Toghon Temür

Yuan · 16th ruler

元惠宗 Yuán Huìzōng妥懽帖睦爾 Tuǒhuāntiēmù'ěr

Wade–Giles: Yüan Hui-tsung

Reigned 1333–1370 (36 years)

Reigned 36 years (1333–1370). Died at 51 (East Asian reckoning) of natural causes. 16th ruler of Yuan.

Facts

Reign: 19 July 1333 – 23 May 1370 (16th ruler of Yuan)
Length of reign: 36 years
Born: 25 May 1320
Died: 23 May 1370
Age at accession: 14
Age at death: 51
Cause of death: Natural causesNatural death or illness (including old age)
Path to the throne: Installed by othersSucceeded the previous ruler of the same regime, but the choice was made by officials, the army, eunuchs, consort kin, an empress dowager or the imperial clan
Predecessor: Rinchinbal Khan
Successor: Ayushiridara
Era names: 元統 Yuántǒng (proclaimed 1333)
至元 Zhìyuán (proclaimed 1335)
至正 Zhìzhèng (proclaimed 1341)

Ages are given in East Asian reckoning (sui): a person is one year old at birth and gains a year at each New Year, so the figure is one or two years higher than the Western age.

Life

In brief

Shundi (Toghon Temür) was the eldest son of Kusala (Mingzong), and he took the throne in 1333. In 1368 he left Dadu and fled north, and he died at Yingchang in 1370.

Road to the throne

The History of Yuan records that in the time of Tugh Temür (Wenzong), after Kusala's empress Babusha was killed as a result of slander, he was moved to Daecheong Island in Goryeo. Later Tugh Temür proclaimed to the realm that Kusala had said Toghon Temür was not his son, and moved him to Jingjiang in Guangxi. When Rinchinbal Khan died in 1332, El Temür again asked that Tugh Temür's son El Tegüs be enthroned, but Tugh Temür's empress said that Toghon Temür was Kusala's eldest son and that propriety required he be enthroned. After El Temür died, Tugh Temür's empress conferred with the ministers and set him on the throne, on the promise that after his death he would pass the throne to El Tegüs. The History of Yuan places his enthronement at Shangdu, and the New History of Yuan at Dadu.

Reign and death

After his accession, trusting the advice of Arughui Temür, an old servant of Kusala, the emperor kept himself deep inside the palace and did not take matters into his own hands. In 1340 the emperor dismissed Bayan, accusing him of seizing power for himself and taking advantage of the emperor's youth. In the same year he removed Tugh Temür's tablet from the ancestral temple and banished El Tegüs to Goryeo. In 1341 he changed the era name to Zhizheng. In 1351 he had Jia Lu reopen the old course of the Yellow River, but in the same year Liu Futong of Yingzhou rose in revolt under the name of the Red Turbans and took Yingzhou. In 1368, when the emperor proposed going north, Shiliemen and others protested that he must not, and the eunuch Zhao Bayan Buqa pleaded with him in tears, but the emperor would not listen. The History of Yuan records that the emperor left Dadu in the middle of the night and fled north, and that the Ming army then entered Dadu and the Yuan state came to an end. Neither the annals of Shundi in the History of Yuan nor the annals of Huizong in the New History of Yuan mention the theory that he was the son of the Duke of Ying of the Song. The History of Yuan gives the length of his reign as 36 years and the New History of Yuan as 37.

Translated from the Japanese text of this site, which is written from the official histories. Years are given in the Western calendar; months are omitted because the histories use the Chinese lunar calendar.

During the reign

Number of times each event is recorded in the official histories. How each item is counted

Era name changes: 3
General amnesties: 18
Empresses installed: 4
Crown princes deposed: 0
Personal campaigns: 0
Rebellions suppressed: 24
Rebellions faced: 34
Capital relocations: 2

Emperors of Yuan

All 11 emperors of Yuan