Kublai Khan

Kublai was born in 1215, second son of Tolui and grandson of Genghis Khan, who died when the boy was almost 12. In 1260 he succeeded his older brother Möngke as Khagan, but had to crush his younger brother Ariq Böke in a civil war that lasted until 1264 and splintered the Mongol Empire for good. His real power shrank to the Yuan domain, though he still held sway over the Ilkhanate and, less so, the Golden Horde. In 1271 he declared the Yuan dynasty, claiming orthodox succession from prior Chinese rulers, and by 1279 had finished off the Song dynasty to become the first non-Han emperor of all China proper. From that throne he ruled over most of present-day China, Mongolia, Korea, southern Siberia, and adjacent territory, and ordered invasions of Japan, Vietnam, Burma, and Java. He died in 1294, twenty-three years into the dynasty he named Great Yuan.