Apachi, The Most Experienced Of The Mongol
Commanders, Then Counseled A Prompt Retreat.
Unfortunately the Mongol
prince Togan would not take his advice, and the Annamites, gathering fresh
forces on all sides, attacked the exhausted Mongols, and compelled them to
beat a precipitate retreat from their country.
All the fruits of early
victory were lost, and Togan's disgrace was a poor consolation for the
culminating discomfiture of Kublai's reign. The people of Annam then made
good their independence, and they still enjoy it, so far as China is
concerned; though Annam is now a dependency of the French republic.
We cannot doubt that the failure of the emperor's endeavor to popularize
his rule was as largely due to the tyrannical acts and oppressive measures
of some of his principal ministers as to unpopular and unsuccessful
expeditions. Notwithstanding the popular dislike of the system, and
Kublai's efforts to put it down, the Mongols resorted to the old plan of
farming the revenue, and the extortion of those who purchased the right
drove the Chinese to the verge of rebellion, and made the whole Mongol
regime hateful. Several tax farmers were removed from their posts, and
punished with death, but their successors carried on the same system. The
declining years of Kublai's reign were therefore marred by the growing
discontent of his Chinese subjects, and by his inability or unwillingness
to put down official extortion and mismanagement. But he had to cope with
a still greater danger in the hostility of some members of his own family.
The rivalry between himself and his brother Arikbuka formed one incident
of his earlier career, the hostility of his cousin Kaidu proved a more
serious peril when Kublai was stricken in years, and approaching the end
of his long reign.
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