As such, the Yuan was also sometimes referred to as the Empire of the Great Khan. In addition to Emperor of China, Kublai Khan also claimed the title of Great Khan, supreme over the other successor khanates: the Chagatai, the Golden Horde, and the Ilkhanate. In the edict titled Proclamation of the Dynastic Name, Kublai announced the name of the new dynasty as Great Yuan and claimed the succession of former Chinese dynasties from the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors to the Tang dynasty. The dynasty was established by Kublai Khan, yet he placed his grandfather Genghis Khan on the imperial records as the official founder of the dynasty and accorded him the temple name Taizu. In official Chinese histories, the Yuan dynasty bore the Mandate of Heaven. Some of the Yuan emperors mastered the Chinese language, while others only used their native Mongolian language and the 'Phags-pa script.Īfter the division of the Mongol Empire, the Yuan dynasty was the khanate ruled by the successors of Möngke Khan. Following that, the rebuked Genghisid rulers retreated to the Mongolian Plateau and continued to rule as the Northern Yuan dynasty. It was the first non-Han dynasty to rule all of China proper and lasted until 1368 when the Ming dynasty defeated the Yuan forces. His realm was, by this point, isolated from the other Mongol khanates and controlled most of modern-day China and its surrounding areas, including modern Mongolia. In Chinese historiography, this dynasty followed the Song Dynasty and later overthrown by the Ming Dynasty.Īlthough Genghis Khan (the then leader of the Khamag Mongol tribe) had been enthroned with the title of Great Khan in 1206 and the Mongol Empire had ruled territories including modern-day northern China for decades, it was not until 1271 that Kublai Khan officially proclaimed the dynasty in the traditional Chinese style, and the conquest was not complete until 1279 when the Southern Song dynasty was defeated in the Battle of Yamen. The Yuan dynasty, officially the Great Yuan, was a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division and a ruling dynasty of China established by Kublai Khan, leader of the Mongol Borjigin clan, lasting from 1271 to 1368.