The Yuan Dynasty Period

The Yuan Dynasty Period, 1271 to 1368, was the era of Mongol rule over China, founded by Kublai Khan as the first foreign dynasty to govern the entire country and administered as part of the broader Mongol Empire during the height of the Pax Mongolica. Kublai moved the capital to Khanbaliq, present-day Beijing, welcomed foreign travelers including Marco Polo, and completed the Mongol conquest of the Southern Song, but Yuan rule also imposed a rigid ethnic hierarchy that privileged Mongols and other foreigners over the Han Chinese majority. Decades of court factionalism, currency inflation and natural disasters fed the Red Turban Rebellion, which drove the Mongols back to the steppe in 1368 and brought the native Ming Dynasty to power.