Cause & Context
After Kublai won the great khan throne, he deeply knew that to firmly rule the vast Central Plains Han lands, he must throw off the opposition of the steppe old aristocracy and move the regime's central axis toward the agricultural civilization core block to reorganize.
Epochal Overview
Kublai formally proclaimed the dynastic name Great Yuan, then adopted Han minister Liu Bingzhong's design and built on the Yanjing ruins the grand-scale Yuan Dadu (present Beijing). He fully rolled out the provincial system administration.
Civilizational Impact
The construction of Yuan Dadu definitively established Beijing's historic position as the unified-regime capital, with profound geopolitical influence on the next seven hundred years. It integrated nomadic privilege with the autocratic centralized system into a dual-natured empire.
Key Figures
Yuan Emperor Shizu Kublai was an outstanding minority great emperor of paramount Han-learning cultivation and the courage to break clan-rule barriers. Liu Bingzhong was the master designer of Yuan Dadu, proficient in Yi-jing learning and city planning.