A Reassessment of Khubilai Khan's "Grand Unification Plan" and the Golden Horde

Abstract

This article reexamines the nature of political unity within the Mongol Empire following the succession crises and fragmentation of the mid-thirteenth century. While conventional historiography has generally interpreted the emergence of the Yuan dynasty, the Golden Horde, the Ilkhanate, and the Chagatai Khanate as marking the disintegration of a unified empire, this study argues that important forms of political, military, administrative, and economic interconnectedness continued to survive among the constituent states of the Mongol world. Focusing particularly on relations between the Yuan dynasty and the Golden Horde, the article examines military cooperation, diplomatic relations, investiture practices, administrative institutions, long-distance trade networks, and cultural exchange during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Drawing upon Persian, Chinese, Armenian, Russian, and European historical sources, the study engages with Sugiyama Masaaki’s concept of Khubilai Khan’s “Grand Unification Plan,” which interprets the Mongol Empire as an integrated Eurasian imperial system sustained through military organization, administrative coordination, and transcontinental commerce. The article argues that, despite increasing regional autonomy, the constituent polities of the Mongol Empire continued for a considerable period to function within a broader confederative framework centered upon the authority of the Great Khan and the Yuan imperial court.