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Hello and welcome to the history of China. China. Episode 179, traditional family values.

Last time we tracked Kublai Khan's Traditional Family Values.

Last time, we tracked Kublai Khan's dealings with his neighboring states and the varying outcomes. From the very positive, as with the case of the Korean Goryo Kingdom,

to the difficult and ongoing, as with the Korean Goryo Kingdom, to the difficult and ongoing, as with Song China,

and it lasts to the very negative and embarrassing, as with the UN's costly boondoggle off the coasts of Japan.

Yet there remains another front that we've not yet directly addressed,

one only recently, at least in our timeline, opened against the nominal great con of the Mongols.

It is the widening chasm between himself and his own vision of the future,

and that of his extended family that will prove to be one of Kublai's most vexing challenges,

and one that will in the end prove to be perhaps his greatest defeat.

As we covered in episode 177, Brother Mine, Kubilize claimed the title of Great Khan had opened

up a longstanding Fisher among the various branches of the

Borgicine family.

From the time of Jingus Khan's carving his newly won empire into four sub-connets for each of his

four sons, the potential had always loomed large over the Mongol

nation that at some point or another no consensus would or could be reached over who their

next emperor would be. The 1260s had seen that

festering boil erupt into fratricidal violence between Kublai and his youngest brother

Arik Boca. But even with Arik's surrender in 1265, Kublai had been unable to secure a firm grasp over the wider empire.

Though he had successfully defended his claim to the throne, he was still viewed by many among his extended family as little more than an illegitimate

usurper who would defy tradition and law to do so.

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