was perhaps one of the greatest political, social, and economic upheavals in Chinese history. Fierce and obscure people who lived in the outer reaches of the Gobi Desert, present day Outer Mongolia, accomplished it. The outcome of this invasion was the destruction of the Sung Dynasty, and the creation of the Yüan Dynasty, one of the shortest lived of the major Dynasties in Chinese history. The Mongols were an alien people who completely subjugated the Chinese people and in doing so, they opened China to Europe in ways the Chinese had never ....