Hist 487_17 Mismanagement under Khubilai Khan

Administrative problems

- Southern Song scholars refused to collaborate with the Mongol authorities
- overspending due to military campaigns
- overspending when extending the Grand Canal (3 Mio. laborers)
- the Three Villainous Ministers: infamous for mismanagement and cronyism, all accused of persecuting their opponents
a. Ahmad: infamous finance minister from 1262 to 1282 when he was finally replaced by Khubilais's son Zhenjin; installed state monopolies on tea, liquor, vinegar, gold, silver, copper tools with control bureaus that supervised the laborers and artisans working in the monopolies' bureaus; Chinese were only employed in low-level positions. The administration relied largely on Muslim and other non-Chinese officials.
b. Sangha: proposed the lengthening of the Grand Canal to Dadu: completed 1289; transportation from south to north extremely expensive: payments for the extension of the Grand Canal; payments for grain transportaion via the sea route;
successor to Ahmad after his assassination; when inflation struck Sangha successfully converted old paper notes for new 'chiyuan' notes on a 1 to 5 basis;
infamous for having desecrated and damaged the imperial tombs of the Southern Song; Sangha claimed that he had simly restored the sites to pre-Song conditions by building Buddhist temples on the sites
c. Lu Shirong: head of the Office of Financial Administration of the Left; fueled the inflation in the later Yuan by issuing increasing amounts of paper money

- 1280: loss of more than 62,000 troops and all ships in the attempt to conquer Japan
- 1290: end of a five year long uprising in Tibet

Problems with religion

-1270-1287: first anti-Muslim regulations due to challenges of Mongol superiority in the Ilkhanate
-1280: prohibiting Muslim slaughtering (death penalty in case of transgression!); practice of circumcision abolished
-1281: new problems between Daoists and Buddhists: all Daoist texts other than the Daodejing were ordered to be burned, the printing blocks destroyed

Personal Problems

- 1281: death of Chabi
- 1286: death of Khubilai's designated successor Zhenjin
- health: gout; alcoholism; obesity
- 1294: Khubilai dies; his grandson Temür becomes the Chengzong emperor