14  THE  CHINESE  EMPIRE
wholly  conquered  by  the  Northerners,  and  brought  under
a  Tartar  Emperor.
The  Yuan  Dynasty  (a.d.  1260-1368)
When  Kublai  Khan  (a.d.  1260-1295)  became  ruler  of
the  whole  of  China,  he  established  the  Yuan  Dynasty.  The
word  Yuan  means  "  original,”  and  was  chosen  by  him  as
the  designation  of  his  dynasty  to  indicate  that  he  instituted
a  fresh  beginning.
The  Mongols  were  politic  in  their  treatment  of  the  conquered, ­
  and  conformed  to  their  civilisation.  This  has  always
been  characteristic  in  regard  to  the  Tartar  conquests  of
China.  As  has  been  said,  China  is  “  a  sea  that  salts  all
waters  that  flow  into  it.”  The  Tartars  have  never  imposed
their  inferior  civilisation  on  the  Chinese,  but  have  assimilated ­
  themselves  to  those  they  conquered  until  it  became
difficult  to  distinguish  between  the  two  peoples.
Kublai  Khan's  thirst  for  conquest  was  not  sated  by  his
annexation  of  China.  An  attempt  was  made  against  Japan,
which  failed  ignominiously,  the  Mongols  being  no  match
for  the  seafaring  people  of  the  Island  Empire.
In  the  south,  Annam  was  forced  to  become  a  tributary
state,  and  remained  nominally  a  vassal  of  China  until,  in
our  own  day,  it  became  a  dependency  of  France  (Annam  in
1864,  Tonkin  in  1885).
A  campaign  against  Burma  proved  successful,  and  the
Burmese  were  forced  to  pay  tribute.
It  was  during  the  reign  of  Kublai  Khan  that  the  celebrated ­
  Venetian  traveller,  Marco  Polo,  visited  China  (1271).
By  his  long  sojourn  in  the  country  he  learnt  much  about
Chinese  civilisation,  and  upon  his  return  to  Europe  he
enlightened  the  people  of  the  West  in  regard  to  what  had
been  to  them,  up  to  that  time,  a  sealed  country.
One  of  the  great  public  works  carried  out  under  the
instructions  of  Kublai  was  the  improvement  of  the  Grand
Canal  between  Hangchow  and  Tientsin.  It  is  about  a
thousand  miles  long,  and  still  forms  one  of  the  chief  waterways ­
  of  the  Empire.  It  was  begun  as  long  ago  as  b.c.  489.