Why did Kublai Khan imitate the legal reform in China?

First of all, Mongolia engaged in a relatively simple nomadic-hunting economy before entering the Central Plains, and had little contact with and understanding of the agricultural civilization of the Han nationality. Tuoba Xianbei lived in the frontier fortress for a long time before going south, and had more contact with the agricultural society (so did Qidan), while the Nuzhen (Manchu) people started large-scale agricultural production very early. Therefore, it is much more difficult for the former to understand the importance of agricultural economy and accept a set of related superstructures and ideologies than the latter. Second, after the establishment of the Northern Wei Dynasty and other dynasties, the only systematic advanced culture that came into contact with was Chinese culture. After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), Mongolia was influenced by Tibetan and Lamaism culture, Islamic culture in Central Asia and even Christian culture in Europe. For Mongolian rulers with poor local culture, China culture is not the only prescription. Third, although the Mongolian empire across Europe and Asia fell into a de facto division shortly after its establishment, it was divided into the Yuan Dynasty and the Four Great Khan States, but for a long time, the Yuan Dynasty was still only a nominal part of the Mongolian world empire. Mobei grassland occupies an important position in the political life of the country, and there is a powerful and conservative nomadic aristocratic group on the grassland. This made the ruling clique of the Yuan Dynasty still unable to place it.

For a long time, it is difficult to look at the problem completely from the perspective of the Han area because of getting rid of the influence of the grassland-based policy. This kind of situation is also not found in the Northern Wei Dynasty and other Northern Dynasties. Therefore, it is difficult to blame Kublai Khan and other emperors for the delay in the localization of the Yuan Dynasty, and there are deeper social factors. Associated with the lag of sinicization, the political system of the Yuan Dynasty also showed a distinct dual color, that is, the so-called "practicing Chinese law while preserving national customs".