In the Mongol legislation the South Chinese had the lowest status, and virtually no rights.  Intermarriage with them was prohibited.  The Chinese were not allowed to carry arms.  For a time they were forbidden even to learn the Mongol or other foreign languages.  In this way they were to be prevented from gaining official positions and playing any political part.  Their ignorance of the languages of northern, central, and western Asia also prevented them from engaging in commerce like the foreign merchants, and every possible difficulty was put in the way of their travelling for commercial purposes.  On the other hand, foreigners were, of course, able to learn Chinese, and so to gain a footing in Chinese internal trade.

Through legislation of this type the Mongols tried to build up and to safeguard their domination over China.  Yet their success did not last a hundred years.

3 Military position

In foreign affairs the Mongol epoch was for China something of a breathing space, for the great wars of the Mongols took place at a remote distance from China and without any Chinese participation.  Only a few concluding wars were fought under Kublai in the Far East.  The first was his war against Japan (1281):  it ended in complete failure, the fleet being destroyed by a storm.  In this campaign the Chinese furnished ships and also soldiers.  The subjection of Japan would have been in the interest of the Chinese, as it would have opened a market which had been almost closed against them in the Sung period.  Mongol wars followed in the south.  In 1282 began the war against Burma; in 1284 Annam and Cambodia were conquered; in 1292 a campaign was started against Java.  It proved impossible to hold Java, but almost the whole of Indo-China came under Mongol rule, to the satisfaction of the Chinese, for Indo-China had already been one of the principal export markets in the Sung period.  After that, however, there was virtually no more warfare, apart from small campaigns against rebellious tribes.  The Mongol soldiers now lived on their pay in their garrisons, with nothing to do.  The old campaigners died and were followed by their sons, brought up also as soldiers; but these young Mongols were born in China, had seen nothing of war, and learned of the soldiers’ trade either nothing or very little; so that after about 1320 serious things happened.  An army nominally 1,000 strong was sent against a group of barely fifty bandits and failed to defeat them.  Most of the 1,000 soldiers no longer knew how to use their weapons, and many did not even join the force.  Such incidents occurred again and again.

4 Social situation