The Northern Yuan Dynasty (Mongolian: ᠬᠦᠮᠠᠷᠳᠦ ᠥᠨ ᠥᠯᠥᠰ, Chinese: 北元; pinyin: Beǐ Yuán) refers to the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty that had retreated north to Mongolia after the expulsion from China in 1368, until the emergence of the Qing Dynasty in the 17th century. The Northern Yuan Dynasty began with the end of Mongol rule in China and this period was marked by factional struggles and the often only nominal role of the Great Khan. The period before 1388, when Toghus Temur was murdered near the Tuul River, is sometimes referred to as the Northern Yuan. It is also referred to as Post-Imperial Mongolia or Mongolian khanate in some modern sources. In Mongolian chronicles this period is also known as The Forty and the Four, meaning forty tumen eastern Mongols and four tumen western Mongols.
Dayan Khan and Mandukhai Khatun reunited the entire Mongol nation in the 15th century. However, the former's distribution of his empire among his sons and relatives as fiefs caused the decentralization of the imperial rule. Despite this decentralization there was a remarkable concord within the Dayan Khanid aristocracy and intra-Chinggisid civil war remained unknown until the reign of Ligden Khan (1604–34).
The last sixty years of this period are marked by intensive penetration of Tibetan Buddhism into Mongolian society.
Famous quotes containing the word northern:
“Our ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every state which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of the northern forests who were.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)