Chinese History for White People - Yuan Dynasty
Chinese people don't consider Yuan Dynasty a “real” Chinese dynasty, the same way they don't consider Northern Wei or Liao to be Chinese dynasties. Because of this, the period doesn't attract as much interest from Chinese historians, and you probably know quite a bit about the Mongol conquests already from western and other sources.
And the Chinese attitude is pretty accurate. The Mongols instituted a caste system which subjected them to different laws than the Han1. They reinstituted feudal lords with serfdom. And their primary concern was blowing the world's largest treasury to fulfill the Mongol dream of total world domination. Their penultimate concern was hookers and blow. By which I mean sex slaves2 and getting very drunk3.
Beyond that, China could basically run itself as it did before for all the Mongols cared. Yuan Emperors could generally speak at least one dialect of Chinese, but they almost never attained literacy in Chinese script. Thus the imperial bureaucracy survived, so long as it was obedient to the Mongol military lords and the aristocratic caste system. Kublai made an effort to sinicize some, but he also had to reassure his Mongol court that he was still firmly Mongol4 and that Mongol “needs” came first. And they consistently did, repeating many of the follies of Sui's Yang Guang. Draft labor for Mongol palaces was taken to the neglect of their harvests. Even more were drafted for endless wars at every border. Infrastructure was neglected for war spending and aristocratic luxury. In mere decades, the treasury was nearly spent, and the Yuan blindly raised taxes to squeeze the peasants more. Spending money on disaster relief—such as harvest neglect famines—for Han peasants was way outside the overton window. By the end of Yuan, China's population would fall to 65 million—almost half of what it was in Song—with contemporary records indicating famine as the primary cause of death, followed by war—both for and against the Mongols.
You might be wondering about the Black Death—which originated in Western Xia and spread across the Old World through the Mongol conquests. Contrary to the fabrications of Victorian historians5, the Black Death barely troubled China at all—just as it had little to no impact on India. China records 4 outbreaks in the 1344-1345, and a reemergence in 1351 through 1359—all successfully contained by China's extermination quarantine policy, and never extending beyond a single city or province at one time.
The Mongols were legendary conquerors, but they were not fit to rule. Their reign was 3 years short of a century, split between 10 Emperors. The other Khans saw the Yuan as too Chinese, and withdrew their support- leaving the Mongol lords trapped in a country that hated them. The peasants grabbed their pitchforks and answered the Mandate of Heaven.
The middle caste—Semuren—consisted of non-Mongol foreigners, typically of West Asian descent. Semuren would hold important positions in the bureaucracy as they were more likely to be loyal to Mongol interests than Han ministers, who were bottom-caste. Nedless to say, these middle men were uniformly unfit for their posts—illiterate in Chinese and oblivious to the needs of Chinese society. Notably, this is how Marco Polo became the governor of Yangzhou.
Roughly 8% of Aisan men are descendants of Ghengis Khan, based on Y chromosome analysis. Presumably a similar number of women are as well.
Ogedei Khan died of alcoholism. Western friars visiting China described a fountain of wine, mead, baijiu, and fermented horse milk.
Late Yuan Emperors would try to increase sinicisation, at least enough that the country was functional, and were immediately met with coup de tats and civil war from other Mongol princes.
They correctly noted the origin in Xia, and the population loss of China’s census. But no contemporary Yuan records indicate the bubonic plague was especially toublesome, and specifically remarked that it’s a less pressing concern than the locusts.