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The Mongol leader chosen to succeed Mongke was Kublai Khan. While in theory he ruled the largest land empire in history, by this time the Mongolian Empire had been bequeathed to Genghis’ four sons in the form of four territories. These had become de facto independent empires or ‘khanates’, each ruled by a separate khan and each pursuing its own separate interests and objectives.
The greatest khanate – that of Mongolia, Korea, Tibet and parts of China – was ruled by Kublai, who completed the subjugation of China, effectively ending the ruling Sung Dynasty there. The second khanate, the Chagatai Khanate, comprised much of Central Asia. The third khanate in south-west Asia, known as the Il-Khanate, and created by Hulegu, ruled over Persia and the Middle East.45 The fourth and longest lasting khanate was the Kipchak Khanate, or ‘Golden Horde’, which eventually included most of Russia, Poland and Hungary.
Kublai Khan relocated the imperial capital of the Mongolian Empire from Karakorum, in Mongolia, to Beijing, in northern China. Having conquered all of southern China, Kublai Khan added Emperor of China to his long list of titles, even adopting a Chinese dynastic name, the Yuan, which became the ruling dynasty in China for about a hundred years.
Wishing to extend his lands further, in 1274 and 1281, Kublai Khan launched two major assaults on Japan, both of which were hindered by terrible storms. The Japanese believed the winds had been sent by the gods to protect them and called them the ‘divine wind’, or ‘kamikaze’.
Outside China, the other khanates slowly started to pay less attention to the demands of the Great Khan and began to govern themselves, partially because they felt the Great Khanate in the east had forsaken its Mongolian roots and become too Chinese. The resulting loss of unity and the struggles for succession following the death of Great Khan Mongke in around 1260 signalled the end of a unified Mongol empire and Kublai Khan ended up being the last person to hold the title of Great Khan of the Mongols.