began, China was under alien rule. Of the 631 years from 1280 to 1911,
China was under national rulers for 276 years and under alien rule for
355. The alien rulers were first the Mongols, and later the Tungus
Manchus. It is interesting to note that the alien rulers in the earlier
period came mainly from the north-west, and only in modern times did
peoples from the north-east rule over China. This was due in part to the
fact that only peoples who had attained a certain level of civilization
were capable of dominance. In antiquity and the Middle Ages, eastern
Mongolia and Manchuria were at a relatively low level of civilization,
from which they emerged only gradually through permanent contact with
other nomad peoples, especially Turks. We are dealing here, of course,
only with the Mongol epoch in China and not with the great Mongol
empire, so that we need not enter further into these questions.

Yet another point is characteristic: the Mongols were the first alien
people to rule the whole of China; the Manchus, who appeared in the
seventeenth century, were the second and last. All alien peoples before
these two ruled only parts of China. Why was it that the Mongols were
able to be so much more successful than their predecessors? In the first
place the Mongol political league was numerically stronger than those of
the earlier alien peoples; secondly, the military organization and
technical equipment of the Mongols were exceptionally advanced for their
day. It must be borne in mind, for instance, that during their many
years of war against the Sung dynasty in South China the Mongols already
made use of small cannon in laying siege to towns. We have no exact
knowledge of the number of Mongols who invaded and occupied China, but
it is estimated that there were more than a million Mongols living in
China. Not all of them, of course, were really Mongols! The name covered
Turks, Tunguses, and others; among the auxiliaries of the Mongols were
Uighurs, men from Central Asia and the Middle East, and even Europeans.