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Mongols sent the emperor back
The Retreat
The Mongols had been in China since 1215, and when they grew too weak there, they were overthrown. They packed up and went back to Mongolia as if it were another seasonal migration. They still called themselves the Yuan dynasty, refused to hand over the seals, and never acknowledged the Ming.
Two Emperors
At one point they rode south and captured the Ming emperor, took him to Mongolia, and tried to ransom him. The Chinese answered by appointing another emperor. So the Mongols decided that the worst thing they could do to China was give back the old emperor, and China ended up with two.
Home Again
Many Mongols who had stayed abroad for hundreds of years came home in the 1700s, in the time of Catherine the Great. After all that exposure to other cultures, they went back to a tent, squatting around the fire, drinking fermented milk and eating dried curds.
How was a Ming emperor captured by Mongols?
In 1449 the Oirat Mongol leader Esen led an army against the Ming border. Emperor Zhengtong marched out to meet him and was captured at Tumu. Esen tried to ransom him, but the Ming court named his half-brother as the new emperor. The Oirats released Zhengtong in 1450, and he regained the throne in 1457 as the Tianshun emperor.
How long did the Yuan dynasty claim continue?
The Mongol court in Mongolia is called the Northern Yuan, and it kept the Yuan title after 1368. It lasted until 1635, when Ejei Khan surrendered the imperial seal to Hong Taiji of the Manchus. Hong Taiji took it as proof that the Mongol claim to China had passed to him. The following year he named his dynasty the Qing.
Why did Mongols come home in the 1700s?
The Torghut Mongols had migrated to the Volga River in the early 1600s and lived there as Kalmyks. In 1771 about 170,000 of them set out to return to Dzungaria in western China. The march took months, and many died before reaching the border. The Qing court resettled the survivors.
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