The Mongols conquered China — the largest, richest, most populous country on earth — and then did something no nomad conquerors had done: they stayed, moved the capital to Beijing, and ran the whole thing. For a century, the world's largest economy answered to a khan.
Khanbaliq (Beijing) ★ Mongolia Yamen to the Black Sea Greatest extent — stylized map 1271 Yuan proclaimed 1279 End of the Song 1351 Red Turbans 1368 Ming proclaimed Rise · zenith · fall The rise Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis, spent decades grinding down the Song — the conquest took 45 years, the longest and hardest campaign of the Mongol expansion, because Song China was rich enough to fight back with gunpowder, fortifications, and a navy. The steppe had never met resistance like it.
