Kublai Khan fought his own brother for the Mongol throne and split an empire
Genghis Khan's grandson became the first non-Han ruler of all China, founding the Yuan dynasty in 1271. But his path ran through a civil war against his younger brother, fought over rival councils that each named a Great Khan. Kublai won, and the vast Mongol Empire never truly held together again.
Kublai was born on 23 September 1215, a son of Tolui and his chief wife Sorghaghtani Beki. At nine, after his first hunt, his grandfather Genghis Khan smeared animal fat on his finger in a Mongol rite and told everyone to heed the boy's words. His mother, following Genghis's advice, chose a Buddhist Tangut nurse for him. When Kublai was granted an estate of 10,000 households in Hebei in 1236, he first left it to local officials, whose corruption and heavy taxes drove Han peasants away; he then moved in, reformed the tax rules, and many returned.
He was strongly drawn to Chinese culture. In 1242 he questioned the leading northern Buddhist monk Haiyun about philosophy, and gathered advisers such as the monk, painter and mathematician Liu Bingzhong. Appointed viceroy of northern China after his brother Möngke became khan in 1251, he raised farm output in Henan and won the respect of Han warlords. In 1253 he took the Dali kingdom's capital in Yunnan, sparing its people even though his envoys had been killed. He also invited the Tibetan lama Phagpa into his circle and, in 1258, settled a feud between Taoists and Buddhists by forcibly converting 237 Taoist temples.
Möngke died in 1259 during a campaign against the Song. Kublai kept the news quiet and pressed on toward the Yangtze until word came that Ariq Böke, his younger brother, was raising troops. A great council at Karakorum proclaimed Ariq Böke khan, with the backing of most of Genghis's line. Kublai held his own council, which declared him Great Khan on 15 April 1260. The ensuing war wrecked Karakorum, which Kublai starved by cutting its food supply, and dragged on until 1264. It marked the start of the empire's division: afterwards Kublai's real authority was confined mostly to his Chinese domain.
In 1271 he proclaimed the Great Yuan dynasty, claiming continuity with earlier Chinese dynasties, and by 1279 had finished conquering the Song. He sent invasions against Japan, Vietnam, Burma and Java, and ruled until his death on 18 February 1294.
Source: Kublai Khan
