In the last article, I mentioned that the development of "gunpowder weapons" in ancient China was far ahead of the island nation of Japan at the same time, and triggered the Yuan Dynasty's two eastward expeditions to Japan.

The Yuan Dynasty made two large-scale expeditions to Japan in 1274 and 1281, which on the surface were just simple foreign wars, but in the "timeline", it was closely related to the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty, because the "Mengyuan regime" at this time had swept the Eurasian continent and formed an encirclement posture against the Southern Song Dynasty.

While expanding southward after the destruction of Jin, the "Great Mongol State" also launched three large-scale westward expeditions, and its troops reached as far as Central Asia, West Asia, Eastern Europe and even Central Europe, successively defeated the Turks, Arabs, Slavs, and Germans, and established the "Four Great Khanates" after being blocked by the "Sinai Peninsula" in Egypt.

However, the pace of Mongol expansion did not stop, as early as the reign of Ögedee, the Mongols sent troops to the east to conquer Goryeo, forcing Goryeo to pay tribute. After the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty, Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan dynasty, used Goryeo as a springboard to launch two wars, the "Battle of Wenyong" and the "Battle of Hongan" in the 11th year of Zhiyuan (1274) and the 18th year of Zhiyuan (1281), but both ended in failure. What exactly was the reason for the Yuan Dynasty's eastward expedition to Japan?

In fact, for the steppe nomads, their desire to conquer is one of the important reasons. However, there are deeper political, economic and other factors behind this, after all, the Song Dynasty was the largest "trading partner" of ancient Japan, and many Song people fled to Japan after the exile.

At that time, after the "Mongol Empire" captured "Dali", its offensive posture had already formed a siege of the Southern Song Dynasty, and the only way for the Southern Song court to obtain assistance was to ask for help from Goryeo and Japan by sea. However, in 1260 AD, the "Great Khan of the Mongols" Meng Ge was killed by "artillery" in the "Battle of Diaoyu City" (now Hechuan, Chongqing). As a result, Kublai Khan, who was at war with the Southern Song Dynasty army, had to immediately withdraw his troops and rush back to the steppe to compete for the position of "Great Khan".

At this time, Kublai Khan's younger brother Ali Buge was elected as the new "Mongol Great Khan" by the Mongol nobles in "Hala Horin", but in 1264, Kublai Khan defeated Ali Buge and won the position of "Mongol Great Khan", and also named the country "Yuan" and set his "year name" as "Zhiyuan First Year".

However, after Kublai Khan seized the throne, the Mongol army marched south to attack the Southern Song Dynasty without success. Prior to this, when the Mongols conquered the Western Xia and the Jin Dynasty, they reached an agreement with the Southern Song Dynasty and adopted the strategy of "distant friendship and close attack". Therefore, in the view of Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan dynasty, the conquest of Goryeo and Japan was politically necessary to isolate the Southern Song Dynasty. Of course, this helped the "Mengyuan court" to carry out "psychological warfare" to subdue the Southern Song Dynasty.

As early as the reign of Ögedee, the "Mongol Empire" had already used force to force Goryeo to pay tribute. During the reign of Kublai Khan, the "Mongol and Yuan courts" adopted the means of "harmony", firmly controlled Goryeo's internal and foreign affairs, and further strengthened its status as a "vassal state".

In the 11th year of the Yuan Dynasty (1274 AD), Kublai Khan even lost the "imperial daughter Kudu Lu Jieli and married the prince", so that in addition to the existence of the relationship between the Yuan Dynasty and Goryeo, the relationship between the "royal in-laws" was added, and to a certain extent, the situation of "righteousness and ministers, joy is like father and son" was realized. From then on, the "Mongol and Yuan courts" completely controlled the political situation on the Korean Peninsula and unwittingly inflated the desire for conquest.

Therefore, Yuan Shizu set his sights on Japan, and hoped that by sending envoys to make Japan a "vassal state" of the Yuan Dynasty, in order to achieve the goal of isolating the Southern Song Dynasty and unifying it as soon as possible. Unfortunately, this move was not successful, because the Japanese people looked down on nomads on horseback.

According to the records in the historical books, in 1266, Lang Hede and Yin Hong sent an envoy to Japan with the national letter of "Mengyuan", and the national letter was written in Chinese: "And the saint takes the four seas as his home, and it is not good to communicate with each other, how can it be reasonable for a family?" As for the use of soldiers, the husband is pleased, and the king is ......"

When the Yuan Dynasty sent an envoy to Japan and had a threatening "letter of state" to Japan, how should it deal with this important matter that has a bearing on the country's security? There was a disagreement between the Kyoto Imperial Court, which was in power in Japan, and the Hojo family, the ruler of the Kamakura Shogunate, who was actually in power. The "shogunate" court thought that the Mongol request in the letter should be rejected on an equal footing, but the shogunate considered the contents of the letter to be threatening and rude, and ignored it, leaving it boring.

In the end, Yuan Shizu decided to raise troops to conquer Japan. In fact, this is not the first time that the Yuan Dynasty sent an envoy to Japan, because in August of the third year of the Yuan Dynasty (1266), Kublai Khan sent an envoy to Japan for the first time.

In the fourth, fifth, and tenth years of the Yuan Dynasty, Yuan Shizu sent envoys to Japan, but they all ended in failure. The Japanese have ignored the Yuan Dynasty many times and have made the Yuan Dynasty feel that it has lost face, and "since the ceremony" failed to achieve the expected effect, it had to be solved by "soldiers", which was called "first salute and then soldiers" in ancient times.

Therefore, it can be said that the Yuan Dynasty's dispatch of troops to Japan, in addition to achieving the political goal of isolating the Southern Song Dynasty, also had the purpose of saving face, and of course, it also had the intention of showing the majesty of a great power. In the twelfth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1275), Du Shizhong and his party went to Japan, but they were beheaded by the shogunate at Longkou in the western suburbs of Kamakura. The original intention of the Waren was to warn the Yuan Dynasty to avoid a recurrence of war, but this act aroused the anger of Yuan Shizu, who prepared to attack Japan for the second time.

During the "Battle of Wenyong", due to the lack of military personnel and combat materials, it finally ended in failure. This was absolutely intolerable for the "Mongol and Yuan court", which had always been accustomed to victory and conquest, so it became imperative to go to Japan.

On the other hand, the Yuan Dynasty also wanted to stabilize the domestic situation, and needed a victory to deter the hearts and minds of the people in the Central Plains, so as to better consolidate its barbaric rule in the Central Plains, after all, the "national policy" implemented by the Yuan Dynasty was very unpopular in practice.

After the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty recruited a large number of Southern Song captives, but the disposal of these captives became a huge problem. For the "Mengyuan Imperial Court", this is a huge political burden. It is unrealistic to kill them all, if this is the case, then Yuan Shizu will inevitably be infamous as a "tyrant".

The ancients said that "killing and surrendering is ominous", and for the minority regimes that have just unified the world, if they "slaughter prisoners," it will be greatly detrimental to the stability of people's hearts.

However, if the Song people were to be incorporated into the Yuan army, it would undoubtedly be a huge weakening of the Mongol army's combat effectiveness. If Tang dismissed them and let them disarm and return to the field, Yuan Shizu would not be relieved, what if these soldiers raised their arms and rebelled again?

Therefore, Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan dynasty, insisted on sending troops to attack Japan, which included the intention of killing people with a knife, which not only attacked the small Japan that did not know the height of the sky, but also consumed a large number of Southern Song Dynasty troops, which can really be described as killing two birds with one stone! Even if the crusade failed, it was the Han Chinese who died, not the Mongols.

According to historical records, during the second eastward expedition of the Yuan Dynasty to Japan, the troops were divided into two routes. Xindu and Hong Chaqiu led 40,000 troops from the Central Plains, and Fan Wenhu led 100,000 new troops from the Southern Song Dynasty from the Central Plains. Prior to this, Fan Wenhu, the Han general of the Southern Song Dynasty, suffered a fiasco due to the "Battle of Hong'an", resulting in the loss of the Southern Song Dynasty troops led by him, but he did not truthfully report the military situation, but tried to shirk responsibility and conceal the truth, so he was exposed and informed to Kublai Khan by someone with a heart.

It stands to reason that once Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan dynasty, knew the truth, he would inevitably be furious, and it was inevitable that Fan Wenhu would be severely punished. However, in fact, Fan Wenhu was not condemned, but was trusted by his master after that. From this, it can be seen that it is not important whether the Southern Song Dynasty troops led by Fan Wenhu lost all their losses in the last expedition to Japan, the important thing is that he can willingly bear the black pot for "Emperor Laozi". Therefore, there are points this time.

In this way, although the two campaigns of "Wenyong" and "Hongan" were not long apart, they reflected the concerns of the rulers in the early years of the Yuan Dynasty about the domestic situation, after all, the Mongol population was too small, and there were too many Han people, how to prevent the Han from rebelling? It would be good to drive the Han people to surrender their troops to the East China Sea and bury themselves in the belly of the fish. This is the "conspiracy" and "thick black", whether it is a minority regime or a children's regime, as long as it is the ruling class, security issues are the first consideration.

As we all know, the "Yuan Dynasty" was established by the Mongols, and foreign conquest and military expansion were already a survival instinct for nomads. In addition, the Mongolian tradition of property inheritance is "young sons keep property", and older males are not able to share enough property for the production and life of the tribe.

Since the original land and wealth cannot be obtained, the only way to open up new land is to open up new territory. Therefore, the first choice is to bear the external expansion by force, because the land obtained in this way is supposed to belong to himself, because "a generation of Tianjiao, Genghis Khan" made his fortune in the first place.

Therefore, at the "Kuritai Conference" in which the monarchs and ministers of the "Mengyuan Imperial Court" participated, the chiefs (leaders) of the respected tribes would tear the roast leg of lamb while holding the hot mare's milk wine, and said with a smile: "When Emperor Taizu first started in the north, the elder brothers and brothers decided to take the world, divide the land, and share the wealth and ......" Therefore, this disguised reward and acquiescence further stimulated the Mongols' desire for foreign expansion, conquest and plunder.

Not long after the Mongol army's third expedition to the west, Kublai Khan obtained the throne through the passage, but this desire for conquest was passed down through several generations and had a great influence on him. Moreover, Kublai Khan himself was an ambitious and eloquent monarch who tried to maintain the strength of the Mongol nation through continuous expansion and conquest, so as to gain the support of the upper echelons of the majority of the Mongol tribes.

In addition, Kublai Khan's acquisition of the khanate was not very legitimate, but was taken from his younger brother Ali Buge. Therefore, he needs to fight a war of foreign conquest to prove his strength and demonstrate the legitimacy and authority of his regime.

Therefore, "the gun shoots the first bird", and Japan became the target of his conquest. In addition, at that time, the army of the Yuan Dynasty marched south to attack the Southern Song Dynasty, and although it was successful in the end, the national and social contradictions within the "great unification" country were acute, and the social contradictions had to be diverted through the tools of foreign war.

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