Mongols and the Yuan Dynasty
The Jin Empire was defeated by the Mongols, who then proceeded to defeat the Southern Song in a long and bloody war, the first war where firearms played an important role. Some scholars estimate that about half the population, 50 million Han Chinese people may have perished in total as a result of the Mongol invasion and conquest. During the era after the war, later called the Pax Mongolica, adventurous Westerners such as Marco Polo travelled all the way to China and brought the first reports of its wonders to Europe. In China, the Mongols were divided between those who wanted to remain based in the steppes and those who wished to adopt the customs of the chinese.
Kublai Khan , grandson of Genghis Khan , wanting to adopt Han Chinese customs, established the Yuan Dynasty . This was the first dynasty to rule the whole of China from Beijing as the capital. Beijing had been ceded to Liao in AD 938 with the 16 Prefectures of Yan Yun . Before that, it had been the capital of the Jin, who did not rule all of China.