Today there are 1.4 billion Han nationals. However, it is hard to perceive these people, who speak six completely different languages, who follow three or four different religions and vary in ways such as clothing and food, as a united nation. Chinese people consider themselves as Han. This is the name of a powerful empire which emerged after the Qin Dynasty, though China was not identified as a united nation before the Yuan Dynasty.
Hidehiro Okada
The greatest legacy the Mongols left the Chinese is the nation of China itself.
The Shang Dynasty originated in the valley of the Yellow River during the 16th century A.D. Recent archeological findings suggest that there was another independent civilization in the Yangtze River valley. These people may have been different from the Shang in terms of civilization and culture, which suggests that the idea of the Han national dynasty as a continuation of dynasties can’t be proven.
Before the Yuan Dynasty, the Chinese people of the Yangtze river valley were not considered as Han nationals. Kublai united them with China by force. even though Vietnamese people were closer to them in terms of language and civilization than were the Mandarin people, they were however not included in the unification process. In this way, the Mongols, who were far from being part of Chinese civilization, spread their civilization through the southern nations and so created a united nation.