system taken over by the Mongols
had not been created for long-distance traffic of this sort. The capital
of the Sung had lain in the main centre of production. Consequently, a
great fleet had suddenly to be built, canals and rivers had to be
regulated, and some new canals excavated. This again called for a vast
quantity of forced labour, often brought from afar to the points at
which it was needed. The Chinese peasants had suffered in the Sung
period. They had been exploited by the large landowners. The Mongols had
not removed these landowners, as the Chinese gentry had gone over to
their side. The Mongols had deprived them of their political power, but
had left them their estates, the basis of their power. In past changes
of dynasty the gentry had either maintained their position or been
replaced by a new gentry: the total number of their class had remained
virtually unchanged. Now, however, in addition to the original gentry
there were about a million Mongols, for whose maintenance the peasants
had also to provide, and their standard of maintenance was high. This
was an enormous increase in the burdens of the peasantry.

Two other elements further pressed on the peasants in the Mongol
epoch--organized religion and the traders. The upper classes among the
Chinese had in general little interest in religion, but the Mongols,
owing to their historical development, were very religious. Some of them
and some of their allies were Buddhists, some were still shamanists. The
Chinese Buddhists and the representatives of popular Taoism approached
the Mongols and the foreign Buddhist monks trying to enlist the interest
of the Mongols and their allies. The old shamanism was unable to compete
with the higher religions, and the Mongols in China became Buddhist or
interested themselves in popular Taoism. They showed their interest
especially by the endowment of temples and monasteries. The temples were
given great estates, and the peasants on those estates became temple
servants. The land belonging to the temples was free from taxation.

We have as yet no exact statistics of the Mongol epoch, only
approximations. These set the total area under cultivation at some six
million _ch'ing_ (a _ch'ing_ is the ideal size of the farm worked by a
peasant family, but it was rarely held in practice); the population
amounted to fourteen or fifteen million families. Of this total tillage
some 170,000 _ch'ing_ were allotted to the temples; that is