Portrait of Young Kublai Khan: ᠬᠤᠪᠢᠯᠠᠢ ᠬᠠᠭᠠᠨ 忽必烈汗像
Art by: Jack Huang
A younger version of Kublai Khan in his youth. Partially based on the portrait of young Kublai by Anige, a Nepali artist in Kublai's court. He wears a silk robe with narrow sleeves which also served as a riding coat. For his hat he wears a traditional Jonon hat of the Mongolian nobles.
Worldly, sagacious, and ambitious, Kublai Khan was perhaps the single most influential political figure of the the 13th century world. Educated by the foremost Persian, Chinese and Eurasian polymaths he received a level of education that was the envy of nearly all of his contemporary monarchs.
The empire that he created in his image reflected his ambition to consolidate the many distinctive people that existed in his domains into a new cosmopolitan identity. He would help expand the Mongol Dominion into southern China through the kingdom of Dali in Yunnan, which later culminated in the subjugation of the whole of Song China and the establishment of his own Yuan dynasty.
Covering over 11,000,000 km2 (or 4,200,000 sq mi,) territorially, the Yuan dynasty was one of the largest Chinese dynasties, second only to the Qing. To legitimize his rule Kublai claimed both the mantle of a Chinese Emperor as well as the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. An ethnically diverse dynasty, Kublai and his descendants employed many talented Central Asians, Nepalese, Uighurs, and Northern Han in the administration of the immense empire.
By the time Kublai seized total power in the East Asian domains, the greater Mongol Empire was beginning to fracture along the lines of its imperial princes. Though eventually he was able to secure his position as the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire- largely owning to his control of the ancestral Mongol heartlands, in truth it was largely a nominal title. For during this era various Mongol Princes (and their respective hordes) had all became local rulers that adhered to their respective cultural domains. For Kublai, his lineage would rule China as its emperors for the rest of the Yuan dynasty.
In the end the Yuan dynasty proved to not only be one of the longer lasting of the Mongol successor kingdoms but also in official Chinese histories, still bore the Mandate of Heaven among the procession of dynasties.
Detail of the traditional embroidered motif on his shoulder sleeves. Which distinguished him both as an imperial prince of the blood as well as that of a Chinese- styled sovereign.
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Comments
Steppe culture were already seeping into the wider world at the time, *See the Turkic expansion into the Muslim world, Ghulams, and the Seljuks. But the Mongols just greatly accelerated it.