Mongol Empire What is referred to in English as the Mongol Empire was called the "Ikh Mongol Uls" ("ikh": "great", "uls": "state"; Great Mongolian State). In the 1240s, one of Genghis's descendants, Güyük Khan, wrote a letter to Pope Innocent IV which used the preamble "Dalai (great/oceanic) Khagan of the great Mongolian state (ulus)". After the succession war between Kublai Khan and his brother Ariq Böke, Ariq limited Kublai's power to the eastern part of the empire. Kublai officially issued an imperial edict on 18 December 1271 to name the country Great Yuan ("Dai Yuan", or "Dai Ön Ulus") to establish the
Mongol Empire and nominated Batu's grandson Möngke Temür to lead the Golden Horde. Abaqa sought foreign alliances, such as attempting to form a Franco-Mongol alliance against the Egyptian Mamluks. Ariqboqe surrendered to Kublai at Shangdu on 21 August 1264. In the south, after the fall of Xiangyang in 1273, the Mongols sought the final conquest of the Song dynasty in South China. In 1271, Kublai renamed the new Mongol regime in China as the Yuan dynasty and sought to sinicize his image as Emperor of China to win the control of the Chinese people. Kublai moved his headquarters to Dadu, the genesis