Temür Khan

Temür (鐵穆耳, 1265–1307), known by his temple name Chengzong, was the second emperor of the Yuan dynasty and the sixth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. He reigned from 1294 to 1307, under the era names Yuanzhen (1295–1297) and Dade (1297–1307).

He was a grandson of Kublai Khan and a son of Kublai's crown prince Zhenjin, who had died before his father. Temür was not a conqueror. His achievement was to hold together the state Kublai had built, to repair some of the damage done by Kublai's costly wars, and to make peace with the Mongol khanates of Central Asia, which in 1304 acknowledged the Yuan emperor as their nominal overlord.

His reign was not free of trouble: there were revolts in the southwest, fiscal strain and growing corruption among officials. But it was the last long and settled reign the dynasty would know.

Early Life and Accession

Like his grandfather, Temür was a devout Buddhist. As a young prince he took part in Kublai's campaign of 1287 against the rebel prince Nayan, and with the general Öz Temür he afterwards guarded the Liao River and Liaodong against Nayan's ally Qadaan, who was eventually defeated. In 1293 Kublai placed him in command of the forces at Karakorum, facing the Central Asian prince Kaidu.

When Kublai died in 1294, the leading officials called a kurultai, the Mongol assembly that chose a new khan, at Shangdu. The strongest candidates were Temür and his elder brother Kammala. According to a well-known account, their mother settled the matter by having the two brothers recite the sayings of Genghis Khan; Temür spoke them better and was acclaimed as emperor.

Temür's Reign

Temür ran the empire competently along the lines Kublai had laid down. He made no great conquests, but he tried to restore the finances after the expensive campaigns of his grandfather's last years, including the failed invasions of Japan and Dai Viet. His senior officials came from many backgrounds: Mongols, Central Asian Muslims, Han Chinese and a few Christians.

Court and Government

Temür gave his mother new estates and guards and renamed her ordo (camp) the Longfu Palace, which became a centre of the powerful Khongirad clan's influence at court for decades. Mongol and Central Asian statesmen ran the government with the help of Chinese administrators and Muslim financiers. The most prominent Muslim minister was Bayan, a great-grandson of Sayyid Ajall Shams al-Din, who was put in charge of state finance.

The court generally favoured policies that kept the peace at home. Temür reversed his grandfather's measures against Daoism and gave the Daoist master Zhang Liusun a senior post at the Academy of Worthies.

Confucianism

Temür's government treated Confucianism and Confucian scholars with respect. Soon after his accession he issued an edict honouring Confucius, and he appointed Harghasun, a minister close to the Confucian scholars, as Grand Chancellor of the Right in the Central Secretariat. The court did not, however, adopt Confucian principles of government wholesale.

Taxation and Finance

Temür imposed no new fiscal burdens. He granted repeated remissions of taxes and levies, including a year's exemption for the capitals Dadu and Shangdu and two years for ordinary Mongols, and in 1302 he forbade the collection of anything beyond the fixed quotas.

These concessions came at a cost. The state's reserves were drained, the credibility of the paper currency suffered, and corruption among officials became a serious problem.

Southeast Asia and the Southwest

On taking the throne in 1294, Temür halted the preparations for new invasions of Japan and Dai Viet. He released Dai Viet's envoys as a gesture of goodwill, and the Tran court resumed sending tribute. An embassy to Japan in 1299 was rebuffed by the Kamakura shogunate. Envoys came from Cambodia and Siam, and in 1296 Temür sent a mission to the Khmer capital at Angkor; one of its members, Zhou Daguan, wrote the best surviving eyewitness account of Angkor.

Burma and Yunnan

Temür at first continued Kublai's plans for Burma but abandoned them after a visit by a Burmese prince, and the Pagan king became a Yuan vassal. When he was overthrown in 1299, a Yuan army was sent in 1300 to restore Yuan authority, but it achieved little and withdrew.

Between 1301 and 1303 Temür's forces in Yunnan also campaigned against the Tai kingdom known in Chinese as Babai Xifu. These expeditions were costly and provoked revolts in the southwest, including those led by the chieftain Song Longji and the female ruler Shejie, and a rising of the Gold Teeth peoples. The rebellions were suppressed, and the Yuan withdrew from Burma, whose lands passed to Tai and Burmese rulers who sent only nominal tribute.

Peace in the West and the Succession

For more than thirty years Kublai and his successors had fought a war in Central Asia against Kaidu and his allies. Kaidu died in 1301, and in 1304 peace was agreed between the Yuan and the western khanates, which recognised Temür as their nominal suzerain. The peace did not last, and the Mongol Empire never again acted as a single power, but it confirmed the Yuan emperor's formal pre-eminence among the Mongol rulers.

Temür's only son, the crown prince Deshou, died in 1306, and Temür himself died early in 1307 without a male heir. A struggle for the throne followed, won by his nephew, who reigned as Külüg Khan. It opened a quarter-century of short reigns and palace coups that weakened central government.

In later decades the court was increasingly absorbed in its own rivalries. Floods of the Yellow River and widespread famine went largely unanswered, local leaders raised private armies, and in 1368, sixty-one years after Temür's death, Mongol rule in China came to an end.

Porcelain in Temür's Time

Yuan emperors did not place reign marks on porcelain, so no piece can be attributed to Temür's reign by its mark. The Jingdezhen kilns at this time were best known for bluish-white qingbai wares and matt white wares, while Longquan celadon was made in quantity for home use and export. The underglaze blue and white for which the Yuan is now famous reached maturity in the decades after his death. Examples of the period can be found among our Yuan dynasty porcelain.