Was There a Military Collapse in the Late Yuan? A Reconsideration of the Yuan Garrisons and Military Response to the Red Turban Rebellion in the 1350s

This paper reexamines the Yuan’s military response to the Red Turban Rebellion between late 1351 and early 1355. It argues that up until 1355, the Yuan’s military garrisons remained intact and successfully bore the brunt of the fighting. Mercenaries and militias were used to augment, rather than replace, garrison forces, and they played a mostly secondary role as support for the garrisons. However, this force collapsed in 1355 with Toghto’s dismissal. This was due to an institutional shift in the Yuan where military power devolved into the hands of powerful prime ministers, without whom the garrisons could not function properly. This paper thus revises the view of the Yuan military as having collapsed completely at the onset of the Red Turban Rebellion, while also shedding more light on the growing power of the prime ministers in the Late Yuan and its effect on the military.