---
title: "Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368): Kublai Khan and Blue and White"
url: https://realrareantiques.com/yuan-dynasty/
language: en
description: "The Yuan dynasty (1271–1368): Kublai Khan's founding, Mongol government, the eleven emperors in order, the fall to the Ming, and how Yuan porcelain is dated."
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  zh-Hant: https://realrareantiques.com/zh-hant/yuan-dynasty/
  zh-Hans: https://realrareantiques.com/zh-hans/yuan-dynasty/
---

1271–1368

# The Yuan Dynasty

The Yuan was the first dynasty to rule the whole of China from outside the Chinese world. Founded by Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, it lasted less than a century, yet it made Beijing a capital, drew China into trade across Asia and saw the rise of blue and white porcelain at Jingdezhen.

This page covers the founding, government and fall of the Yuan, its emperors in order, and what collectors look for in Yuan porcelain.

**Dates:** 1271–1368
**Founded by:** Kublai Khan
**Capital:** Dadu (Beijing); Shangdu in summer
**Emperors:** 11, from Kublai to Toghon Temür
**Known for:** Mongol rule; trade across Asia
**Key wares:** Blue and white, copper red, celadon, qingbai

## Kublai Khan and the founding of the Yuan

*A modern bronze statue of Kublai Khan in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia*

The Mongols under Genghis Khan and his successors conquered northern China from the Jin in the 1210s to 1234. In 1260 [Kublai Khan](https://realrareantiques.com/yuan-dynasty-emperors/kublai-khan/) was proclaimed Great Khan, though his claim was contested by his brother and the wider Mongol empire was already breaking into separate khanates.

Kublai based his rule in China. In 1267 he began a new capital, Dadu, known to the Mongols as Khanbaliq, on the site of modern Beijing, and kept Shangdu to the north as a summer capital. In 1271 he adopted the Chinese dynastic name Da Yuan, "Great Origin". His armies took the Southern Song capital, Hangzhou, in 1276, and the last Song resistance ended at sea off Yashan in 1279.

North and south China were united again for the first time since 1127, when the Jin had driven the Song south, and they were now part of a Mongol world that reached into Central Asia, Persia and Russia. Merchants, envoys and missionaries travelled the land routes and the sea lanes, and Marco Polo's account of Kublai's court made the Yuan famous in Europe.

## Government under Mongol rule

Kublai adopted many Chinese institutions: a Secretariat at the head of government, ministries, a censorate and a system of provinces that is the origin of China's modern provincial map. He extended the Grand Canal to Dadu and kept an efficient network of postal relay stations across the empire.

At the same time the Yuan kept power in Mongol hands. Society was ranked in four broad groups: Mongols; *semu*, the peoples of Central and Western Asia who served the dynasty; the northern Chinese; and at the bottom the southern Chinese of the former Song. The civil service examinations were suspended for decades, and many Chinese scholars withdrew from public life.

The Yuan relied heavily on paper money. It worked well at first, but later over-issue drove inflation and undermined confidence in the government.

## The emperors after Kublai

*Court portrait of Külüg Khan, from an album of Yuan emperor portraits*

Kublai died in 1294. The succession was never settled by fixed rules, and the following forty years saw coups, short reigns and a civil war. The emperors, with their years on the throne, were:

1. Kublai Khan, 1260–1294 (as Yuan emperor from 1271)
2. [Temür Khan](https://realrareantiques.com/yuan-dynasty-emperors/temur-khan/), 1294–1307
3. Külüg Khan, 1307–1311
4. Ayurbarwada Buyantu Khan, 1311–1320
5. Gegeen Khan, 1320–1323
6. Yesün Temür, 1323–1328
7. Ragibagh, 1328
8. Tugh Temür, 1328–1329 and 1329–1332
9. Kusala, 1329
10. Rinchinbal, 1332
11. Toghon Temür, 1333–1368 (died 1370)

Ayurbarwada was the most committed to Chinese learning: he restored the civil service examinations, decreed in 1313 and first held in 1315. His son Gegeen continued his reforms with the chancellor Baiju and issued a new law code in 1323, but both were assassinated that year. After Yesün Temür's death in 1328, the War of the Two Capitals set the court at Dadu against the court at Shangdu. Tugh Temür won with the support of the commander El Temür, who then dominated the government, and the emperor is remembered mainly as a patron of Chinese scholarship and art.

## Culture, religion and the arts

Many Chinese scholars shut out of office turned to painting, poetry and the theatre. Zhao Mengfu, who did serve the Mongols, and the later Four Masters, Huang Gongwang, Wu Zhen, Ni Zan and Wang Meng, shaped the literati painting that later Chinese painters regarded as their model. Northern drama, *zaju*, reached its height with playwrights such as Guan Hanqing.

The Yuan tolerated many religions. Tibetan Buddhism enjoyed special favour at court, and the Tibetan lama Phagpa devised a new script for the empire's languages. Islam spread in the north-west and south-west, and Nestorian and Roman Catholic Christians were active in the capital. Contact with the Islamic world brought new foods, medicine and, for the potters of Jingdezhen, a new material: cobalt blue.

## Yuan porcelain

*Blue and white vase painted with a warrior on horseback, from our collection*

In 1278 the Yuan set up the Fouliang Porcelain Bureau to oversee the kilns at Jingdezhen. There, in the early fourteenth century, potters perfected painting in cobalt blue beneath a clear glaze on a white porcelain body. Much of the cobalt was imported from Persia, and much of the finest output went west, to the Middle East, where large dishes suited communal dining.

Classic Yuan blue and white is bold and crowded. Decoration is arranged in bands and panels: lotus and peony scrolls, waves, lotus-petal panels around the base, dragons, phoenixes, fish among water plants and, on the finest jars and vases, figure scenes taken from contemporary drama. The cobalt is intense and often concentrates in dark, almost black spots where it pooled. Large chargers, meiping vases and guan jars are characteristic forms. Jingdezhen also made underglaze copper red, white *shufu* wares ordered for the Privy Council, and bluish-white *qingbai*, while Longquan celadon, Cizhou stoneware and Jun ware continued in production.

Examples in our collection include a [barbed-rim charger with phoenixes](https://realrareantiques.com/shop/barbed-rim-yuan-dynasty-blue-and-white-antique-porcelain-charger-plate-with-phoenix/) and a [vase with a mounted warrior](https://realrareantiques.com/shop/late-yuan-dynasty-blue-and-white-porcelain-vase-warrior-on-horse/). More are in the [Yuan dynasty porcelain](https://realrareantiques.com/product-category/antique-chinese-porcelain/yuan-dynasty-porcelain/) collection.

## How Yuan porcelain is dated

Unlike most Ming and Qing imperial porcelain, Yuan wares do not carry reign marks. For a long time Yuan blue and white was not recognised at all. The key was a pair of temple vases in the British Museum, the David Vases, whose inscription dates them to 1351. From them scholars identified the style, and large groups preserved in Istanbul and Iran confirmed it.

Dating a Yuan piece therefore rests on style, material and manufacture, compared with dated and excavated examples: the arrangement and drawing of the decoration, the tone of the cobalt, the heavy potting, the unglazed bases with their orange-red firing blush, and the way the foot is cut. Because fine Yuan pieces are rare and valuable, they have been copied extensively, and our guide to [detecting fakes](https://realrareantiques.com/identifying-fakes/) sets out what to check.

## Decline and fall

*An engraving of mounted troops attacking a walled Chinese city gate*

Toghon Temür came to the throne in 1333, aged thirteen. His early chief minister, Toghto, launched the official histories of the Liao, Jin and Song, completed in 1345. But the government was short of money, factions fought at court, and the Yellow River broke its dykes in 1344, flooding large parts of the north China plain.

In 1351 Toghto conscripted a vast labour force to return the river to its course. That year the Red Turban rebellion broke out, and uprisings spread across central and southern China. When Toghto was dismissed in 1354 while besieging rebels, the court lost its most capable commander and came to depend on regional warlords.

Out of the rebellions rose Zhu Yuanzhang, who proclaimed the [Ming dynasty](https://realrareantiques.com/ming-dynasty/) in 1368. That year Ming armies took Dadu, and Toghon Temür fled north. He died at Yingchang in 1370. The Mongol court continued on the steppe as the Northern Yuan; in China, Basalawarmi, Prince of Liang, held Yunnan until 1381, and the last Yuan army under Naghachu surrendered in Manchuria in 1387.

The Ming kept much of the Yuan state, including its provinces and its capital, which the Yongle Emperor made the Ming capital. At Jingdezhen, the blue and white tradition begun under the Yuan became the most famous porcelain in the world.

**Looking for a piece from this period?** Ask for the price or more photographs; we reply personally within two business days.

[Ask about a piece](https://realrareantiques.com/contact-us/)[Browse the collection](https://realrareantiques.com/shop/)

## Pieces from this period

- Yuan Dynasty Porcelain [Blue and White Barbed-Rim Charger with Two Phoenixes, Yuan Dynasty](https://realrareantiques.com/shop/barbed-rim-yuan-dynasty-blue-and-white-antique-porcelain-charger-plate-with-phoenix/)Yuan DynastyPrice on request
- Yuan Dynasty Porcelain [Blue and White Jar with a Fish and Lotus, Early Yuan Dynasty](https://realrareantiques.com/shop/early-yuan-dynasty-blue-and-white-porcelain-jar-with-fish-and-lotus-carving/)Early YuanPrice on request
- Yuan Dynasty Porcelain [Blue and White Vase with Qilin Panels and Incised Flowers, Early Yuan Dynasty](https://realrareantiques.com/shop/early-yuan-dynasty-antique-porcelain-vase-qilin-with-incised-design/)Early YuanPrice on request
- Yuan Dynasty Porcelain [Blue and White Jar with Two Mounted Warriors, Yuan Dynasty](https://realrareantiques.com/shop/antique-chinese-yuan-dynasty-blue-and-white-porcelain-jar-warriors-with-sword-and-spear/)Yuan DynastyPrice on request
- Yuan Dynasty Porcelain [Antique Chinese Porcelain Blue and White and Red 3 Claw Dragon Early Yuan dynasty](https://realrareantiques.com/shop/antique-chinese-porcelain-blue-and-white-and-red-3-claw-dragon-early-yuan-dynasty/)Early YuanPrice on request
- Yuan Dynasty Porcelain [Blue and White Bottle Vase with Phoenix Roundels, Yuan Dynasty](https://realrareantiques.com/shop/blue-and-white-yuan-dynasty-porcelain-vase-with-phoenix/)Yuan DynastyPrice on request
- Yuan Dynasty Porcelain [Antique Chinese Blue and White Yuan Charger Plate 3 Claw Dragon](https://realrareantiques.com/shop/antique-chinese-blue-and-white-yuan-charger-plate-3-claw-dragon/)Yuan DynastyPrice on request
- Yuan Dynasty Porcelain [Blue and White Bowl with a Fish in a Lotus Pond, Yuan Dynasty](https://realrareantiques.com/shop/yuan-dynasty-blue-and-white-porcelain-bowl-with-fish-and-lotus/)Yuan DynastyPrice on request