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Bayan
Merkit chancellor who dominated the Yuan court in the first years of Toghon Temur, halted the civil examinations, and was ousted by his nephew Toqto'a in 1340, dying on the road into exile
In a council hall, a long table holds an unrolled map scroll, a brass-cornered chest and a brush pot, with tall-backed chairs around it and a bronze lamp at the left; a figure stands with their back turned on the balcony at the right, with palace roofs beyond.
Also known as Bo Yan
- Roles
- Chief Ministers
Bayan of the Merkit clan is not the Baarin general Bayan who took Lin'an for Kublai in 1276. In his youth he served Khaishan on the steppe, and when Khaishan became Emperor Wuzong he was made minister of personnel; in 1328, as a senior official in Henan, he backed El Temur's enthronement of Emperor Wenzong and was made Prince of Junning. After Toghon Temur came to the throne in 1333 and El Temur died, Bayan became senior chancellor; in 1335 he killed El Temur's son Tangqishi and had the empress, Tangqishi's sister, poisoned, leaving himself sole master of the court and Prince of Qin. He halted the civil service examinations, sidelined Han officials and put to death the prince Chechetu, overshadowing the emperor himself. In early 1340, while he was out hunting, his nephew Toqto'a and the emperor issued an edict demoting him to Henan and then exiling him to Yangchun in the far south; he died on the way at a post station in Longxing.
Life and times
Dates Birth unknown–1340 CE