rulership and empire deeply impressed contemporary observers throughout Europe and Asia.Like its fellow successor states elsewhere in Asia, the Ming dynasty simultaneously exploited the Mongol legacy and evoked indigenous traditions of empire.[1383] As Mark Lewis shows in Chapter 8 and 13 of this volume, Chinese polities developed a rich and varied tradition of empire that incorporated political institutions, military strategies, economic policies, cultural display, literary representation, and ideological justifications. Even before formally establishing his dynasty in January 1368, the Ming founder Hongwu announced his intention to emulate the ways of ancient kings (of the Shang and Zhou dynasties) and to revive the music and rituals of the Han (206 bce-220 ce) and Tang (618-907 ce) dynasties. Although he continued Yuan-period (that is, the period of Mongol domination in China) institutional practices like households with legally defined hereditary obligations to the state and the provincial level unit of administrative government, his rhetoric suggested the revival of early empires.[1384] When he decided to invest his sons as princes along the northern border, granting them broad military, administrative, and economic powers, he evoked the Zhou dynasty, rather than acknowledge the obvious continuity with Mongol appanages.
The new Ming's rhetoric must have struck many east Eurasian observers. Its nostalgic revivalism contrasted with the Mongols' mission of ongoing world conquest. Hongwu's repeated commitment to the eradication of alien customs, of “Mongolian pollution” and “the stench of mutton,” sharply differed from the Mongols' embrace of personnel, cultural practices, religious beliefs, cuisine, and costume from subjugated territories and distant lands. Hongwu stressed distinctions between China and the Other, but he also claimed to be the rightful successor to the Yuan, which he insisted had once been a legitimate dynasty with the Mandate of Heaven until its rulers' corruption forfeited Heaven's support.[1385] Further, he and, to a lesser degree, his heirs expressed the intention to succeed to the relationships established between Mongols and peoples and polities of Asia.
When the last Mongol to rule China, Toghan-Temur (1320-1370, also known as Shundi), and his court fled Daidu for the steppe in September 1368, the Yuan did not suddenly vanish. For the next two decades, it remained the fledgling Ming dynasty's most dangerous rival for prestige, power, and legitimacy in Eurasia.[1386] Acknowledgment of a competition with a rival court was the last thing Hongwu wanted; he desired a clear, decisive, and irreversible end to the Yuan dynasty. The Official History of the Yuan Dynasty, which was compiled by Chinese scholars working for Hongwu, offered precisely such a conclusion. “On September 14 of the twenty-eighth year of the Zhizheng reign period (1368), the army of the Great Ming entered the capital city. The [Yuan] dynasty ended.”[1387] History carried weighty political and moral messages; successor dynasties in China had the responsibility and prerogative to compile the official history of their predecessors. Hongwu repeatedly emphasized that he now possessed the Mandate of Heaven, that the “fortune of the Yuan” (more literally the “fortune of the northern horsemen” hu yun) had come to end, and that all peoples and polities should acknowledge this transition.[1388]
However, Toghan-Temur and later his two sons, Ayushiridara (1338-1378) and Toghus-Temur (r.
1378-1388), were equally adamant that theirs was the legitimate court. They sought the recognition of many component parts of the Yuan dynasty— Mongolians, Chinese, Koreans, Jurchens, Tibetans, and others. They appealed to political institutions that garnered respect in the Sinophonic world. They selected temple names for emperors, chose reign titles, maintained the dynastic title of Great Yuan, and issued calendars at the start of the lunar New Year. They cast official seals of state, issued written directives to local authorities, and bestowed official titles within a hierarchal administrative system immediately recognizable to many audiences. The Yuan court re-established a capital at Qara-Qorum (in today's Ovbrkhangai Province of Mongolia, near the town of Kharkhorin), where it supported a large court retinue. The Yuan court also remained active in foreign relations; it demanded obedience and contributions from former allies such as the Koryo dynasty, dispatched envoys to surrounding polities, and maintained powerful military forces that numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Yuan documents found at Qara-Qoto (Black City or Heicheng) in today's western Inner Mongolia refer to Ming military forces as “Red Rebels” (hongzei). During the 1350s and early 1360s, state authorities and private individuals in the Yuan dynasty (including Koryo) had routinely used such expressions as Red Rebels, Red Turban Rebels, Red Head Rebels, and Sorcerer Rebels to describe groups tied to the millenarian Red Turbans, a loosely organized religious community with military and political ambitions that directly threatened the Yuan. Just as the Ming court loudly insisted that the Yuan was no longer a legitimate dynasty, the Yuan court maintained that Hongwu and his forces were a murderous band of rebels driven by dangerous visions of apocalyptic chaos. The loss of most Chinese lands and flight from Daidu were major setbacks, but both Toghan-Temur and Ayushiridara were intent on restoring the Yuan dynasty's glory. The Koryo court too wrote encouragingly to Toghan-Temur about the prospects of a Mongol revival from the steppe. The Yuan court fielded powerful military forces that clashed with the armies of the newly ascendant Ming court. If the Yuan suffered defeats, until the late 1380s, it also won major triumphs.
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- The Mongols Stage an Appearance
- The Shadow Ideology
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