An alternative path : how the Mongol conquest reshaped the military-fiscal structure in imperial China, ca. 1300

Based on an investigation of the major changes caused by the Mongol conquest to both the mode of the military mobilization and the financial structure in imperial China in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century, this paper argues that the Mongol conquest not only destroyed the fiscal state of the Song dynasty China, but produced an alternative path: a demonetized military-fiscal structure, namely Beijing Imperialism, that was initialized characterized by hereditary household services and the ban against free migration to support a self-sufficient mode of military mobilization. All these became possible largely because the Beijing-centered political powers could effectively exploit cavalry troops to defeat their enemies without causing a sumptuous expenditure. Despite the reemergence of the market economy in sixteenth-century China, the central government collected a relatively small share of tax revenues from the market and the money-measured fiscal strength of the Chinese state remained weak.