Chinese History 101 #05: Threats from the North

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From where we left off

In my previous blog, I went through the history of the Sui, Tang and 5 Dynasties/10 Kingdoms. In this blog, I will continue on from the Song dynasty (second half of the golden section below). Note that Song in Mandarin is pronounced like "sown", not "song".

Chronology of Chinese history

Song Dynasty (960 - 1279 AD)

The Song dynasty is divided into the Northern Song (960 - 1127) and the Southern Song (1127 - 1279) periods. If you look at the two maps below you would know why.

Northern Song dynasty in 1111
Southern Song and Jin dynasty in 1142

Zhao Kuangyin, known as Emperor Taizu, was a military general in the Later Zhou dynasty, the last of the Five Dynasties. He staged a bloodless coup in 960 and established the Song dynasty at the capital Bianjing (now Kaifeng). Together with his brother Emperor Taizong, the Song dynasty conquered the rest of China and reunified the country within 16 years.

Emperor Taizu learnt the lessons from the Han and Tang dynasties that were overthrown by regional warlords. He persuaded his military generals to hand over power to the central government. He promoted the civil service examination system of drafting state bureaucrats by merit instead of aristocratic or military position. As a result, the Song dynasty had one of the least corrupt administration in Chinese history, mostly free from violent power struggles between eunuchs, consort kin or warlords. However, it was also one of the weakest militarily and the smallest in territory.

In the Northeast, the Khitans established the Liao dynasty and controlled the 16 Prefectures, and in the Northwest, the Tanguts occupied key route on the Silk Road in the Western Xia dynasty. The relationship between the Song and the Liao was tense and hostile, after Emperor Taizong's failed attempt to recapture Beijing from the Liao. By 999, the Liao began annual attacks on Song positions but with no decisive victories.

Liao dynasty in 1111

In 1003, the Liao forces marched deep into Song territory and was only 100 km north of the capital. Emperor Zhenzong was shaken by the news and many advisors suggested to flee south to Nanjing or Chengdu. But chancellor Kou Zhun insisted Emperor Zhenzong to lead the army himself, and the emperor reluctantly headed north and met the Liao forces at the Yellow River. Meanwhile, the Liao forces were greatly overextended and risked escape route being blocked; the two sides remained locked in stalemate.

In 1005, the two sides reached a peace treaty, which required the Song to make annual tribute payments to the Liao (200,000 bolts of raw silk and 100,000 taels of silver) and recognise Liao equality with the Song, while the border remained unchanged. The tribute subsequently increased to 300,000 and 200,000 respectively by 1042 when the Song was at war with the Western Xia.

The treaty was seen by some in the Song court as a humiliation, as the Song failed to recover the 16 Prefectures and for the first time it was required to recognise the "barbarian" as equal. However, the treaty brought over a hundred years of peace and prosperity to the Song. The tribute, even after the increase, was insignificant to the Song economy due to the large trade imbalance between the two (the silver ended up paying back to the Song for its goods), and the Song saved significantly in military expenses. During the reign of Emperor Renzong (1022 - 1063), who was known for his kindness and frugality, technology, science, philosophy, mathematics, and engineering flourished. The population reached 90 million (double that of the Han and Tang). Bianjing became the largest and richest city in the world.

"Along the River During the Qingming Festival", the most renowned work among all Chinese paintings, captures the daily life of people and the landscape of the capital, Bianjing (now Kaifeng)

In 1115, the Jurchens (ancestors of the Manchurians) revolted against the Liao dynasty and established the Jin dynasty in modern-day Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces (Note that Jīn literally means "gold", which is a different character to the earlier Jìn dynasty in the 3rd century). The Song developed a military alliance with the Jurchens for the purpose of annihilating the Liao. In 1121-23, the Jin successfully drove the Liao to Central Asia. The Jin discovered weaknesses in the Song military and viewed the Song generals as incompetent. Seeing that the Song dynasty was weak enough to be destroyed, the Jin mounted a sudden and unprovoked attack against the Song. Emperor Huizong panicked and hastily passed the throne to his son Emperor Qinzong. In 1127, the Jin ransacked Kaifeng, capturing both Emperor Huizong and Qinzong. The Song court fled south and the surviving prince, who became Emperor Gaozong, first relocated to Nanjing and before settling in his new capital Hangzhou, which he renamed to Lin'an (literally "temporary peace").

The Southern Song forces continued to fight the Jin. One of the most successful generals was Yue Fei, whose advancing troop almost recaptured Bianjing in 1140 before chancellor Qin Hui advised Emperor Gaozong to order him back, fearing that Emperor Qinzong might return to the throne if Yue Fei was successful. Qin Hui later ordered Yue Fei's execution on false charges.

Map of Yue Fei's northern expedition route
At Yue Fei Temple in Hangzhou, kneeling statues of Qin Hui and his wife were there for visitors to spit on. Nowadays, the sign at the back tells people to be more civilised and do not spit. 

The Southern Song signed a peace treaty with the Jin in 1141, settling the border at the Qin Mountains in the west and Huai River in the east. The Song agreed to paying annual tribute of 250,000 bolts of raw silk and 250,000 taels of silver to the Jin. The treaty reduced the Southern Song into a quasi-tribute state of the Jin dynasty.

Jin dynasty after the Treaty of Shaoxing in 1141

Mongol Empire (1206 - 1271 AD)

The Mongol Empire emerged from the unification of several nomadic tribes in the Mongol homeland under the leadership of Genghis Khan in 1206. Genghis quickly came into conflict with the Jin and the Western Xia. In 1214, the Jin was forced to move its capital from Zhongdu (now Beijing) to Kaifeng. The Mongols then invaded Western Liao (Qara Khitai) in 1218 and Khwarazmia in 1219. By the time of Genghis death in 1227, the Mongols controlled vast area of Northern China and Central Asia. Three days after his death, Western Xia fell to the Mongols, and its people and culture were completely eradicated following Genghis' policy.

Genghis Khan invaded the Jin, the Western Xia, the Western Liao and the Khwarazmian Empire
The Mongol Empire in 1227 at Genghis Khan's death. By that time, it ruled from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea, an empire twice the size of the Roman Empire or the Muslim Caliphate at their height.

Genghis named his third son, the charismatic Ögedei, as his heir. Ögedei Khan led the army himself against the Jin in 1232. The Southern Song stopped paying tributes to the Jin after its defeat by the Mongols, and in 1233 allied with the Mongols against the Jin. The Mongols captured Kaifeng in 1233 and the allied Mongol-Song forces besieged Caizhou where Emperor Aizong of Jin fled to, who later hung himself rather than being captured. The Jin dynasty ended in 1234.

By 1227, the Jin (purple) was squeezed between the Mongol (orange) and Southern Song (grey)

Without the Jin, the Southern Song lost a buffer against the Mongols. After conquering the Jin, Ögedei started invading the Song in 1235, but the Song was able to defend itself and recovered lost ground due to its superior navy force at the Yangtze River, the invention of gunpowder by the Chinese, and the fact that the main Mongol forces were busy fighting in Europe.

Gunpowder was invented during the Song dynasty and was used in bombs and cannons against the Mongol. The Mongol in turn used similar weapon against the Song, and deployed gunpowder in its invasion of Europe.

The Mongol attacks on the Song intensified with the election of Möngke as the Great Khan in 1251. The Mongols knew that they could not attack the Song only from the north given the natural barrier of the Yangtze River. The Mongols invaded Tibet in 1240, Dali (now Yunnan) in 1244, and Đại Việt (now Vietnam) in 1258, and attacked the Song from the west and south. In 1259, the southern forces advanced to modern-day Changsha via Guangxi and heading north to join forces in Ezhou at the Yangtze River in Hubei. However, Möngke died, perhaps of dysentery or cholera, during the siege of Diaoyu Fortress (northwest of Chongqing), resulted in the immediate withdrawal of Mongol troops from Syria and China.

The Mongol Empire in 1257

With no declared successor, the infighting between family members escalated into civil war between 1260 to 1264. Kublai Khan was victorious against his brother Ariq Böke and became the Great Khan, but the Mongol Empire was subsequently divided into the Yuan dynasty, the Golden Horde, the Chagatai Khanate and the Ilkhanate.

Division of the Mongol Empire into the Yuan dynasty, Golden Horde, Chagatai Khanate and Ilkhanate 

Yuan Dynasty (1271 - 1368 AD)

When Kublai Khan became the Great Khan in 1264, he was ready to move the capital and began constructing Khanbaliq (or Dàdū in Chinese, literally "Great Capital", which is now Beijing) as the winter capital, and Xanadu as the summer capital. It was not until 1271 that Kublai Khan officially proclaimed the Yuan dynasty in the traditional Chinese style.

In 1267, Kublai Khan launched the third wave of offensives against the Southern Song and began the Battle of Xiangyang. The heavily fortified twin cities of Xiangyang and Fancheng on the bank of the Han River were gateways to the Yangtze River and Southern China. The Song were well prepared and built high walls and wide moats, rendering the Yuan's siege weapons ineffective. The siege came to an end in 1273, with the introduction of the Persian-designed counterweight trebuchet which was successful in the Siege of Baghdad. The Yuan massacred the entire population in Fancheng before Xiangyang surrendered. The Yuan then sailed down the Yangtze River and forts along the way surrendered. In 1276, the Yuan forces reached the outskirt of Hangzhou and the empresses (grandmother and mother) surrendered with the 4-year-old boy emperor.

After that, faithful loyalists enthroned the emperor's brothers in Fuzhou and on Lantau Island, Hong Kong. The last stand happened in 1279 at the Battle of Yamen, a naval battle off the coast of Guangdong. Although the Mongols were outnumbered 10 to 1, they won decisively and the loyalist Lu Xiufu took the 7-year-old boy emperor and jumped off the cliff and drowned. Hundreds of thousands of corpses floated in the sea for days after the battle. The Song dynasty officially ended and for the first time in history, the entire China was ruled by a foreign race.

Sung Wong Toi, or Terrace of the Song Kings, near the old Kai Tak Airport in Kowloon, Hong Kong. A memorial to the last two boy emperors of the Southern Song, who temporarily lived in Hong Kong from 1277 to 1279 

Although Kublai Khan became the Great Khan and Emperor Shizu of the Yuan dynasty, Ögedei's grandson Kaidu in the Chagatai Khanate refused to submit to Kublai and thought Kublai was too Chinese. Civil war broke out and Kublai had to stop the failed invasions against Japan and Vietnam.

Yuan dynasty in 1294, with Goryeo a semi-autonomous vassal state
Marco Polo travelled from Venice to China between 1271 to 1295, meeting Kublai Khan in Shangdu (Xanadu)
Rabban Bar Sauma travelled from Beijing to Europe between 1276 to 1294, meeting with the major rulers of the period.

After the death of Kublai Khan, the subsequent emperors were less competent, except the fourth emperor Buyantu Khan (Emperor Renzong, reign 1311-1320) who supported and promoted Chinese culture and resumed the imperial exams. There was a number of palace coups and in 13 years there were 8 different emperors.

From the late 1340s, the Yuan suffered from frequent natural disasters such as droughts, floods and the resulting famines. The Black Death also reached China from Europe. Popular uprisings called the Red Turban Rebellions began in the 1350s, with the slogan "Maitreya Buddha arrives, Wisdom King is born" (Maitreya is the next Buddha that is promised to come, similar to Messiah in Abrahamic religions, while Wisdom King is called "Ming Wang" in Chinese, hence the Ming dynasty). One of the rebels, Zhu Yuanzhang, defeated all other rebels in Southern China by 1367 and established the Ming dynasty in Nanjing in 1368. In September that year, his army invaded Beijing and the last Yuan emperor, Toghon Temür (Emperor Huizong), fled north to Yingchang (near Dalinur lake in today Inner Mongolia) and died there in 1370. After the fall of Yingchang to the Ming in 1370, the Yuan remnants retreated to Mongolia where the name Great Yuan (known as the Northern Yuan dynasty) continued until 1388 when it was reverted back to the Mongol. The Mongol state lasted until its conquest by the Jurchen-led Later Jin dynasty in 1635.

The end of the fifth blog

This marks the end of the fifth blog, which is another long blog as it covers a lot of history.

While most Chinese people are proud of the Han and Tang dynasties and see the Song as the weakest, the Song dynasty, especially the Northern Song, is my favourite given its great governance, vibrant culture, advance in science and technology, and economic prosperity.

Let me know what you think, in particular how the history of the Mongol Empire may differ from the Western perspective. Stay tune for the next blog where I will go through the history of the Ming and the early Qing, and thanks again for reading my blog.

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Level 71
Jun 27, 2021
This is my favorite so far just because it involves the Mongols
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Level 67
Jun 27, 2021
Thank you.

The Mongols were the most brutal invaders ever seen in the world killing millions and committed many atrocities. Probably only the Nazis and the Japanese are worse. But the history of their rise and fall is fascinating.

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Level 71
Jul 1, 2021
yeah I don't like them per se but they are definitely fascinating
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Level 43
Jun 27, 2021
I can’t wait for the modern China! Your blogs are growing, growing, growing, and growing. They are amazing!