Through years of campaigning,
Genghis Khan ( – 1227) unified the
tribes of the Mongolian steppe and was crowned
khan of the
Mongol Empire, or , in 1206. The
campaigns of the following decades saw
Mongol armies invade and conquer
China,
Central Asia,
Persia and much of the Middle East, and
Russia. However, different branches of Genghis Khan's line became dominant in differing areas. As a result, by 1265, the once-united empire
had begun to split into four independent states: the
Golden Horde in modern-day Russia, the
Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia, the
Ilkhanate in the Near East, and a regime in China which was ruled by Genghis's grandson
Kublai Khan and which was nominally superior to the rest. To appease his
Han Chinese-majority population, Kublai declared the foundation of a new
imperial dynasty titled . Essentially a way to convey the in Chinese conventions, the Yuan was officially proclaimed on 18 December 1271. As the dynasty was regarded as a continuation of the Mongol Empire, contemporary writers retroactively described Genghis Khan as the dynastic founder; the post-1271 emperors styled themselves as Mongol
khans. They continued the tradition, dating from the
Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), of the ruling head of state being known as
huangdi, or emperor. In Chinese historical texts, emperors of the Yuan dynasty, along with the Tang and Song dynasties, are referred to by their
temple names; they also had
posthumous names and normally multiple
era names. Kublai presided over
the final conquest of the
Song dynasty, which had preceded the Yuan. Although his reign was generally long and prosperous, weaknesses in the Yuan's economy, society, and administration became apparent after the death of his successor
Temür in 1307, culminating in two decades of near-anarchy between 1320 and 1340. Although the emperor
Toghon Temür then managed to set up a stable government, an economic crisis led to a
breakdown of the social order, and the powerful warlord
Zhu Yuanzhang, having forced Toghon Temür to flee, established the
Ming dynasty in 1368. Members of the Yuan dynasty continued to rule a rump state in the
Mongol heartland, commonly known as the
Northern Yuan, until 1634. ==List of rulers==