During the thirty-nine years of the mid-Yüan period, nine khaghans ascended the throne in quick succession, resulting in frequent bureaucratic turnovers and reversals of state policies. This chapter shows that the mid-Yüan rulers missed the opportunity afforded by the general peace in the country to make further constructive changes on the basis of what Khubilai had left them. The mid-Yüan khaghans inherited from Khubilai not only a great empire but also its multifarious problems. Politically, the system of government created by Khubilai was the product of a compromise between Mongolian patrimonial feudalism and the traditional Chinese autocratic-bureaucratic system. Temür's reign was significant as the transition between a period of continuing conquests and one of general peace. Khaishan, Ayurbarwada, Shidebala, and Tugh Temür followed. What was left by the mid-Yüan monarchs to Toghon Temür, the last Yüan khaghan, was a state that had been greatly weakened by the constant and violent conflicts within the ruling class.

When Toghōn Temür, often referred to by his temple name, Shun-ti, was installed as tenth emperor of the Yüan dynasty in July 1333, when he was barely thirteen years of age. Khubilai was still very much a living memory. Bayan believed that things had drifted in undesirable directions in the forty years since Khubilai's death and that he wanted to restore the status quo ante. In March 1340, his nephew Toghtō, removed Bayan from all his offices and banished him. Toghto's first administration certainly exhibited fresh new spirit. It is remarkable that Toghtō managed not only to create a nationwide apparatus of pacification but also to keep effective control over it. Toghtō's ambitious activism demanded discipline and centralization. Toghōn Temür removed Toghtō, who, like his uncle Bayan before him, had grown very powerful. In the direct sense, the Yüan dynasty fell at last because the Ming founders willed it.

The structure of Yüan government took shape during the reign of Khubilai, and the essential components of the government bureaucracy that formulated under him remained intact until the end of the dynasty in 1368. The strongest Chinese influence at Khubilai's early court came from Liu Ping-chung, a Ch'an Buddhist and confidant of the Mongolian emperor. It is clear that separate civil and military bureaucracies existed, though there also is evidence that military officials did not always refrain from meddling in civilian affairs, and vice versa. Originating as a tribal, military society, the pastoral nomadic Mongols of the early and mid-thirteenth century evidenced little social stratification. Although the thirteenth-century Mongols did indeed have slaves usually non-Mongolian war captives rather than indigenous slaves it would not be correct to describe slave holding as a fundamental characteristic of the Mongols' tribal and clan-based pastoral nomadic society and economy. Yüan government and society reflect both continuities and breaks with the Chinese past.