page_title: Kublai Khan
section_title: Further naval expansion
hierarchical_section_title: Kublai Khan / Warfare and foreign relations / Further naval expansion
context_page_description: Kublai, also known as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan, was the fifth khagan of the Mongol Empire, reigning from 1260 to 1294. He also founded the Yuan dynasty in China as a conquest dynasty in 1271, and ruled as the first Yuan emperor until his death in 1294.
  Kublai was the fourth son of Tolui and a grandson of Genghis Khan. He succeeded his older brother Möngke as Khagan in 1260, but had to defeat his younger brother Ariq Böke in the Toluid Civil War lasting until 1264. This episode marked the beginning of disunity in the empire. Kublai's real power was limited to China and Mongolia, though as Khagan he still had influence in the Ilkhanate and, to a significantly lesser degree, in the Golden Horde. If one counts the Mongol Empire at that time as a whole, his realm reached from the Pacific Ocean to the Black Sea, from Siberia to what is now Afghanistan.
  In 1271, Kublai established the Yuan dynasty, which ruled over present-day Mongolia, China, Korea, and some adjacent areas, and assumed the role of Emperor of China. By 1279, the Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty was completed and Kublai became the first non-Han emperor to conquer all of China.
context_section_description: Despite the opposition of some of his Confucian-trained advisers, Kublai decided to invade Japan, Burma, Vietnam, and Java, following the suggestions of some of his Mongol officials. He also attempted to subjugate peripheral lands such as Sakhalin, where its indigenous people eventually submitted to the Mongols by 1308, after Kublai's death. These costly invasions and conquests and the introduction of paper currency caused inflation. From 1273 to 1276, war against the Song Dynasty and Japan made the issue of paper currency expand from 110,000 ding to 1,420,000 ding.
caption: The Gangnido reflects the Chinese geographical knowledge during the Mongol Empire about countries in the West.[98]
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