忽必烈传

After reading some books about Gengis Khan, I started to read a book about another great Mogol Khan, Kublai Khan. The book is written by 李治安 and published by 人民出版社 in 2004.
Kublai Khan unified China. Is his empire the largest ever in the world?

It's very interesting to think the history from the perspective of Yuan instead of from the usual angle of Song dynasty.

I still remember a article I read in 儿童文学 about 李庭芝，who fought 阿术 in 扬州 until everything was destroyed. His word， “奉诏守城，未闻有诏谕降也”， is still very touching. Now, I feel that he is a bit stubborn.

文 天祥's "人生至古谁无死，留取丹青照汗青” is so well known. He sure made his mark in the collective memory of Chinese. On the other side, he could certainly have done more things under Kublai Khan. 文天祥's son worked for Yuan although died early. There was an interesting poem: "地下修文同父子, 人间读史各君臣".

Interesting paragraph about the defeat of Song:
忽必烈还问中书右丞相和礼霍孙:"俺闻江南百姓怨俺行事，维思大宋旧政，既得民心，胡为又失国?" 和礼霍孙回答:"大宋爱民之道有余,用兵之政不足,率为边将误国卖降".
和礼霍孙 was using the word of 郑思肖. The word is really to the point.

In attacting and using talents, USA is doing great in the last 200 years. It's one of the reasons why USA is so strong now. In this sense, Kublai also did pretty good by using all kinds of people:

伯颜, who was the chief commander of the army conquering South Song, was born a slave and served in Persia.

阿合马, a 回回人, was in charge of the finance and manged to support Kublai's wars financially.

八思巴 converted Kublai to Tibet Buddahism, which might be important to the fact that Tibet is part of china now.

扎马鲁丁 came from Persia and contributed as much as 郭守敬 in astronomy.

郝经, served as a envoy to negotiate with Song and was kept by 贾似道 for 16 years. His story is somehow comparable to 苏武牧羊.

I wound be very happy if China can also use the talents of foreigners now.

清代西部开发，清代西部历史论衡

During my chinese trip, I bought two chinese history books about the "west part" of china in Qing Dynasty.

清代西部开发 is published by 山西古籍出版社 with the chief editor of 成崇德。It's serious history book with only 1500 copies. It systematically talked about the development of Xinjiang, Tibet, Mongolia, Yunnan and Guangxi.

It's undeniable that Qing emporers greatly increased chinese territory during their rein. Comparing to other dynasties in china, Qing dynasty was really successful in dealing with minority nations. In Ming dynasty, the way to deal with nomads in the North was to build the "great" wall. Qing emperors had effective control over the normads outside the great wall. The mongolia people there were the great wall of the Qing emperors in some sense.

On the other hand, the developement of the west part in Qing Dynasty just look pathatic comparing to the developement of American west during about the same period. Qing dynasty were very passive in developing the agriculture and economy of the minority controlled areas. As a minority nation themselves, the overall interest of the goverment was stability. It almost never actively promoted a policy to immigrate more Han people to the these border areas. To the goverment, changing of demograph by bringing more Han people meant affecting the interest of the local chiefs.


清代西部历史论衡 is published by 山西人民出版社. It's author is 马汝珩，an Qing History expert.

The book talked about the history of Mogol people. Facing the expansion of Russia, Mogol people were tilled towards China mainly because of religion and historical reasons. Mogol people were very close to Tibet people because of religion. The history of governing the whole China in Yuan dynasty sure made them close to China emotionally.

At that time, Mogol people controlled large part of Xinjiang, especially to the north side of Tianshan Mountain. 维吾尔 people, who believe Islamlism, was the majority in several cities south of Tianshan.

There was about two lines in our hisgh school history text book about the return of 土尔扈特 mogol people in Qing Dynasty. The book actually talked a lot about the history of these people.