Thread:Izayoi.SAMA/@comment-22439-20130309121608/@comment-5902335-20130323015108

I'm from the US and okay, I'll add you.

In the 13th century, the Mongols conquered almost all of Asia. In 1276, the Mongols captured China's imperial capital. Three years later, the last Song emperor died in flight.

The Mongol leader, Kublai Khan, took title of emperor of China. He called his dynasty the Yuan dynasty. For nearly 100 years, from 1279 to 1368, China was under Mongol rule.

Under the Mongols, Chinese society was divided into four classes. The Mongols were at the top. Next came the foreigners from outside China who were their friends. These people included Tibetans, Persians, Turks, and Central Asians. Many of them were Muslims. The third class was made up of the northern Chinese, who were more accustomed to the Mongols than the southerners were. The southern Chinese came last.

Kublai Khan ended the system of civil service exams. He did not believe that Confucian learning was needed for government jobs, and he did not want to rely on Chinese to run his government. To fill important positions, he chose other Mongols that he felt he could trust. Some of these people were his relatives.

But there weren't enough Mongols to fill every job. Besides, many were illiterate. Kublai and later Mongol emperors need people who could handle the paperwork of a complex government. They were forced to appoint trusted foreigners to government positions, even some Europeans. Chinese scholors were used only as teachers and minor officials. Other Chinese worked as clerks, and some of them rose to important positions.

Without the examination system, however, there was a shortage of capable administrators. In 1315, the Mongols restored the exam system. Even then, they set limits on who could take the exam, which favored Mongol and other non-Chinese candidates.

As time went on, fighting among Mongol leaders weakened the government. So did their greed. Officials were often corrupt, perhaps in part because they had not been taught Confucian ideals.

The Mongols had also made enemies of many native Chinese. In the 1350s and 1360s, rebels rose up to fight them. In 1368, the Mongol dynasty collapsed, and the Chinese reestablished their own government under the Ming dynasty. The Ming ruled China for nearly 300 years.

Under Ming emperors, civil service exams were again used to fill government positions. This system lasted into the 20th cnetury.

In many ways, the exam system served China well. It provided a well-organized government. The education of its scholar-officials emphasized moral behavior, justice, kindness, loyalty to the emperor, proper conduct, and the importance of family. These values helped to unify Chinese culture.

The civil service system gave poor men who were ambitious and hard working the chance to be government officials. At the same time, it ensured that officals were trained and talented, not merely rich or related to the emperor.

Yet China's civil service system may also have stood in the way of progress. The exams did not test understanding of science, mathematics, or engineering. People with such knowledge were therefore kept out of the government. Confucian scholars also had little respect for merchants, business, and trade. Confucians had often considered merchants to be the lowest class in society because the bought and sold things rather than producing useful items themselves. Under the Ming, this outlook dominated, and trade and business were not encouraged. In addition, the bureaucracy became set in its ways. Its inability to adapt contributed to the fall of the Ming in 1644.