Before Ogedai succeeded to the Great Khan, his youngest son dragged Lei to supervise the country, and finally convened the Kuritai Conference to elect Ogedai to succeed him. During the era of Tulei Khan, the conquest of the Jin Dynasty was intensified, and Ögedei succeeded the Great Khan, conquered the Goryeo Dynasty, eliminated the Dongzhen Kingdom, and defeated the Jin Dynasty.

According to the tradition of the Great Khan's election system and the inheritance of the property of the younger son, the youngest son, Tulei, inherited the central area and the main army ruled by Genghis Khan, including more than 60 thousand households, while Ogedei, who was the successor of the Great Khan, inherited only 4 thousand households.

It was this system of the Great Khan's election of the best among the people and the inheritance of the property of the youngest son Shouzao that led to a series of contradictions and conflicts between the Mongol Khanate and the Yuan Dynasty on the issue of the succession to the Khan and the imperial throne. During this period of vacancy, the young son of the first khan was allowed to oversee the state as heir to the throne and was responsible for preparing for the election of the Great Khan.

As a result, he served as the supervisor of the state, mastered the main military power and the central government of the Mongol Khanate at that time, and became the de facto ruler of the Mongol Khanate at that time. On the one hand, he asked Tuolei to resolutely implement Genghis Khan's edict, and on the other hand, he worked hard to do the work of Chagatai, the then governor of Mongolia, hoping that he would take the lead in supporting Ogedai as the Great Khan. Chagatai agreed to this important suggestion, and Yelu Chucai played a key role in the succession to the throne of the Khan, and was praised by Ogedai as a minister of the society, and since then he has been more trusted and respected by the Mongol Great Khan.

Mongolia lived by water and grass, and there was no capital to speak of, and Helin was not established as the Mongol Khan until Ögedai became Khan. To the south of the Selenga River, a small river flows into the Selenga River from south to north to the west, surrounded by gentle hills with dense forests, and to the southeast of the city is an endless steppe. There are mountains, water, grass and trees, which are not only suitable for grazing, but also an easy place to defend and difficult to attack on the prairie.

The so-called capital is only a small city about one kilometer long and less than one kilometer wide, the city has four gates, the north-south and east-west avenues meet in the center of the city and lead to the four gates, and the city has built the Wan'an Palace where the Great Khan lives, which is a gold-domed hall 60 meters long and 50 meters wide, supported by 64 stone foundation wooden pillars.

At the beginning of Wokotai's accession to the throne, the grassland tax system was determined, stipulating that the Mongolian people had one hundred horses to lose one horse, one hundred cattle to one oxen, and one hundred sheep to one antelope, and it was set as a permanent system. After the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, the original Mongolian region and the northeast region were guarded by the army of the kings, the hinterland directly under the jurisdiction was guarded by the Mongol and Tanma red armies, the Central Plains was mainly guarded by the Han army, and the south of Huaishui was mainly the Han army and the new annexed army. In terms of the distribution of the army, the policy of governing the Han people with Han people and the people from the south of the country was basically adopted.

Yelu Chucai was a figure that could not be ignored, especially when Ogedei was in power, Yelu Chucai used his special position in the Mongol Khanate's court to exert influence on the policies of the Mongol supreme ruler, prompting the Mongol government to transform from nomadic slavery to feudalism, and made outstanding contributions to the development of Mongolia.

The Mongol aristocracy had the misconception that the Han Chinese could not help subsidize the state and could hollow out the land of the Han people as pastureland. Yelu Chucai said: "Your Majesty is going to march south, and the materials needed for military supplies are all from the Central Plains' land tax, commercial tax, salt, wine, iron smelting, and the benefits of the mountains, and the annual tax can get 500,000 taels of silver, 80,000 horses of silk, and more than 400,000 stones of millet, which is enough to supply, so why is it not helpful?"

Although Wokotai still didn't believe it, he asked Yelu Chucai to help him collect taxes, and Yelu Chucai set up a ten-way tax collection office. Yelu Chucai, who promoted and reused Confucianism, believed that the world could be obtained immediately, but it could not be ruled immediately, and if you want to govern the world well, you must reuse Confucianism. Although Genghis Khan took some measures to reuse Taoist priests and prohibit killing and plundering, he did not reuse Confucianism to rule the world. It was only when Wokotai instructed Yelu Chucai to be in charge of tax collection and taxation that he was provided with an opportunity to promote and reuse Confucianism.

The chief and deputy chiefs of the Ten Roads Tax Collection Office use scholars, and they are all generous elders, and they are the best choice in the world. At that time, a total of 20 famous Confucian scholars in the world were selected, and this was the first time that Mongolia hired Han intellectuals as officials on a large scale. It was also under these circumstances that Wokotai officially established Zhongshu Province in the central government, handing over more power to Yelu Chucai.

As a result, there was a situation in which the Mongol kings and generals were in charge of military power, the chief magistrate was in charge of judicial power, and the Zhongshu Province was in charge of administrative and financial power. It was only at this time that Yelu Chucai changed from Biyan Chi, who was in charge of writing and divination, to a veritable pro-minister and important minister of the Mongol Great Khan.

Oppose the policy of massacre and protect the lives of the people As early as the time of Genghis Khan, Yelu Chucai constantly propagated the truth of good and evil killing, opposing not only the wanton massacre of the Mongol army, but also the governor of the prefecture and county, who killed and killed at will. When Wogedai conquered the Jin Dynasty in the south, he suggested that Wogedai issue an edict to the fleeing people and those who came to surrender should not die.

When Kaifeng, the capital of the Jin Dynasty, was about to be breached, the general Subutai sent an envoy to the Mongol Khan's court and said: "The resistance of the Jin people is long-lasting, and our army has many casualties. ”

When Yelu Chucai heard the news, he immediately galloped into the palace and played: "The soldiers have been fighting for decades, and all they want to get is the land and the people?

Wokotai agreed to his suggestion, and there were 1,470,000 people in Bianliang City at that time, and it was because of Yelu Chucai's suggestion that his life was saved. It was forbidden to plunder the people, and in the early conquests, many of the people of the conquered lands became the driving force of the Mongol nobles and became slaves. Yelu Chucai tried to change this situation, and proposed to include household registration, and all of them were registered as people.

Prohibiting the abuse of power for personal gain, the countries of the Western Regions practiced a system of buying goods by merchants with taxes, and later some merchants from the Western Regions and the Han nationality demanded that this system be moved to the Central Plains, but Yelu Chucai resolutely opposed it. On the surface, with the method of collecting taxes from Yelu Chucai, more than 500,000 taels of silver can be collected in a year, and with other income, the amount is not too large. And those merchants proposed to pay the tax package and hand over 1.4 million taels of silver to the state at once, which really had a certain temptation. However, Yelu Chucai knew very well that if the merchant took out 1.4 million taels, he would double the taxes on the people, which would greatly increase the burden on the people, so he did not agree to adopt this method.

At that time, the Mongolian aristocracy not only plundered slaves and wealth, but also colluded with Hui merchants to do business and make profits, often borrowing official money as capital, which was in essence embezzlement of public funds, borrowing public property to enrich private interests, which not only endangered the interests of the state, but also endangered the common people. Yelu Chucai suggested that officials should be prohibited from doing business with public funds and official goods for profit.

Advocating respect for Confucius and re-teaching, when Bianliang was about to be breached, Yelu Chucai suggested that Wokotai send people into the city to seek the descendants of Confucius, find the fifty-first generation grandson Kong Yuancuo, and enshrine the Holy Prince, so as to win a large number of Confucian students. The Mongol Khan's court formally established Guozi School, with Feng Zhichang as the head teacher of Guozi, and ordered eighteen children of courtiers to enroll. The temple study in various places has also been gradually restored, and has been strongly supported and encouraged by Yelu Chucai, while respecting Confucius and revitalizing learning, Yelu Chucai also pays attention to collecting and sorting out Confucian classics.

When Genghis Khan's army captured Lingwu in Western Xia, the generals fought for the beautiful jade silk, and only Yelu Chucai collected books and rhubarb medicinal materials alone. Because he believed that Confucian classics could enable people to understand the way of sages, while rhubarb medicinal herbs could cure diseases and save lives, they were more important than beautiful jade silks.

The Mongol and Yuan dynasties were a period of ethnic strife, and the rise of the Mongols brought the Central Plains culture into another collision with foreign cultures. Mongolia, as a steppe nomadic people, has a backward culture, and after its Jin Ge Iron Horse conquered the world, can the original backward institutional culture make a huge empire that spans Europe and Asia and includes various cultures operate normally?

In the process of gradual expansion and domination, the Mongol rulers understood that they could only consolidate their rule by adapting to the customs and cultures of the different regions they ruled, so within this vast empire, there were many khanates with many ways of governing.

For the Central Plains culture, the situation is slightly different, the Mongol ruler attaches great importance to the Central Plains, this land can supply what he needs and he can't make it himself, and because of the long-term exchanges, the Central Plains has an irreplaceable place in their hearts, which is why the Mongols put the focus of their rule on the Central Plains rather than other khanates, but this does not mean that the Mongols will take the initiative and fully accept the Han culture.

First of all, because the cultural background of the two ethnic groups is too different, the Han is a typical farming people, while the Mongolian is a typical nomadic people, there are irreconcilable parts of the ethnic differences, if they want to consciously accept foreign culture, they will generally choose to have many cultural factors in common with themselves, such as advocating Lamaism and absorbing a large number of Semu culture.

The Mongols are also a conqueror to the Central Plains, he is deeply proud of his own culture, this is a victor's mentality, the Mongols with this sense of superiority to implement the national hierarchy, in this hierarchy, the Han and the Nan are at the end, if he wants to promote Confucian culture, then the status of the Nan and Han will inevitably improve, in the face of this contradiction the Mongols adopted a formal use, that is to say, when the Mongol aristocracy consciously adopted the Han system, they took it as an expedient measure.

However, history has its inevitability, and culturally, the Mongols will inevitably be conquered by the advanced Central Plains culture, which makes the Mongols gradually have a tendency and development of sinicization in the course of history. The so-called sinicization is not the complete assimilation of other ethnic groups by the Han people, this sinicization is a process of absorbing the culture of the Han nationality by different races, and it is a process of quantitative change, and the degree is deep and shallow.

Compared with Liaojinxia, the degree of sinicization of the Mongolian people is obviously not deep, and the road to sinicization of the Mongolian people is really tortuous and difficult, especially in the Mongolian and Yuan dynasties. During this period, there was a figure who made outstanding contributions to the sinicization of the Mongolian people, and he was Yelu Chucai.

The reason why Yelu Chucai was able to promote the sinicization at that time was because he was a Sinicized Liao nobleman, and he presided over the administrative affairs of the Mongols in the Central Plains during the Ogedai period, and promoted the sinicization culturally and politically with the help of the power of the Mongol militarist government. Yelu Chucai's reforms did not achieve complete results at the time, but he laid a solid foundation for the later implementation of the Sinicization policy of Kublai Khan and his descendants.