China

Invasion of the Song state

During the next decades an uneasy coexistence prevailed between the Mongols in northern China and the Song state in the south. The Mongols resumed their advance in 1250 under the grand khan Möngke and his brother Kublai Khan—grandsons of Genghis Khan. Their armies outflanked the main Song defenses on the Yangtze River and penetrated deeply into southwestern China, conquered the independent Dai (Tai) state of Nanzhao (in what is now Yunnan), and even reached present-day northern Vietnam. Möngke died in 1259 while leading an army to capture a Song fortress in Sichuan, and Kublai succeeded him. Kublai sent an ambassador, Hao Jing, to the Song court with an offer to establish peaceful coexistence. Hao did not reach the Song capital of Lin’an (now Hangzhou), however, but was interned at the border and regarded as a simple spy. The Song chancellor, Jia Sidao, considered the Song position strong enough to risk this affront against Kublai; he thus ignored the chance for peace offered by Kublai and instead tried to strengthen the military preparations against a possible Mongol attack. Jia secured military provisions by a land reform that included confiscating land from large owners, but this alienated the greater part of the landlord and official class. The Song generals, whom Jia distrusted, also had grievances, which may explain why a number of them later surrendered to the Mongols without fighting.

Cai WenjiA Mongol encampment, detail from the Cai Wenji scroll, a Chinese hand scroll of the Nan (Southern) Song dynasty.Courtesy of Asia Society Galleries, New York

From 1267 onward the Mongols, this time assisted by numerous Chinese auxiliary troops and technical specialists, attacked on several fronts. The prefectural town of Xiangyang (present-day Xianfan) on the Han River was a key fortress, blocking the access to the Yangtze River, and the Mongols besieged it for five years (1268–73). The Chinese commander finally surrendered in 1273, after he had obtained a solemn promise from the Mongols to spare the population, and he took office with his former enemies.

Kublai Khan’s warning to his forces not to engage in indiscriminate slaughter seems to have been heeded to a certain extent. Several prefectures on the Yangtze River surrendered; others were taken after brief fighting. In January 1276, Mongol troops reached Lin’an. Last-minute attempts by the Song court to conclude a peace failed, and the Mongol armies took Lin’an in February. The reigning Song empress dowager and the nominal emperor—a boy—were taken to Dadu and granted an audience by Kublai Khan.

National resistance in the Song state continued, however, and loyalists retreated with two imperial princes into the southern province of Fujian and from there to the region of Guangzhou (Canton). In 1277 the last remnants of the court left Guangzhou and eventually fled the mainland by boat. A faithful minister drowned himself and the last surviving imperial prince in the ocean in March 1279. When organized resistance ceased soon afterward, foreign invaders controlled the whole Chinese empire for the first time in history.