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By the mid-thirteenth century, the Mongols had subjugated north China, Korea, and the Muslim kingdoms of Central Asia and had twice penetrated Europe. With the resources of his vast empire, Kublai Khan (忽必烈 1215-94), a grandson of Genghis Khan (成吉思汗 1167?-1227) and the supreme leader of all Mongol tribes, began his drive against the Southern Song. Even before the extinction of the Song dynasty, Kublai Khan had established the first alien dynasty to rule all China–the Yuan (1279-1368).13世纪中期，蒙古征服了古代中国北部，韩国和中亚地区的大部分穆斯林国家，并两次入侵欧洲。凭借自己帝国的丰富资源，成吉思汗（1167？-1227）的孙子-忽必烈（1215-1294），蒙古族的大统领，开始发动对南宋的进攻。在宋朝正式灭亡前，忽必烈就首次建立起另一个政权-元（1279-1368），来统治整个中国。
Although the Mongols sought to govern China through traditional institutions, using Chinese (Han) bureaucrats, they were not up to the task. The Han were discriminated against socially and politically. All important central and regional posts were monopolized by Mongols, who also preferred employing non-Chinese from other parts of the Mongol domain–Central Asia, the Middle East, and even Europe–in those positions for which no Mongol could be found. Chinese were more often employed in non-Chinese regions of the empire.虽然蒙古试图沿用中原文化来统治整个中国，任用汉族的官员，但是也没达到他们的目的。汉族在社会和政治中都受到歧视。所有重要的中央和地方的职位都被蒙古人占据，他们也喜欢聘用一些从中亚，中东，甚至是非洲来的异国人担任官员，而这些职位中没有一个是蒙古人。汉族也更多的被派往异域去任职。
As in other periods of alien dynastic rule of China, a rich cultural diversity developed during the Yuan dynasty. The major cultural achievements were the development of drama and the novel and the increased use of the written vernacular. The Mongols’ extensive West Asian and European contacts produced a fair amount of cultural exchange. Western musical instruments were introduced to enrich the Chinese performing arts. From this period dates the conversion to Islam, by Muslims of Central Asia, of growing numbers of Chinese in the northwest and southwest. Nestorianism and Roman Catholicism also enjoyed a period of toleration. Lamaism (Tibetan Buddhism) flourished, although native Taoism endured Mongol persecutions. Confucian governmental practices and examinations based on the Classics, which had fallen into disuse in north China during the period of disunity, were reinstated by the Mongols in the hope of maintaining order over Han society. Advances were realized in the fields of travel literature, cartography and geography, and scientific education. Certain key Chinese innovations, such as printing techniques, porcelain production, playing cards, and medical literature, were introduced in Europe, while the production of thin glass and cloisonne became popular in China. The first records of travel by Westerners date from this time. The most famous traveler of the period was the Venetian Marco Polo, whose account of his trip to “Cambaluc,” the Great Khan’s capital (now Beijing), and of life there astounded the people of Europe. The Mongols undertook extensive public works. Road and water communications were reorganized and improved. To provide against possible famines, granaries were ordered built throughout the empire. The city of Beijing was rebuilt with new palace grounds that included artificial lakes, hills and mountains, and parks. During the Yuan period, Beijing became the terminus of the Grand Canal, which was completely renovated. These commercially oriented improvements encouraged overland as well as maritime commerce throughout Asia and facilitated the first direct Chinese contacts with Europe. Chinese and Mongol travelers to the West were able to provide assistance in such areas as hydraulic engineering, while bringing back to the Middle Kingdom new scientific discoveries and architectural innovations. Contacts with the West also brought the introduction to China of a major new food crop–sorghum–along with other foreign food products and methods of preparation.和其它异族统治中国的其他时期一样，在元朝期间，文化多元化得到了发展。主要的文化成就是戏曲及长篇小说都得到了发展，书面语也得到了广泛的应用。蒙古和中亚及欧洲接壤，从而使双方的文化得到了相当广泛的交流。西方的乐器被引进来丰富中国的表演艺术。从这个时期开始，由中亚地区的穆斯林传入的伊斯兰教开始盛行，西北和西南地区的汉族越来越多。景教和罗马天主教享受了一段时期的繁华。喇嘛教空前兴盛，但是土生土长的道教却受到了蒙古人的封杀。儒家政治实践和考核是建立在古典基础上的，它在中国分裂时期的北方地区渐渐被疏于使用，而蒙古人为了维持汉朝的统治秩序，又恢复了它的使用。旅游文献，绘图法，地理学和科学教育的重要性被提上日程。一些重要的中国发明，如印刷术，制瓷术，纸牌和医学文献被引进欧洲。与此同时，轻玻璃和瓷器制品在中国开始流行。第一份由外国人写的游记是从这个时期开始的。这个时期最有名的游客是马可波罗，他记录了他到达元朝的首都“大都（现在的北京）”的过程及在这里的生活，让欧洲人都为之向往。蒙古了承担了大量了社会工作。道路和水利都得到了休整和改善。为了抵御饥荒，政府下令在帝国境内修建谷仓。北京城被重新修葺了，宫殿也翻新了，有了人工湖，假山和公元。在元朝统治时期，北京成为重新开凿后的大运河的终点。这些商业动向的改善，推动了整个亚洲地区陆上及海上贸易的发展，同时，也便利了中国人首次与欧洲交往的尝试。到西方去的汉族和蒙古族，提供了水利工程援助，同时也带回去了新的科学发明和建筑创新。与西方的交流，也为中国引进了一种新的事物品种-高粱，同时还有一些其他的外国食品和加工方法。

But in 960 a new power, Song (960-1279), reunified most of China Proper. The Song period divides into two phases: Northern Song (960-1127) and Southern Song (1127-1279). The division was caused by the forced abandonment of north China in 1127 by the Song court, which could not push back the nomadic invaders.但是在公元960年，出现了一个新势力，宋（960-1279），重新统一了大部分中国。宋朝分为两个阶段：南宋（960-1127）和北宋（1127-1279）。分裂源于1127年，北方游牧民族的入侵，宋朝廷放弃了整个中国北方地区。
The founders of the Song dynasty built an effective centralized bureaucracy staffed with civilian scholar-officials. Regional military governors and their supporters were replaced by centrally appointed officials. This system of civilian rule led to a greater concentration of power in the emperor and his palace bureaucracy than had been achieved in the previous dynasties.宋朝的创立者建造了一个有效的中央官僚机构，提拔了一批民间的学者做为官员。地区割据的首领和他们的同伙被中央指定的官员代替。这种官员任命制度使得权利高度集中在君王和他的统治机构手中，并且超过以往的任何一个朝代。
The Song dynasty is notable for the development of cities not only for administrative purposes but also as centers of trade, industry, and maritime commerce. The landed scholar-officials, sometimes collectively referred to as the gentry, lived in the provincial centers alongside the shopkeepers, artisans, and merchants. A new group of wealthy commoners–the mercantile class–arose as printing and education spread, private trade grew, and a market economy began to link the coastal provinces and the interior. Landholding and government employment were no longer the only means of gaining wealth and prestige.宋朝以其城区的高度发展而闻名，不仅仅是因为它的管理成效，还因为它是贸易中心，工业中心和海运中心。那些有土地的文官，通常也被称为贵族，住在店主，工匠和商人云集的省中心。一个新富裕起来的平民群体-商人-以经商和推广教育为途径；个人贸易盛行，商业贸易开始在邻省和全国范围内进行。拥有领地和在政府任职已经不是获得财富和声望的唯一途径了。
Culturally, the Song refined many of the developments of the previous centuries. Included in these refinements were not only the Tang ideal of the universal man, who combined the qualities of scholar, poet, painter, and statesman, but also historical writings, painting, calligraphy, and hard-glazed porcelain. Song intellectuals sought answers to all philosophical and political questions in the Confucian Classics. This renewed interest in the Confucian ideals and society of ancient times coincided with the decline of Buddhism, which the Chinese regarded as foreign and offering few practical guidelines for the solution of political and other mundane problems.文化上，宋朝汲取了前几个世纪发展的精髓。在这些精髓中，不仅有唐朝的全才论，要求这个人集学者，诗人，画家和政治家的身份为一身，而且也有历史上的写作，绘画，书法和瓷器。宋朝的贤人开始研究孔子学说中关于哲学和政治的探讨。这种对孔子学说和远古社会的复兴，标志着佛学的衰落。佛学被中国人喻为异教，而且它提出的理论根本没办法解决中国现行的政治和其他社会问题。
The Song Neo-Confucian philosophers, finding a certain purity in the originality of the ancient classical texts, wrote commentaries on them. The most influential of these philosophers was Zhu Xi (朱熹b1130-1200), whose synthesis of Confucian thought and Buddhist, Taoist, and other ideas became the official imperial ideology from late Song times to the late nineteenth century. As incorporated into the examination system, Zhu Xi’s philosophy evolved into a rigid official creed, which stressed the one-sided obligations of obedience and compliance of subject to ruler, child to father, wife to husband, and younger brother to elder brother. The effect was to inhibit the societal development of premodern China, resulting both in many generations of political, social, and spiritual stability and in a slowness of cultural and institutional change up to the nineteenth century. Neo-Confucian doctrines also came to play the dominant role in the intellectual life of Korea, Vietnam, and Japan.宋朝的新儒家哲学家，发现了一种把原始的历史文献净化的方法，即给它们写注释。这些学者中最有名的一个是朱熹（公元1130-1200年），他集儒家，佛学，道家和其它思想之所长，然后合成了王权理念，被从宋朝晚期一直沿用到19世纪后期。在科考制度上，朱熹观点融入了严格的官方教条，对上级和君王要绝对的服从，子从父纲，妻从夫纲，弟从兄纲。这些约束了近现代中国社会的发展，也导致了政治，社会和思想的矛盾，抑制了文化的和政治体制发展直到19世纪。同一时期，新儒家理论也同样在韩国，越南和日本的文化中占据了主导作用。