Conference Presentations

To Learn or Not to Learn? Mongol and Chinese Attitudes Towards the Military in the Mongol-Yuan

Presented at the International Medieval Congress (Panel: “Worlds of Learning in Mongol Eurasia, I: Experts, Mediators, Materials”), University of Leeds, Leeds in July 2025

When the Mongols conquered China, they brought with them practices and institutions vastly different from those legible to the Chinese intelligentsia. Many literati therefore sought to influence the Mongols and help create a state similar to those that had existed before in China. This presentation will explore the literati’s proposals concerning the military, as well as how the Mongols responded to them. It will demonstrate that the Mongols were eager for advice but were very selective in what they took from these proposals, with their goal being to maintain balance between Chinese and Mongol institutions. Moreover, it will also demonstrate that the literati’s own diverse backgrounds shaped how they viewed and approached military issues.

“The Great Military Transition: The Mongol-Yuan and Ilkhanate Army in Comparative Perspective”

Panel: China in the Eurasian World: Military, Diplomacy, and Rulership in Comparative Perspectives, circa 1200-1400 (organizer)

Presented at the Association of Asian Studies 2025 Conference in Columbus, Ohio in March 2025

Scholarship in the past century has viewed the Mongol-Yuan military through the lens of decline and collapse. Despite an initial period of success, scholars argue that abuses levied on soldiers by military officers, the soldiers’ impoverishment, and a host of institutional flaws caused the Yuan military to decline rapidly after the unification of China in the 1270s, collapsing completely by the time peasant rebellions broke out in the 1350s. This study argues that far from collapse, the Mongol-Yuan court was very successful in maintaining the military’s strength through adaptive and flexible policy measures, allowing it to mobilize large numbers of troops, particularly Inner Asian troops, for campaigns against internal and external foes. This study engages with scholarship on Ilkhanate Persia, another Mongol polity ruling over a large sedentary region, to demonstrate how the Mongols successfully adapted their military to function in new sedentary conditions and against new geopolitical threats. This involved utilizing institutions native to China and Persia to preserve pastoralist militia funding mechanisms, tailoring policies to better match current socioeconomic conditions, and maintaining a balance between pastoralist and agricultural expectations for military support. Examining the parallels of institutional practice between these two polities allows us to better understand the similar challenges facing Mongol rulers of sedentary empires and how they employed similar and different solutions to tackle these challenges. It also calls into question the nature of the Mongol-Yuan and Ilkhanate’s collapse, suggesting that we must look beyond alleged military deficiencies in explaining why these two Mongol polities fell.

“From Conquest Army to Garrison Force: Mongol-Yuan Military Policies in Transition”

Presented at the Lingnan International Conference on the Chinese Military and Fiscal History in the Song-Jin-Yuan Eras, Lingnan University, Hong Kong in August 2024

After conquering south China in the late 1270s, the Mongol-Yuan transformed its military from a conquest force into a garrison force. For many contemporary Han Chinese observers, the military declined rapidly as a result, a view still accepted by modern Chinese historians. Buffeted by problems such as impoverishment, abuse, appropriation of supplies, and privatization, the military deteriorated and was unable to respond to the mid-thirteenth century rebellions. This paper, however, argues that the Mongol-Yuan court paid close attention to military affairs and implemented a wide-range of policies that were both adaptive and pragmatic to support the military. These policies were ultimately successful, allowing the bulk of the Yuan armies to maintain their strength.

“A State Built on War: A Reconsideration of Mongol-Yuan Military Institutions and Policies, 1264-1368”

Presented at the International Medieval Congress (Panel: “Chinggisid Crises and Eurasian Responses, I: Crises, Governance, and Change across Central Eurasia”), University of Leeds, Leeds in July 2024

“‘Everyday Politics’ Among Yuan Military Households: A Reconsideration of the Military Households’ Social and Economic Status in the Yuan”

Presented at the Forgotten Voices from Mongol Eurasia, Ewha University, Seoul in June 2024.

Everyday politics refers to the process by which people engage with and experience political institutions in their everyday lives. In his groundbreaking study of the Ming hereditary military households, Michael Szonyi discovered that these households engaged in “everyday politics” and thus learned the “art of being governed.” Utilizing different strategies and methods, these households shouldered the obligation of hereditary military service imposed on them by the Ming state and in the process sought to benefit themselves. But given that the Ming military institutions, including the hereditary military households, were inherited from the Mongols, what was the situation in the Mongol-Yuan (1260/1271-1368)?

This paper explores the concept of “everyday politics” among Mongol-Yuan military households and in doing so challenges the dominant “collapse narrative” that views these households as passive victims of systemic abuse and impoverishment. It provides a new perspective by reexamining and offering an alternative reading of legal cases and literati writings from the Mongol-Yuan. In doing so, it will demonstrate how Yuan military households employed various strategies to maximize their benefits under the hereditary military household system, just like their Ming successors. These strategies included diversifying household occupations, leveraging tax exemptions, hiring substitutes for military service, and engaging in patron-client relationships with superior officers. This paper thus argues that these actions reflect a significant degree of agency among military households, which often resulted in mutual benefits for both the households and their superiors. Additionally, the Mongol-Yuan state showed considerable flexibility and adaptability in its responses to these strategies, aiming to maintain the strength and functionality of its military apparatus even at the risk of violating its own laws and regulations. By redefining these interactions through the lens of “everyday politics,” this presentation provides a more nuanced understanding of the socioeconomic dynamics within Yuan military institutions and contributes to a broader reevaluation of the Yuan military as a whole.

“The Rise of the “Powerful Minister”: Institutional Transition and Decline in the Mongol-Yuan“

Presented at the Decline and Transition in the History of the Fourteenth Century’s Chinggisid Khanates (International Workshop for the Early Career Researchers), University of Bonn, Germany in June 2024

In early 1355, Toqto’a, the chancellor of the Mongol-Yuan, was dismissed. His army, which was on the verge of defeating a large wave of peasant rebellions, instantly collapsed, allowing the rebellions to regain momentum. Within a decade, Mongol rule in China was over. Scholars have long attributed the fall of the Mongol-Yuan to Toqto’a’s dismissal, but thus far no satisfactory explanation has been given as to why his removal had such a profound impact. This paper posits a new reason why the loss of Toqto’a proved catastrophic for the Yuan. By reconsidering Chinese-language sources and drawing comparisons with the Ilkhanate, it argues that beginning in the 1320s, the Mongol-Yuan underwent an institutional transition where the chancellor grew more powerful than the ruler through a vast patronage network that permeated the bureaucracy. Central to this was control of the military, especially the elite Imperial Guards. This transition mirrors the rise of the qarachu, non-Chinggisid elites, in the Ilkhanate who came to constitute a “military aristocracy.” However, conditions unique to China meant that the qarachu in the Mongol-Yuan developed differently. Rather than a military aristocracy, the qarachu in China took the form of the “powerful minister” (quanchen), a singular figure who wielded power behind the throne. Toqto’a was the product of this transition, and as the most powerful of the three powerful ministers in the Late Yuan, his dismissal had far-reaching consequences, as it was his patronage network that sustained the state and allowed it to suppress the mid-thirteenth century rebellions.

“In Service of the State: Military Mobilization, State-Building, and the Mongol Transformation of China, 1260-1500”

Presented at the Korea, Mongols and Ming: Integrative Histories of Early Modern Eastern Eurasia Workshop, UCLA, in May 2023

This project explores the introduction of a new method of military mobilization to China by the Mongol-Yuan, its subsequent adoption by the succeeding Ming dynasty, and the long-term consequences of this adoption. Unlike the Song, which utilized a marketized method of mobilization, the Mongol-Yuan and the Ming employed a demonetized mode of military service that was premised upon the creation and maintenance of self-sufficient and self-replicating hereditary military households. This allowed the Yuan and Ming states to initially field large armies at very little cost and contributed greatly to their success. However, long-term socio-economic changes altered the nature of military warfare, eventually forcing both the Yuan and the Ming to adopt other forms of military mobilization. While scholars have often interpreted this transition as a sign of the collapse of traditional military institutions, my project argues that the state played a major role in facilitating and adapting to this transition. Operating within institutional and fiscal constraints, the Yuan and Ming states worked actively to implement policies that kept the military afloat and that it was quite successful in responding to the challenges within the military.

“The Military and the Yuan-Ming Transition: A Reconsideration of Yuan and Ming Military Institutions and Policies”

Guest Lecture at the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan in May 2023

軍隊與元明變革：元明軍事制度和軍事政策的重新考量

蒙元對中國的征服帶來了一種新的軍事動員方式。與宋朝的市場化動員方式不同，蒙元的制度建立在一個龐大的自給自足和自我復製的世襲軍戶群體之上。此制度被代替蒙元的明朝繼承，並成為了衛所制度。這種非貨幣化軍士動員和管理制度使得元明兩朝在初期能夠以極低的成本組織龐大的軍隊，並為他們的成功做出了巨大貢獻。然而，長期的社會經濟變動與不斷變化的軍事需求改變了戰爭的性質，最終迫使元明兩朝採用其他的軍事動員方式。以往學者經常將這種轉變解釋為傳統軍事機構的崩潰，但本研究認為國家在促進和適應這種轉變方面發揮了重要作用。在體制和財政的約束下，元明兩朝積極實施維持軍隊的政策，並非常成功的應對了軍隊內部的問題。

“Mutiny, Migration, and Militarization: The Hidden Significance of the 1533 Datong Mutiny”

Presented at the 10^th Young Scholars’ Forum in Chinese Studies 2022 in Hong Kong, China in December 2022

In 1533, soldiers in the strategic Ming border garrison of Datong mutinied and seized control of the city. To the court back in Beijing, this mutiny was especially serious, as the mutineers not only resisted the imperial army but also invited the Mongols to join their cause. In studying mutinies such as the events in Datong, scholars have in the past parroted the views of Ming officials, who decried the lenient treatment the court used to pacify the mutineers. According to traditional historiography, mutinies were indicative of the Ming’s military decline, and the court’s leniency in dealing with mutineers essentially gave soldiers a free pass at mutinying. This paper, however, argues that the impact of the Datong mutiny was far more wide-reaching than previously thought, as it led to a fundamental change in the northern frontier region, in Ming-Mongol relations, and in Ming border policy. In the aftermath of the mutiny, many of the mutineers fled to the steppes, where they found welcome employment under Mongol leaders, who were quick to make use of the mutineer’s geographical knowledge and technological know-how to train their armies and to act as guides in raiding the Ming. This opened the floodgates of migration, and thousands of Han Chinese peasants, soldiers, criminals, and even intellectuals, for a variety of reasons, fled to the steppes. Many of these migrants were employed by Altan Khan in his steppe state-building project, where they built and resided in Altan’s Chinese-style capital city. The result was an increase in Mongol raids and the growth of Altan’s power, and this growth of Mongol power reverberated across the entire Ming frontier. To guard against further Mongol incursions, the Ming court began to entice deserters and migrants to return, abandoning its previous policy of leaving them be. More importantly, the court ordered the construction of an extensive system of fortifications and defenses in Datong that would eventually form the Great Wall of China we know of today, revitalizing border defenses in the region after decades of neglect. Thus, the Datong mutiny presents to us a case study from which we can simultaneously gleam the changing frontier dynamic, changing frontier policy, and the changing frontier landscape that was brought about by human migration and the construction of defensive fortifications in the aftermath of the mutiny.

1533年，明朝重要邊塞大同鎮發生了一起嚴重的兵變。大同叛軍不僅抵抗政府軍，還邀請蒙古人加入叛亂。過去的學者在討論大同兵變等兵變事件的影響時，經常附和明朝官員的觀點，認為兵變加劇了軍隊積弱，而明廷為了平息兵變對叛軍所採取的寬容政策實際上給予了士兵們更多兵變的理由。本文認為這種觀點僅看到了兵變的短期影響。事實上，大同兵變的影響遠比以前想像的要廣泛而深刻，因為它導致了北部邊境地區、明蒙關係和明朝邊政的根本性變化。大同兵變平息後，許多叛兵投靠了蒙古人，為他們訓練軍隊並引導其襲擊明朝邊境。這為成千上万的漢族農民、逃兵、罪犯，甚至士人出於各種原因逃往草原打開了通道。這些移民被俺答汗所利用，為俺答的草原國家的建立做出了巨大貢獻。俺答的勢力進而不斷增長，成為了明廷最大的邊患。相應的，明廷在幾十年的忽視後重振大同邊防，不僅積極引導流民歸國，更重要的是開始建設廣泛的防禦系統，最終形成了我們今天所知的萬里長城。

“Mutiny, Migration, and Militarization: How the Datong Mutiny Changed the Ming Frontiers”

Presented at the Western Conference of the Association of Asian Studies (WCASS) 2021 in October 2021 (Virtual)

“War, Trade, and the Court: The Hidden Significance of the 1521 Gansu Mutiny”

Panel: Tear and Repair: How Rebellions Strengthened the Ming-Qing State (organizer)

Presented at the Association of Asian Studies 2019 Conference in Denver, Colorado in March 2019

When underpaid soldiers in Gansu mutinied against the Grand Coordinator of the northwestern province of Gansu and killed him in autumn, 1521, the Ming court took alarm. As one of the Nine Border Garrisons, Gansu protected not only the northwestern region but also vital trade routes to and from Central Asia, and the court depended on its Grand Coordinator to manage Central Asian affairs. After investigation, the court punished both the Regional Commander, who had been embezzling the soldiers’ pay, and the ringleaders of the mutiny. The court considered the affair finished.

Due to its small scale and seeming lack of significant consequences, this mutiny has become a footnote in Ming history. The few scholars who have noted it often blame the court’s leniency towards the mutineers for the outbreak of even deadlier mutinies in the years and decades that followed. Yet I argue that the mutiny mattered for the course of both Ming relations with Turfan, a Central Asian state bordering Gansu that had been challenging Ming hegemony in the region for half a century; and the outcome of political infighting at court during the early Jiajing (r. 1521-1566) period.

The mutiny led to the rise of old Gansu hand Chen Jiuchou 陳九疇. As Grand Commissioner after 1521, he successfully promoted a hardline policy of denying Turfan participation in the tributary trade. This culminated in Turfan’s invasion of Gansu in 1524. Although Chen defeated Turfan, both sides suffered losses and the border closure led to discontent among many Central Asian states. Eventually, this policy was used by those who supported the Jiajing emperor in the Great Rites Controversy against Chen’s sponsors, many of them influential officials who opposed the emperor. Chen was jailed and his sponsors, Yang Tinghe 楊廷和 and Peng Ze 彭澤, were driven from office. With his policy repealed, the border was reopened for trade. Turfan, meanwhile, was sufficiently weakened and humbled to seek peaceful relations, never to trouble the Ming again. Far from being small and insignificant, the 1521 mutiny sparked a chain of events that led not only to the pacification of the Ming’s western borders and stabilization of the western tributary trade, but also allowed the young Jiajing emperor rid himself of his political opponents and place his allies into power.

“Resurrecting the Weisuo: Ming Military Policy during the Jingtai to Chenghua Reigns”

Presented at the Scaling the Ming Conference at UBC in Vancouver, Canada in May 2018

In the aftermath of the Tumu Crisis in 1449, the military organization of the Ming underwent a profound change. To replenish the depleted capital garrison and to address the shortcomings of the weisuo, the Ming court embarked on an empirewide effort to conscript volunteers and recruit mercenaries. For this reason, many scholars consider 1449 as the end of the Early Ming. Yet the transition to a complete mercenary army would not be completed until the Jiajing reign (1521– 1567) and during this transitional period, the overall structure of the Ming military did not change.

This paper will thus examine how the Ming state continued in its attempt to maintain the effectiveness of the weisuo in the post-Tumu period. By drawing on evidence from the Ming shilu as well as the memorials and writings of major officials during the Jingtai to Chenghua reigns, it aims to show that from the perspective of the state, the character of the weisuo continued to remain that of a fighting unit. In this regard, the organization of recruited mercenaries took place within the weisuo structure, the court continued to scrutinize military registers in an effort to track down deserters, and military auxiliaries were used to augment depleted manpower in both military garrisons and farms. Ultimately, this paper will argue that well into the late 15th century, the Ming court pursued an active empire-wide policy of returning to the weisuo system to its original condition

“Cultivating Honesty: Official Salaries and Corruption in the Yuan Dynasty Through the Eyes of Chinese Officials and Scholars”

Presented at the ACAH 2017 Conference in Kobe, Japan in April 2017

The establishment of Chinese-style, centralized bureaucracy by Kublai beginning in 1260 was mirrored by the development of a payment structure for officials, a process which took almost two decades to complete. For the first time since the birth of the Mongol Empire in 1206, officials formally began receiving salaries from the government for their work. On the surface, this structure was not dissimilar to that of earlier Chinese dynasties – after all, the concept of payment for officials itself was borrowed from the Han Chinese and indeed, Kublai sought to emulate the previous dynasties for legitimacy. However, the salary system was the subject of many complaints from officials and scholars alike. This paper will study the salaries of Yuan officials and its impact on official corruption through the private writings and memorials of Yuan officials and scholars. In particular, I will focus on three individuals – Hu Zhiyu and Cheng Jufu, who were both major officials in the court of Kublai and his successor, and Zheng Jiefu, who was writing from the perspective of a private individual. Though all agree that the salaries are low, the three individuals had different opinions on the problems and solutions. I will demonstrate that these differences are regional – those in Northern China and those in Southern China had different concerns. Furthermore, I will show that the writings of private individuals concerning the salaries are not completely accurate, which should be taken into consideration when used as a primary source