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.