ABSTRACT
Qubilai Qa’an has been many things to many people. He was qa’an of the entire Chinggisid Ulus, emperor of the Yuan dynasty, a great nomadic warrior who conquered South China and then a patron of Confucianism in the newly founded dynasty. The Ming court’s official historiography can be regarded as a conscious effort to control the memory of the Chinggisid past to build loyalty among their multi-ethnic subjects. In the spring of 1260, when he ascended the throne in Kaiping, Qubilai announced himself as the qa’an of the Mongol Empire, shortly before his brother Ariq Boke’s enthronement. Qubilai’s prestige increased continuously even after his death. In 1351 the Red Turbans uprising erupted in Yingzhou, a centre of anti-dynastic agitation, and led to the disintegration of the Yuan Empire. Now Zhu Yuanzhang was a semi-independent warlord, despite nominally showing his respect for the sovereign of the Song regime.
