Gegeen Khan

Gegeen Khan, born Shidebala (碩德八剌), was emperor of the Yuan dynasty from 1320 to 1323 and the ninth Great Khan of the Mongols. He succeeded his father, Ayurbarwada, at about seventeen, and from 1321 his reign used the era name Zhizhi (至治, 1321–1323). His temple name is Yingzong (英宗).

For his first two years real power lay with his grandmother Dagi and her minister Temüder. Once both had died, he and his grand councillor Baiju pressed ahead with reforms on Confucian lines, including a new law code. Those reforms threatened powerful interests, and in 1323, aged about twenty, he was murdered at Nanpo, the first Yuan emperor to be assassinated.

The Succession

Shidebala was the eldest son of Ayurbarwada Buyantu Khan, Emperor Renzong, and of Radnashiri, a woman of the Khongirad clan, which traditionally supplied the empresses of the imperial house.

His place in the succession rested on a broken promise. When Ayurbarwada was made crown prince, he had promised his elder brother, Khayishan, that he would in turn name Khayishan's son as his heir. After Khayishan's death, however, Khayishan's sons were sent away to the borderlands and the officials loyal to him were purged. The elder son, Kusala, was ordered to Yunnan in 1316; he rebelled on the way, and when the revolt failed he fled to the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia, where he remained for more than a decade.

The driving force behind this was Shidebala's grandmother Dagi, the empress dowager and herself a Khongirad, who favoured him because his mother came from her clan. With her backing he was installed as crown prince in 1316, and the following year he was made nominal head of the Secretariat and the Bureau of Military Affairs.

The Regency of Dagi and Temüder

Ayurbarwada died early in 1320, and in April Shidebala succeeded him. Dagi at once restored her favourite, Temüder, as senior grand councillor. Temüder used his return to destroy his opponents, among them senior members of the censorate, and the young emperor was left with few allies at court. Until 1322 the Khongirad faction around the empress dowager dominated the government.

Shidebala could not remove Dagi or Temüder, but he did not simply obey them. He resented the way they governed, and from the start of the reign he looked for a counterweight. He found it in Baiju, a Jalayir and a descendant of Muqali, one of Genghis Khan's most famous generals. Baiju had a good Confucian education and was a long-standing rival of Temüder, and the emperor made him grand councillor of the left.

The balance changed in 1322, when Temüder and Dagi died within a few months of each other. Temüder was stripped of his titles and estates after his death and his son was executed, which left his remaining followers, among them his adopted son Tegshi, isolated and afraid for their own futures.

Rule in His Own Right

With Dagi and Temüder gone, Gegeen Khan took full control of the government and removed the Khongirad faction from office. He made Baiju grand councillor of the right, the senior post, and Baiju served as sole grand councillor for the rest of the reign. Together they abolished many of the offices attached to the empress dowager's household and cut the cost of the court.

The emperor continued his father's policy of governing on Confucian principles and promoting Chinese learning. He and Baiju brought back into government many Chinese scholar-officials who had resigned while Temüder was in power. In 1323 the court issued a new code of laws and regulations, the Da Yuan tongzhi, the best-known product of the reign. The growing influence of Neo-Confucianism also brought stricter rules on the conduct of Mongol women, who until then had moved freely in public.

The emperor was also a lavish patron of Buddhism. From 1321 he spent heavily on a great temple in the Western Hills outside Dadu, the Shouan Temple, whose site is now the Temple of the Reclining Buddha in Beijing. The cost of the work drew protests from officials even as the court was trying to reduce its spending elsewhere.

These reforms were popular with Chinese officials but threatened Mongol nobles and officials who had prospered under Temüder. Many of them also faced investigation for their conduct during his years in power.

The Nanpo Incident and After

In September 1323 Gegeen Khan and Baiju were returning from the summer capital, Shangdu, to Dadu. While they were camped at Nanpo, south of Shangdu, conspirators led by Tegshi, Temüder's adopted son and head of the censorate, killed them both. He had ruled in his own right for barely a year.

The conspirators offered the throne to Yesün Temür, who held command in the Mongol homeland. Once enthroned, Yesün Temür had the murderers executed. Chinese historians praised Gegeen Khan for continuing Ayurbarwada's support for Chinese culture and government, and his murder has often been read as a struggle between a reforming party at court, aligned with Chinese officials, and Mongol nobles determined to keep their privileges.

Porcelain of the Period

No porcelain can be tied to Gegeen Khan himself. Yuan porcelain was not marked with reign titles, so pieces are dated by their body, glaze, shape and decoration rather than to a particular emperor. His short reign falls in the decades when the Jingdezhen potters were developing underglaze painting in cobalt blue, which reached maturity in the reign of Toghon Temür. Our Yuan dynasty porcelain collection shows the range of what these kilns produced.