Toghon Temür (Mongolian: Тогоон Төмөр, romanized: Togoon Tömör; simplified Chinese: 妥懽帖睦尔; traditional Chinese: 妥懽帖睦爾; pinyin: Tuǒhuān Tiēmù'ěr; 25 May 1320 – 23 May 1370), also known by his temple name as Emperor Huizong of Yuan and by his posthumous name as Emperor Shun of Yuan, was the last emperor of the Yuan dynasty and the first emperor of the Northern Yuan dynasty. He was a son of Kusala (Emperor Mingzong).
Toghon Temür acceded to the throne in 1333 after years of succession disputes following his father's death. His early reign was dominated by powerful ministers, first El Temür and then Bayan, until he engineered Bayan's removal in 1340 with the help of Toqto'a. Toqto'a's first administration (1340–1344) oversaw the completion of the official histories of the Liao, Jin, and Song dynasties. During the latter part of his reign, widespread natural disasters and fiscal crises fuelled popular unrest, culminating in the Red Turban Rebellion of 1351. After the rebel leader Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming dynasty and captured Khanbaliq in 1368, Toghon Temür retreated to the Mongolian steppe. The remnant court, conventionally called the Northern Yuan, continued to claim the title of Emperor of China. Toghon Temür died at Yingchang in 1370 and was succeeded by his son Biligtü Khan Ayushiridara.
He was a patron of Tibetan Buddhism, studying under successive Karmapas of the Karma Kagyu school. He also invited the Jonang scholar Dölpopa Shérab Gyeltsen to teach at his court, but Dölpopa declined.
Toghon Temür's personal name is written in Classical Mongolian as ᠲᠤᠭᠤᠨ ᠲᠡᠮᠤᠷ and in modern Mongolian as Mongolian: Тогоон Төмөр, romanized: Togoon Tömör (Mongolian pronunciation: [tʰɔʁɔ́ːɴ tʰɵ́mɵr]). In Chinese sources it is rendered as simplified Chinese: 妥懽帖睦尔; traditional Chinese: 妥懽帖睦爾; pinyin: Tuǒhuān Tiēmù'ěr.
The Northern Yuan dynasty granted him the temple name Huizong (Chinese: 惠宗; pinyin: Huìzōng). The Ming dynasty bestowed the posthumous name Emperor Shun (simplified Chinese: 顺皇帝; traditional Chinese: 順皇帝; pinyin: Shùn Huángdì); the character shùn (順) means "compliant". His Mongol regnal name was Ukhaghatu Khan (ᠤᠬᠠᠭᠠᠲᠤ ᠬᠠᠭᠠᠨ; 烏哈噶圖汗).
During his reign he used three era names: Yuantong (元統, 1333–1335), a later Zhiyuan (至元, 1335–1340), and Zhizheng (至正, 1341–1370). The Zhizheng era is frequently cited in scholarship and on dated artefacts such as the David Vases.
Toghon Temür was born in 1320 to Kusala, then in exile in Central Asia. His mother, Mailaiti, was a descendant of Arslan Khan, a chief of the Karluks, a Turkic tribal confederacy.
A folk legend recorded in the 14th-century text Gengshēn Waishǐ (Chinese: 庚申外史) claimed that Zhao Xian, the former Southern Song emperor who had surrendered to the Yuan as a child, fathered Toghon Temür through an affair with Mailaiti late in his life. The Mongols circulated a parallel story asserting that Toghon Temür had fathered the Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty.
Following the War of the Two Capitals, a civil war triggered by the death of Yesün Temür (Emperor Taiding) in 1328, the young Toghon Temür accompanied his father to Shangdu. After Kusala died under suspicious circumstances and his younger brother was restored to the throne as Jayaatu Khan Tugh Temür (Emperor Wenzong), Toghon Temür was removed from court. He was first exiled to Goryeo and later to Guangxi in southern China. During this period, his stepmother Babusha was executed.
When Emperor Wenzong died in 1332, his widow, Empress Dowager Budashiri, honoured his deathbed wish by supporting the succession of Kusala's line rather than Wenzong's own son, El Tegüs. However, it was not Toghon Temür but his younger half-brother Rinchinbal who was first enthroned, only to die two months later. The de facto ruler, El Temür, attempted to install El Tegüs in his place but was overruled by Empress Budashiri. Toghon Temür was recalled from Guangxi, but El Temür—who was suspected of involvement in Emperor Mingzong's death—delayed the enthronement for some six months. Toghon Temür finally ascended the throne in 1333, after El Temür's death.
The new emperor appointed his cousin El Tegüs as crown prince, as he was ward of El Tegüs' mother, Empress Dowager Budashiri. Despite El Temür's death, Toghon Temür remained constrained by powerful court figures. Chief among them was Bayan, who assumed the role of chief minister of the Secretariat and suppressed a rebellion by El Temür's son Tang Ki-se. Bayan carried out a series of political purges and suspended the imperial examination system.
In 1333, Toghon Temür first encountered Lady Gi, a Korean woman who had been sent to China sometime in the late 1320s as part of what the historian Kyung Moon Hwang has described as "human tribute"—the practice by which the kings of Goryeo were required to send young women to serve as concubines after the Mongol invasions. Toghon Temür sought to make Lady Gi a secondary wife, but the proposal was contrary to the standard practice of selecting secondary wives only from Mongol clans and was blocked by court opposition. After she bore a son in 1339, Toghon Temür secured her appointment as secondary wife the following year.
As Toghon Temür matured, he grew increasingly dissatisfied with Bayan's domination. In 1340 he allied with Bayan's own nephew, Toqto'a, and removed Bayan from power in a coup. He subsequently dismissed El Tegüs and Empress Budashiri from court.
Toqto'a's first administration (1340–1344)
Under Toqto'a, the court reversed Bayan's purges, restored the imperial examination system, and recalled many Chinese literati who had retired or been exiled. A new era name, Zhizheng (Chinese: 至正), was proclaimed in 1341.
Toqto'a also oversaw the completion of the long-stalled official histories of the Liao, Jin, and Song dynasties, finished in 1345. Toqto'a resigned from office with Toghon Temür's approval in June 1344, ending his first term. Several short-lived administrations followed between 1344 and 1349. In 1347 the emperor forced Toqto'a into Gansu with assistance from officers formerly loyal to Kusala and Yesün Temür.
Crises and the Red Turban Rebellion (1344–1368)
From the mid-1340s onward, the countryside was beset by natural disasters—droughts, floods, and resulting famines—while the government faced currency depreciation and falling tax revenues. Its inability to provide effective relief cost it popular support. In 1348, illicit salt dealers disaffected by the state salt monopoly launched a rebellion, setting off further revolts across the empire.