Kublai Khan the role of Emperor of China. By 1279, the Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty was completed and Kublai became the first non-Han emperor to conquer all of China. The imperial portrait of Kublai was part of an album of the portraits of Yuan emperors and empresses, now in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei. White, the color of the royal costume of Kublai, was the imperial color of the Yuan Dynasty. Kublai Khan was the fourth son of Tolui, and his second son with Sorghaghtani Beki. As his grandfather Genghis Khan advised, Sorghaghtani chose a Buddhist
Mongol invasion of the Latin Empire death originated. In that event, he was likely forced to accept Mongol overlordship and to make annual tribute payments in return for release. By 1251 or 1252, Baldwin II certainly had diplomatic relations with the Mongol Empire, since he sent an ambassador, Baldwin of Hainaut, all the way to the imperial Mongol capital of Karakorum. In 1253, he gave William of Rubruck, a Franciscan missionary, letters of recommendation for Sartaq, the son of the Batu, khan of the Golden Horde. Batu was Qadan's superior in 1242 and his army had also invaded Bulgaria. Jean Richard suggests that Baldwin of Hainaut's