"Turning History Upside Down": Genghis is Chinese!

In The Mongol Empire, John May says:

“Two of the strangest (things) are that today’s China owes its shape and size… to a barbarian non-Chinese who was its greatest enemy; and that the same barbarian is now honoured as an insider, the founder of a Chinese dynasty.”

It also explains why China considers Tibet a part of itself.

 

No, this tale is not about Genghis Khan.

 

Genghis’ descendants split the empire. Some ruled the Middle East, others towards Hungary, and the last group a little into China. “Little” is the right word, China was huge and had different rulers in different places. It was on the Chinese side that Kublai was the frontman for his brother, Mönkhe.

 

After hard fought wins in China, Kublai followed Genghis’s approach. Mass slaughter was perpetrated on the losers only if it would serve as a signal to the next kingdom in their path – surrender and you live, fight and be slaughtered. But if there was no kingdom nearby waiting to be conquered, well, then there was no point to mass slaughter.

 

The expansion into China also brought out the stark contrast between the world of the Mongols and the “civilized” world of China:

“Mongolia and China, grassland and farmland, steppe and city, nature worshippers and ancestor worshippers.”

Kublai, like Genghis, was flexible. He understood brute force alone would never be enough for something on the scale of China, so he understood he needed to straddle both worlds. But how?

“He could not keep the Chinese on side from a mobile HQ of tents and wagons, he could not retain the trust of the Mongols from a Chinese city.”

 

Therefore, the need for a new ruling city, something both Chinese and Mongol. It is a sign of the trust between Mönkhe and Kublai that the former gave his blessing for a new capital. Capitals, after all, quickly become centers of power. Which is why Kublai was careful never to call the new city a capital. Misunderstandings and perceived signs of ambitions could be fatal. The city was named Kaiping. Westerners know it as Xanadu, thanks to Samuel Coleridge’s “dreamy, drug-induced poem”. Ironically, so vivid is the imagery of the poem that many, to this day, many think the city was imaginary! It was very real.

 

Since China was so much richer than Mongolia, the tax collection was proportionally huge. In Mönkhe’s capital, the murmurings began – was Kublai becoming too powerful, too rich, too ambitious? It was irrational for Mönkhe to dismiss the possibility out of hand. The mistrust could have easily grown into violent conflict, except for one thing.

 

The Daoists in China had become the dominant religious group thanks to tax exemptions that Genghis had granted them. In turn, that had led to a huge increase in its wealth (thus power) and its followers. Now, in his grandson’s time, there was an increasing backlash from the Buddhists. Mönkhe needed someone to broker a peace deal, else there would be no stability. That someone was Kublai.

 

Kublai called for a joint conference of the two groups. What was not known was that Kublai was already in the process of becoming a Buddhist. Kublai’s bias aside, the years of power had made Daoists come across as charlatans, as barely religious, as mere power-seekers. It made it easier for Kublai to declare Buddhism was in, Daoism was out. There would, however, be no purge of the Daoists, no executions. Kublai had imposed peace, showing intelligence and moderation. Mönkhe was grateful, the Chinese populace happy.

 

Years later, when Mönkhe died, Kublai had to make a choice. Go back to Mongolia and throw his claim to be the next khan, the next ruler of the Mongol empire? Or stay on in China and choose to be the ruler of China only? After dabbling at being the next khan, he decided to only rule China, and for that, he adopted Chinese traditions on the announcement of a new emperor.

 

Declaring yourself an emperor is one thing, but when you don’t really rule all of (modern day) China, you need to conquer the other areas. More importantly, you need to legitimize your conquest and status as ruler. As always, only God (or its proxy, religion) can provide that legitimacy. So Kublai turned to Buddhism. This was made easier because Buddhism (from the time of its origin in India) had the concept of a chakravartin-raja, the universal ruler who “turned the wheel of law”. A Tibetan, Buddhist monk named Phags-pa agreed to anoint Kublai the ruler of China and in return Phags-pa was made the Supreme Head of all Buddhism. “Church” and state had been united, but who was the true ruler? A compromise was struck – the lama would rule Tibet, the emperor everything else. In effect, Tibet had been granted autonomy.

 

Kublai declared a new Chinese dynasty, making his grandfather (Genghis) its posthumous founder (!) thus “turning history upside down”. The conquering Mongols had declared themselves natives of China! From then onwards:

“In Chinese eyes, Genghis and Kublai and all their conquests were actually Chinese. And so therefore, is Tibet.”