Singhasari - Conflict With The Mongol

Conflict With The Mongol

Indonesia is one of the few areas that thwarted invasion by the Mongol horde by repelling a Mongol force in 1293. As the center of the Malayan peninsula trade winds, the rising power, influence, and wealth of the Javanese Singhasari empire came to the attention of Kublai Khan of the Mongol Yuan dynasty based in China. Moreover, Singhasari had formed an alliance with Champa, another powerful state in the region. Both Java (Singhasari) and Champa were worried about Mongol expansion and raids against neighboring states, such as their raid of Bagan (Pagan) in Burma.

Kublai Khan then sent emissaries demanding submission and tribute from Java. In 1280, Kublai Khan sent the first emissary to King Kertanegara, demanding Singhasari’s submission and tribute to the great Khan. The demand was refused. The next year in 1281, the Khan sent another envoy, demanding the same, which was refused again. Eight years later, in 1289, the last envoy was sent to demand the same, and Kertanegara, refused to pay tribute.

In the audition throne room of the Singhasari court, King Kertanegara humiliated the Khan by cutting and scarring Meng Ki's face, one of the Mongols' envoys (some sources even state that the king cut the envoy's ear himself). The envoy returned to China with the answer—the scar—of the Javan king written on his face.

Enraged by this humiliation and the disgrace committed against his envoy and his patience, in late 1292 the great Kublai Khan sent a massive 1,000 war junks for a punitive expedition that would arrived off the coast of Tuban, Java in early 1293.

King Kertanegara, whose troops were now spread then and located elsewhere, did not realize that a coup was being prepared by the former Kediri royal lineage.