The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 06. Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368

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GOVERNMENT

603

establishments in its greater scope of activity and greater number of officials.

The increase in numbers of officials and their more extensive activities are

related to the proliferation of organizational levels within the Censorate

itself.

The Censorate simply mirrored the overall trend in Yuan regional-

local government toward the multiplication of jurisdictional levels and the

consequent rise in the number of officials necessary to staff the more elaborate

structure.

The Mongolian Censorate in Ta-tu had a staff of thirty-two investigating

censors

(chien-ch'a

yu-shih), and the two permanently established Branch Cen-

sorates (Hsing Yu-shih t'ai) in Chiang-nan and Shan-hsi had twenty-eight

and twenty investigating censors, respectively. Also, two temporary Branch

Censorates were established in Ho-hsi (from the late 1270s to 1283) and

Yunnan from 1290 to 1297.

Although the Branch Censorates were granted surveillance jurisdiction

over the eleven Branch Secretariats, up to twenty-four Surveillance Offices (at

first called T'i-hsing an-ch'a ssu and later renamed Su-cheng lien-fang ssu)

maintained surveillance over the lower levels of civil government.

The Censorate's involvement in the government's daily activities is clearly

indicated by Yuan governmental regulations that refer to bureaucratic revi-

sion

(cbao-shua)

or record checking

(shua-chiian).

Censorial officials were en-

listed in the tedious activities of examining, correcting, or verifying dates,

signatures, seals, and calculations in the daily records.4° The records of all

government agencies from the Central Secretariat down to the county were

regularly checked by censorial officials. Only those records pertaining to

militarily sensitive matters were exempted from such checking; for. instance,

information concerning numbers of troops and numbers of horses was consid-

ered top secret.

The Yuan Censorate's range of duties was also expanded to include

remonstration, an activity that had traditionally been the prerogative of

specific offices of remonstration outside the Censorate. From Yuan times

on, the different activities of surveillance and remonstration coexisted in the

Censorate.

The Yuan Censorate was a politically active institution and so was not

above taking part in court intrigue and factional fighting. A politically

motivated memorial of impeachment by a censor, for example, led to the

dismissal of the powerful chancellor of the right, Toghto, late in 1354, whose

25—8;

Hucker, A dictionary of

official

titles in imperial China, p. 61; and Hung Chin-fii, Yuan tai

chien

ch'a

chih

yen

chin (Taipei, 1972).

40 See YTC, 6, pp. 14a—18b; Ratchnevsky, Un

code

da Yuan, vol. 1, pp. 40—1; Hucker, "The Yuan

contribution to censorial history," p. 221; and Hung Chin-fu, Yuan tai

chien ch'a chih

t'u,

Yen

chiu,

vol.

pp. 74a-77b.

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604 THE YOAN GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY

fall is generally seen by historians as a disastrous turning point in the dy-

nasty's fortunes.

Although the top censorial offices in the capital were, with few exceptions,

filled only by Mongols or Western and Central Asians, the lower-ranking

(Rank 7a) offices of the investigating censors

(chien-ch'a yii-shih)

were open to

Chinese

(Han-jen).

In fact, the first twelve posts for investigating censors in

the Metropolitan Censorate were filled by Chinese in 1268. Although Mon-

gols came to outnumber Chinese in 1282, it is still noteworthy that in 1285

two southern scholars (nan-ju) also were appointed. In the Chiang-nan

Branch Censorate in 1286, fourteen new positions as investigating censor

were designated for Mongols, and only four for Chinese. Yet the fact that a

few Chinese literati, some with either

chin-sbih

degrees (after 1315) or earlier

careers as government school instructors, became investigating censors dem-

onstrates that the Censorate was far from being an exclusive preserve for

Mongols and Western and Central Asians.

Imperial

agencies

and bureaus

Outside the tripartite framework of civilian, military, and censorial offices

were a number of agencies whose duties revolved around the emperor's own

establishment and those of other members of the imperial family. In fact,

some categories of Yuan households were administered directly by imperial

agencies and bureaus, such as the various bureaus in the imperial establish-

ment set up to supervise artisans, and hunting and falconry households.

Among the most important of those agencies in charge of ensuring the

imperial family's well-being was the Bureau of Imperial Etiquette (Hsiian-

hui yuan). This bureau, whose staff was very large in Yuan times, was a

Chinese-style agency with precedents in the T'ang, Sung, Liao, and Chin.

First instituted under Khubilai in 1278, the Bureau of Imperial Etiquette

took over the management of imperial household duties, such as provisioning

the imperial kitchens, duties that in the pre-Khubilai era had been per-

formed exclusively by the

kesig,

the imperial guard.

' The

kesig,

however, was

not entirely displaced by the Chinese-style bureau, because members of the

imperial guard actually served in agencies subordinate to it, such as the

Court of Imperial Attendants (Shih-cheng fu).

41 For examples ofsuch Chinese literati, see

Tse-fen, Yiian shihbsinchiang(Taipei, 1978), vol. 4, p. 439.

42 In his article "Structure and function in the Yiian imperial government," David Farquhar separates

those agencies concerned with the emperor's well-being from those concerned with other members of

the imperial household, which differs from the categorization used here.

43 On the Bureau of Imperial Etiquette and its many subordinate agencies, see YS, 87, pp. 2200-13;

Ratchnevsky, Un

code

da Yuan, vol. 1, pp. 143-6; and Hsiao, The military

establishment

the

Yiian

dynasty, pp. 39—40.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

GOVERNMENT 605

This mixture of Mongolian and Chinese elements was a persistent feature

of Yuan bureaucracy. We can also identify a purely Mongolian agency with

no Chinese precedents, the Agency of

Men

and Things Gone Astray, or Lan-i

chien, under the aegis of the Bureau of Imperial Etiquette. This agency was

charged with overseeing displaced goods, animals, and people (mainly

slaves), finding their owners, and, if that proved impossible, handing them

over to the imperial household. The duties of

the

Agency of

Men

and Things

Gone Astray clearly reflected Mongolian notions of property management

and of what belonged within the sphere of the imperial family; on the other

hand, one is not surprised to find this agency subordinate to the Bureau of

Imperial Etiquette, a thoroughly Chinese institution.

In addition to the many directorates that oversaw the material well-being

of the imperial household, the emperor's ritual and intellectual activities

were served by the Han-lin and National History Academy (Han-lin chien

kuo-shih yuan) and the Mongolian Han-lin Academy (Meng-ku Han-lin

yuan),

among others.

The joining together of the Han-lin Academy and the National History

Office into one joint academy was an institutional innovation undertaken by

Khubilai in 1261 on the advice of

the

senior Han-lin academician Wang O.

This apparently stemmed from Wang's attempt to convince Khubilai of the

need to begin compiling standard histories of

the

Liao and Chin as well as the

records of the pre-Khubilai Mongolian rulers. In 1264, with the removal of

the capital to Ta-tu (modern Peking), the Han-lin and National History

Academy was formally established, and the foundations for the composition

of the Liao and Chin dynastic histories were laid.

In addition to the Han-lin and National History Academy, there was also a

Mongolian Han-lin Academy, which drafted imperial decrees in Mongolian

and translated state documents from Mongolian into Chinese and other

languages, and vice versa.

' A copy of every document was made in the

'Phags-pa script, an alphabetic script based on Tibetan and written vertically,

as was the Uighur script, which had been adopted by the Mongols in 1204.

Uighur writing continued to be used in the Yuan along with the newer

'Phags-pa script, although an imperial decree of March 1269 ordered the

'Phags-pa script to be used in all government documents from then on.

44 See Hok-Iam Chan, "Chinese official historiography at the Yuan court: The composition of the Liao,

Chin, and Sung histories," in China undtr

Mongol

rule,

ed. John D. Langlois, Jr. (Princeton, 1981) pp.

62-4;

Chan, "Wang O (1190—1273)," pp. 54-57; YS, 87, p. 2189; and Ratchnevsky, Vn

code

Yuan,

vol. 1, pp. 148—9.

45 On this office, as well as on the Mongolian schools and the use of Mongolian in Yuan official

documents, see YS, 87, pp. 2190—

Ratchnevsky, Uncodedes Yuan, vol. 1, pp. 149—51; Lien-sheng

Yang, "Marginalia to the Yuan

ticn-chang,"

in his

Excursions

sinology

(Cambridge, 1969), pp. 126—8;

and Endicott-West, Mongolian rule in China, chap. 3.

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606 THE YOAN GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY

Officials with the right to present memorials to the throne were required to

use the Mongolian script. The Mongolian Han-lin Academy was thus of

central importance in the network of official communications to and from the

throne, as Mongolian, not Chinese, remained the official language in Yuan

China.

The Mongolian Han-lin Academy also administered the Mongolian Direc-

torate of Education (Meng-ku kuo-tzu

chien)

and the Mongolian National

University

{Meng-ku

kuo-tzu

bsu'eh),

which educated the sons and younger

brothers of both Mongolian and Chinese nobles and officials. Similarly,

Mongolian language schools

{Meng-ku

tzu-hsiieh),

established in the routes in

1269,

accepted a set number of sons, grandsons, younger brothers, and

nephews of all officials without reference to ethnic background. The ethnic

composition of

classes

at the Mongolian National University in 1315 was 50

percent Mongolian, but unfortunately, we have no evidence for the route-

level Mongolian language schools. Anecdotal evidence shows, however, that

Mongolian language instruction was available to Chinese seeking advance-

ment in the Yuan bureaucracy.

The Chinese equivalents of the Mongolian Directorate of Education and

the Mongolian National University were administered by the Academy of

Scholarly Worthies

(Chi-hsien

yuan).*

The National College

{Kuo-tzu chien)

admitted the sons and grandsons of court officials of the seventh rank and

above, whether Chinese, Mongolian, or other. Court officials of the third

rank and above could recommend exceptionally gifted commoners to attend

the National College as "free auditors." The Academy of Scholarly Worthies

itself

was

detached from the Han-lin Academy in 1285 when it was assigned

the additional responsibility of watching over Taoist affairs, through state-

appointed Taoist administrators, at all Taoist monasteries.

In its capacity as watchdog of

the

Taoist establishment in Yuan China, the

Academy of Scholarly Worthies was not significantly different from the

Bureau of Tibetan and Buddhist Affairs (Hsiian-cheng yuan), which directly

supervised the Buddhist clergy in China, as well as exerting nominal author-

ity over Tibet. Another parallel may also be drawn: The academy's supervi-

sion of Taoism by appointing Taoist "officials" in the temples was akin to the

Yuan government's regulation of both the so-called public or state schools

46 The following discussion of the Academy of Scholarly Worthies, the Bureau of Tibetan and Buddhist

Affairs, and the Yuan schools is based on YS, 87, pp. 2192-3; Ratchnevsky, Un

code des

Yuan (Paris,

1972),

vol. 2, pp. 25—6; Yan-shuan Lao, "Southern Chinese scholars and educational institutions in

early Yuan: Some preliminary remarks," in China under Mongol rule, ed. John D. Langlois, Jr.

(Princeton, 1981), pp. 107—33; K'o-k'uan Sun, "Yii Chi and southern Taosim during the Yuan

period," in China under Mongol

rule,

ed. John D. Langlois, Jr. (Princeton, 1981), pp. 212-53,

P-

pp.

223—4; Herbert Franke, "Tibetans in Yuan China," in China under Mongol rule, ed. John D.

Langlois, Jr. (Princeton, 1981), pp. 296-328, esp. pp. 311—15; and Ruby Lam, "The role of

shu-

yiian in Yuan China" (unpublished paper).

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

GOVERNMENT 6oj

and the private academies

(shu-yuan).

Public school instructors

(chiao-shou),

well as headmasters

{shan-chang)

of privately funded academies, were ap-

pointed to, or confirmed in, their educational posts by the government.

If the Yuan government had intended to co-opt religious and educational

establishments by incorporating them structurally into the official bureau-

cracy, then it had at best a mixed success. Many of the top officials of the

Bureau of Tibetan and Buddhist Affairs were Buddhist monks or laymen,

which may explain why the bureau granted such generous tax exemptions to

Buddhists (and, in fact, even to Taoists, Muslims, and others). Such tax

exemptions caused great friction between the bureau and provincial authori-

ties.

Along the same lines, the surge in numbers of

newly

established private

academies during the last three decades of the Yuan was undoubtedly con-

nected to the fact that people who donated land to private academies were

exempt from corv£e labor, and in the late Yuan, corvee obligations had

grown increasingly burdensome.

There were other specialized agencies serving the imperial family, the

names of which clearly reflected their functions: for example, the Academy of

Calendrical Studies (T'ai-shih yuan), the Institute of Astronomy (Ssu-t'ien

chien),

the Institute of Muslim Astronomy (Hui-hui Ssu-t'ien chien), and the

Imperial Academy of Medicine (T'ai-i yuan). Some agencies managed the

artisan households assigned to the heir apparent and the empress. Some of

these artisans and their households were classified as civilian

(min-chiang)

and

others as

ch'ieh-lien-k'ou

(colloquial Mongolian:

ger-in

k'e'ii;

literary Mongo-

lian:

ger-iin

kobegiid),

literally, "sons of the yurt," or slave artisans. The

assignment of designated hereditary craftsmen households to members of the

imperial family and nobles in the Yuan was a remnant of the early Mongols'

custom of transporting whole populations of skilled artisans and laborers

from one locale to another for construction projects.

In addition to grants of artisan households, the Mongolian rulers also

granted territories (including their populations), especially in north China,

to Mongolian princes, nobles, and meritorious officials. The terminology

describing such grants varied, but the most significant units were the t'ou

hsia, which may be translated loosely as "appanages," and the fen ti, or

"apportioned

territories.

"•"

Recipients of appanages were generally permitted

to appoint, subject to imperial approval, the

darughachi

and the judges

{jarghuchi

tuan-shih

kuan) of their territories, but lesser officials were

appointed through regular government channels. The struggle between the

47 The secondary literature on the appanages (t'ou hsia) is extensive. See, for example, Huang Ch'ing-

lien,

Yiian lai hu chi

chih

tuyen

chiu

(Taipei, 1977), pp. 4'—7; 209; and Endicott-West, Mongolian rule

in China, chap. 4. See also Isenbike Togan, "The chapter on annual grants in the Yiian

shih"

(Ph.D.

diss.,

Harvard University, 1973)-

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608 THE YOAN GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY

imperial court and the imperial princes for fiscal and political control over

the appanages continued throughout the Yuan and contributed to the con-

stant instability at the very apex of the government.

The dynastic history of the Yuan, the Yuan shih, devotes a chapter to

annual grants (sui-tz'u), which were grants in silver and silk in north China

and paper currency in south China. Most of the grant recipients were mem-

bers of the imperial family or of Mongolian noble families, and the source of

the grants was the Chinese population in the apportioned territories. House-

holds in such territories generally paid taxes to both the grantees and the

Yiian government in Ta-tu. We should point out that the annual grants

chapter in the Yiian shih was unprecedented. No previous dynastic history

included such a chapter because the practice was itself purely Inner Asian and

derived from the early Mongolian custom of distributing conquered peoples

or tribes as shares to members of the ruling family. As is the case with so

many Yiian government institutions and practices, the Chinese official no-

menclature readily peels away to reveal the Inner Asian core.

SOCIETY

The separation of state and society into two different realms of inquiry is a

modern construct on which historians habitually rely when researching and

writing about China. The thirteenth-century Mongols, however, would have

recognized no such separation. Originating as a tribal, military society, the

pastoral nomadic Mongols of the early and mid-thirteenth century evidenced

little social stratification. Extremes in wealth are far less radical and far less

easy to measure in pastoral nomadic societies than in sedentary, agricultural

societies.4

For instance, the members of Chinggis khan's early retinue, the

so-called

nokod

(plural of

niikor,

companion), were treated by Chinggis as his

equals. As Chinggis khan's power grew, the

nokod

became privileged body-

guards and household attendants. In fact, they became the nucleus of the

kesig

or imperial guard, while at the same time they were treated by Chinggis

as younger brothers. In Chinggis khan's own lifetime, the line between state

and society, each mobilized for warfare, would have been difficult to draw.

Mongolian society naturally had its full complement of

rituals

and taboos,

all well documented by the Franciscans and Dominicans who visited Khara

Khorum. In comparison with traditional Chinese expectations regarding the

use of court ritual to define privilege and social status, however, the Mongols

at the court in Ta-tu must have appeared excessively informal and, indeed,

48 For an interesting discussion, see Ernest Gellner, "Anomalies of no fixed abode," Times Literary

Supplement, 13 March 1981, p. 273.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

SOCIETY 609

lax in attending to ritual activities. It is thus fitting to begin a discussion of

Yuan society at the very top of the social scale, with a few insights into the

nature of Mongolian court life.

The informal atmosphere at the Mongolian court in Ta-tu is apparent in

the fact that the Mongolian rulers did not observe the use of taboo names at

court.

Chinese observers also noted the alien (in their eyes) table manners

and cuisine that the Mongols preferred to Chinese cuisine.

For instance, the

Mongols' use of small steel daggers to carve meat at mealtime was not

calculated to elevate their image in the eyes of Chinese literati-officials.

This is not to say, however, that the Mongols ignored all Chinese rituals.

Under persistent pressure from Chinese literati, the Mongolian rulers acqui-

esced in carrying out Confucian rites, such as the suburban offerings to

heaven, but they did not usually attend them in person. One may surmise

that the imperial family felt more comfortable with the Buddhist rituals

introduced by the 'Phags-pa Lama. The imperial family attended in person

the Buddhist celebratory processions and plays in the first month of the New

Year at which Chinese, Muslim, and Tangut musicians entertained.

' The

ruling Mongols also continued to practice shamanist rituals and apparently

saw no conflict of interest in deriving legitimacy from more than one

ideological—religious tradition.

Even the way in which the Mongols lived in their imperial city of Ta-tu

bespeaks a continuing adherence to the customs of the steppe. There can be

no doubt that Ta-tu as an imperial city used models of Chinese architecture,

yet the fact that well into the fourteenth century a number of Mongolian

rulers and other members of the imperial family chose to live in tents set up

in the city's imperial park, instead of in the palaces, is not without signifi-

cance. The tents were placed in steppe grass that Khubilai had imported from

Mongolia and planted in the imperial parks. One of the imperial parks even

sported a felt pavilion, and animal skins were a part of the wall decor inside

the palace. The other imperial capital, Shang-tu, was by all accounts used

mainly as a game reserve and hunting park for the imperial family once the

imperial city of Ta-tu had been completed.

All these details concerning table etiquette, ceremonial, housing, and

hunting suggest that the imperial family was, for the most part, less than

49 Yeh Tzu-ch'i, Tj'ao mu tzu, 3, p. 59; YTC, 28, pp. fib—7a.

50 Frederick W. Mote, "Yuan and Ming," in

Food

Chinese

culture:

Anthropological

and

historical

perspec-

tives, ed. K. C. Chang (New Haven, 1977), pp. 195—257, esp. pp. 204-8.

51 The best work on the role of ritual in the legitimation of the Yuan is that by Herbert Franke, From

tribal

chieftain

to universal

emperor

and god: The legitimation of the Yuan dynasty (Munich, 1978), esp. pp.

32—5,

60-1.

52 For a thorough description of Yuan Ta-tu, see Nancy Riva Shatzman Steinhardt, "Imperial architec-

ture under Mongolian patronage: Khubilai's imperial city of

Daidu"

(Ph.D. diss., Harvard University,

1981).

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

6lO THE YtJAN GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY

enthusiastic about imitating Chinese material life and was more or less

indifferent to Chinese culture. There were, of

course,

exceptions to this. The

Yuan emperor Wen-tsung (Tugh Temiir; r. 1328-32) supported scholarship

and the arts, in one instance by founding the Pavilion of

the

Star of Literature

(K'uei-chang ko) in the imperial city." The ruling Mongols also evinced

great interest in the Hsiao

ching

(Book of filial piety), ordering it to be

translated into Mongolian (the 'Phags-pa script), printed, and distributed

among the imperial princes.'*

Outside the imperial family

itself,

a small but significant number of

Mongols, most with elite rather than commoner backgrounds, studied and

even excelled in Chinese scholarship, literary pursuits, and the arts.

' Some

of these accomplished Mongolian literati were the products of mixed mar-

riages (Chinese mothers and Mongolian fathers) and were obviously raised in

a Han Chinese cultural milieu. Even though the number of

Mongols

learned

in Chinese culture represented only a tiny percentage of all Mongols in

China, that tiny percentage was on the increase in late Yuan times.

Chinese culture made little overall impact on the Mongols as a people, and

conversely, Mongolian court life found little reflection in China at large.

Given this peculiar situation of a self-contained nation within a nation, one is

still left with the question of

how

Chinese society functioned and fared under

foreign, nonsinicized rulership.

An earlier stereotype of

Chinese

society in Yuan times is that the Mongols

imposed a strictly enforced class system on all of

society.

The four ethnic

classes, in order of descending privilege, consisted of the Mongols them-

selves; the

se-mu

jen, or Western and Central Asians; the Han jen, or the

various peoples in the former Jurchen Chin territory in northern China; and

finally the southern Chinese

{nan jen)

inhabitants of the territory of the fallen

Southern Sung dynasty. Various scholars over the past half-century have

dispelled the notion that a sort of

caste

system was at work in Yuan China. It

is quite easy, in fact, to find examples of Chinese holding official positions

53 See John D. Langlois, Jr., "Yii Chi and his Mongol sovereign: The scholar as apologist," Journal of

Asian Studies, 38 (1978), pp. 99-116; and Steinhardt, "Imperial architecture under Mongolian

patronage," p. 38.

54 See Francis W. Cleaves's comments on the appeal of the Hsiao ding to the Mongols in his "The first

chapter of an early Mongolian version of the Hsiao ching" Acta Oritntalia Academiae Scientiarum

Hungaricae, 36 (1982), pp. 69-88, esp. p. 70. See also Herbert Franke, "Chinese historiography

under Mongol rule: The role of history in acculturation,"

Mongolian

Studies,

1 (1974), pp. 15—26, esp.

pp.

22-4.

55 This relies on Hsiao Ch'i-ch'ing, "Yuan tai Meng-ku jen te Han hsiieh," in Kuo chi

Chung-kuo

chiang

hsiieb

shu hui i lun wen chi

(Proceedings

of the international

conference on

China

border area

studies'),

ed.

Lin En-hsien (Taipei, 1985), pp. 369—428.

56 The following pages on Yuan society rely mainly on Meng Ssu-ming, Yuan tai

she

hui

chieh

chi Mb tu

(Peking, 1938; repr. Hong Kong, 1967); and Hon-ming Yip, "The class system of Yuan society: A

critique of Meng Siming's Yuandai

sbehui

jieji

zhidu,"

Journal of Asian Culture, 4 (1980), pp. 82—106.

SOCIETY

6ll

(such as darughachi) that according to government regulation they were not

entitled to hold. The frequent exceptions to the Yuan regulations, which

attempted to set aside certain offices for specific ethnic groups, indicate a fair

degree of political mobility, although the paths to office were nonetheless not

seen as traditional by Chinese scholars.

This is not to say, however, that the ruling Mongols did not attempt to

construct a differentiated society, in which they themselves and their

preconquest allies

—

the Western and Central Asians

—

would benefit most.

Although demographic realities dictated their employment of Chinese at

virtually all levels of government, the Mongols nonetheless withheld certain

privileges for non-Han ethnic groups.

In regard to ethnic elites, certainly the Turks were the most relied-on and

privileged group after the Mongols themselves in thirteenth- and fourteenth-

century China. This privileged position is easily explained by the special

relationship forged between the various Turkic tribes and the Mongols in the

early thirteenth century.

By 1225, the Uighur, Qarluq, Qangli, Qipchaq,

Onggiid, Kereyid, and Naiman (whether the last two were Turkic or Mongo-

lian is debatable) all had submitted to Chinggis khan. The Mongols adapted

the Turkic Uighur vertical script to their spoken language, and the Turks,

many of them Uighur, served as military advisers, secretaries, imperial

tutors,

and civil administrators to the Mongols in the pre-Khubilai period.

In this period, the lingua franca on the eastern steppe was Turkic, not

Persian.

During Khubilai's reign, a large number of Turks continued to be em-

ployed at the court as imperial advisers, tutors to the princes, translators, and

military officers. Khubilai's mother, Sorghaghtani Beki, was, after all, a

Kereyid princess, and Khubilai had grown up surrounded by Turkic advisers.

In post-Khubilai Yuan China, Turks excelled in political intrigue, the most

prominent political personage among them being the Qipchaq El Temiir

(Yen T'ieh-mu-erh, d. 1333).

Among the various groups of

Turks,

the Uighurs were most responsible for

bridging the gap between Chinese and Mongolian culture. Many Uighurs

were translators and interpreters of Chinese and other languages into Mongo-

lian, and several were unquestionably sinicized, as can be seen in their

literary and scholarly achievements in Chinese. The majority of Western and

Central Asians who held chin-shih degrees were Uighurs.

Yet it would be inaccurate to define elites in Yuan China only in terms of

their ethnic origins. Some elite groups seem to have been favored by the

57 See Igor de Rachewiicz, "Turks in China under the Mongols: A preliminary investigation of Turco-

Mongol relations in the 13th and 14th centuries," in China among equals: The Middle Kingdom and its

neighbors, loth—14th

centuries,

ed. Morris Rossabi (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1983), pp. 281-310.

6l2 THE YtJAN GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY

Mongols more on account of their religion or their commercial utility. An

example is the Muslim

ortogh.

The members of these merchant associations

formed partnerships

{ortogh)

with the Mongolian imperial family. According

to the Chinese sources they were Muslims, but specific information on their

ethnic background is scanty. The Yiian regulations dealing with taxation and

corvee attempt to clarify the taxation category of

ortogh

merchants: They were

not exempted from household taxes just because they were Muslims or mer-

chants. An exemption was extended only to Muslim military households or

Muslim clergy households that "reside within Muslim mosques and, more-

over, are without livelihoods." The

ortogh

merchants, despite their privileged

business relationship with the imperial family, were subject to the same tax

and corvee obligations as were commoners.'

But the

ortogh

merchants were

perceived by Chinese literati as a highly favored commercial—religious elite

and were accused of tax evasion and usurious moneylending practices. Un-

doubtedly, some

ortogh

merchants were guilty of these charges, but it is also

likely that the Mongols were not at all displeased that Muslims should bear

the brunt of such hostility, as it was then deflected from the Mongols

themselves.

Some Chinese merchants fared well under Mongolian patronage. Two

former pirates who had surrendered their fleets to the Mongols in the 1270s,

Chang Hsiian and Chu Ch'ing, amassed fortunes from their central role in

transporting grain from south China to Ta-tu. During their lifetimes, Chang

and Chu not only were allowed to print currency but also were granted

military titles usually reserved for Mongols and Western and Central Asians,

and they were exempted from corvee obligations. Although Chang Hsiian

was eventually executed and Chu Ch'ing died in disgrace, the successes of

these two Chinese merchants showed that the Mongols in China, as in other

parts of Eurasia under their control, heavily rewarded commercial agents who

served the imperial court.

In addition to ethnic, religious, and commercial elites, the Mongols also

favorably treated the old landholding elite left over from Southern Sung

China. The conquest of north China had caused far more economic disloca-

tion among the Jurchens and Chinese in the north than the conquest of south

China caused for southern Chinese landlords. In fact, the importance of south

China as a revenue base prevented the Mongols from tampering with that

area's socioeconomic order. Thus hereditary appanages and apportioned terri-

tories were carved out mostly in the north. The Mongols' full cognizance of

the importance of southern China to the overall economy is reflected in their

T'ung

chih t'iao ko (Peking, 1930), chap. 2, pp. 14b-15a. On Muslims in general in Yiian China, see

Morris Rossabi, "The Muslims in the early Yuan dynasty," in China under Mongol rule, ed. John D.

Langlois, Jr. (Princeton, 1981), pp. 257-95.