The Mongol landing in Java (1293)
Event Jawa Timur
Other and rejected name forms
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The dispatch of Kublai Khan's fleet to Java to punish Kertanagara, which arrived after Kertanagara was already dead, was used by his son-in-law Raden Wijaya to defeat Jayakatwang, and was then driven out — a sequence ending in the founding of Majapahit.
Cause and arrival
Kertanagara of Singhasari refused submission to the Yuan and, according to Chinese sources, disfigured an envoy named Meng Qi who came to demand it. A fleet was sent in punishment and arrived early in 1293. By then Kertanagara was already dead in the rebellion of Jayakatwang of Kadiri.
This is among the few thirteenth-century Javanese events with sources from two sides: the Yuan dynastic records and the Javanese chronicles. They differ in detail and agree on the main sequence, and their comparison is one of the firmest footings we have for early Javanese dating.
Used, then expelled
Raden Wijaya, Kertanagara's son-in-law, professed submission to the Mongol force and used it to attack Jayakatwang, who was defeated. He then turned on his own allies, who withdrew to their ships and sailed home with heavy losses. In the same year he made himself king with the title Kertarajasa Jayawardhana, and the kingdom he founded was Majapahit.
The episode is often told as cunning defeating great force. What is seldom added is its precondition: a civil war. Wijaya needed a foreign army because he was not strong enough against Kadiri alone, and Java at that moment was not one party but several.
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2 sections, 5 sources, one of them primary.
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