Some of the functions of their shamans.

And the second explanation is that divination was a dangerous knowledge.

So it could be used to challenge the legitimacy of the ruler.

Therefore, the Mongol rulers bureaucratized and hereby controlled many practitioners of

divination.

While both of these explanations hold true, I find them inadequate to explain the creation

of a new institution.

So yes, the Mongols relied on divination, but as Richard Smith's study on Qing China

shows in Imperial China, everybody from the emperor to the commoner extensively used divination.

And it's difficult to assess whether the Mongols relied on divination more than, let's say,

the Song emperors did.

And the second explanation, similarly, many Chinese dynasties were aware of the danger

of divination, and they tried to exercise some kind of control over divination texts

and practitioners.

The why it was the Mongols who promoted local divination schools.

And I think the answer should be sought in the fundamental political structure of the

Yuan, that is the epenage system.

And I will get to that in a moment.

And this system created a competition between the court and local Mongol elites over the

control of local experts.

I argue that rather than being a top-down initiative, the imperial orders of establishing

local divination schools were a response to the local Mongol elites patronage of local

diviners.

Therefore, the local divination schools functioned as a tool for the court to reorganize the

local diviners and transform them from the experts of the Mongol elite to experts of

the state.

So now we are going to follow the sequence of some key events that eventually led to

the establishment of local divination schools.

We will start with the rebellion of the Mongol prince Naian.

And as a react to it, Chinese court diviner proposed for the establishment of local divination

schools and then imperial orders were issued.

Then we will try to explore the other side of the story.

I will use a case study of a local diviner to reveal stories that official records do

not tell us.

In 1287, the Mongol prince Naian rebelled against Kublai in Manchuria.

This is the region in the red circle.

Naian was a descendant of Chinggis Khan's younger brother, Timugui Ochijin.

He and a few other descendants of Chinggis Khan's brothers had their power base in East

Mongolia and Northeast China.

In the decade prior to his rebellion, the central government had made a few administrative

changes to enhance its control of the region.

Suspicious of losing his control of his own epenage, Naian led a coalition of Mongol princes.

In an attempt to gain independence from Kublai.

So now, what was an epenage?

The epenage was the underlying structure of the Mongol empire.

And it's the key to understanding many of the Mongol's policies and administration.

The ethnic, patrimonial notions of society and governance required the leaders to redistribute

some of their possessions and wealth with their family members and followers.

In another word, the Mongol empire was a joint venture and the senior princes of Chinggis

blood were the shareholders.