Magnus Henriksson reigns as king of almost…

The Battle of Tangdao (November 16) and Battle of Caishi (November 26–27) on the Yangtze River, during the Jin–Song wars between the Jurchen Jin Dynasty and the Chinese Song Dynasty, result in two pivotal Song naval victories.

The Song military response had likely been stronger than Hailing had anticipated.

The paddlewheel ships of the Song navy can move more rapidly and outmaneuver the slower Jin ships.

The Song had kept their fleet hidden behind the island of Qibao Shan.

The ships were to depart the island once a scout on horseback announced the approach of the Jin ships by signaling a concealed flag atop the island's peak.

Once the flag was visible, the Song fleet had commenced their attack, leaving from around both sides of the island.

Song soldiers operate traction trebuchets that launch incendiary "thunderclap bombs" and other soft-cased explosives containing lime and sulfur, which create a noxious explosion when the casing breaks.

The Jin ships that managed to cross the river and reach the shore had been assaulted by Song soldiers waiting on the other side.

The Song had won a decisive victory, and Hailing is defeated again in another engagement the next day.

After burning his remaining ships, …

…Hailing retreats to Yangzhou, where he is assassinated on December 15 before he can finish preparations for another crossing.

The Jin dynasty breaks its peace with the southern Song in 1161, when Jurzhen armies attempt unsuccessfully to invade the south.

The Battle of Tangdao and Battle of Caishi, on the Yangtze river, result in two pivotal Song naval victories.

The Song forces, apparently employing explosives for the first time in battle, rout the invaders near Nanjing.

Kilij had attacked Manuel in 1159 as he marched past Konya, or Iconium (the capital of the Sultanate of Rüm), as the Emperor returned from negotiating with Nur ad-Din in Syria.

After Manuel's nephew John Kontostephanus defeats Kilij in 1161, the sultan travels to Constantinople in a show of submission.

Jerusalem has grown anxious in 1160-61 over the possibility that the Fatimid caliphate in Egypt, shaken by palace intrigues and assassinations, might collapse and fall under the influence of Sunni Muslim Syria.

Many Khazars have evidently remained Jews, even after the final fall of Khazaria in the eleventh century.

Abraham ibn Daud, writing Sefer ha-Qabbalah (The Book of Tradition) in the year 1161, says that he met Khazar students in person while in Toledo, Spain and that they were rabbinical Jews.

The first tower at the location of the present Lighthouse of Genoa, or Lanterna, a structure formed of three crenellated towers, is reported by most sources to have been built around 1128 although at least one states that it was built in 1161.

Benedictine monk Eadwine, an illuminator, creates the so-called Eadwine Psalter at Canterbury.

The Utrecht Psalter, a ninth century illuminated psalter that is a key masterpiece of Carolingian art, is famous for its one hundred and sixty-six lively pen illustrations, with one accompanying each psalm and the other texts in the manuscript (Chazelle, 1055).

The manuscript had reached Canterbury Cathedral by about 1000, at which time a copy began to be made of it: the Harley Psalter.

The Psalter will be copied in full three times in the Middle Ages, the second copy being the Eadwine Psalter (Cambridge, Trinity College Library, MS R.17.1) of 1155–60, with additions 1160–70, and the texts extended to five versions of each psalm.

Wanyan Wulu is a grandson of the founder of the Jin dynasty, Wanyan Aguda, and the son of the famous early-Jin general Wanyan Zongfu.

Wulu's father had died when the boy was just twelve years old, and he has grown up under the influence of his mother, who had come from a Sinicized Bohai gentry family from Liaoyang.

After her husband's death, Wulu's mother had chosen to become a nun instead of remarrying one of her husband's relatives, as is the Jurchen custom.

Thanks to his mother and her relatives, Wulu has received a good Chinese education, and has as good a knowledge of Chinese classics as any Chinese emperor.

Wulu is said to have also been greatly influenced by the wife he had had before becoming emperor.

Her birth name was Wulinda.

She had advised Wulu to be patient and to pretend to be loyal to his cousin, the then reigning Emperor Hailing Wang (also known as Wanyan Liang).

Hailing Wang had admired his cousin's wife and in 1151 called her to his inner court, but she had committed suicide.

This event resulted in a deep enmity between the two cousins.

When in 1161 Emperor Hailing Wang invaded the Southern Song to reunify China under the Jurchen rule, he had also sent agents to assassinate many of his own relatives and thus to cement his power within the Jin state.

Wulu, also on this hit list, had raised a rebellion against Emperor Hailing Wang.

The rebellion had been supported by many Jurchen officers and aristocrats dissatisfied with Hailing Wang's policy of cultural Sinicization and administrative centralization, and the human cost of Hailing Wang's southern adventure.

The first military officer to support the rebellion was said to be Wanyan Mouyan.

Hailing, after losing the Battle of Caishi against the Song, had been assassinated by his own disaffected officers at the end of 1161.

Wulu has been able to become the new ruler of the empire without actually fighting Hailing Wang.

Once on the throne, Wulu—who from now on will be known to the posterity as Emperor Shizong—reverses Hailingwang's plan for invading Southern Song, as well as his domestic Sinicization policies.

Although conversant with Chinese culture himself, Shizong thinks that the Jurchens' strength is in maintaining their "simple and sincere” culture, and will often attribute Hailing Wang's defeat to the latter's wholesale abandonment of it.

He isn't opposed to Chinese culture per se—in fact, he claims at one point that the "natural and honest" Jurchen way of life is much like what the ancient Chinese sages had taught—but he thinks that merely reading the classics without putting their ideas into practice is counterproductive.

During Shizong's reign, he confiscates large areas of unused land and land that had been grabbed by a few large Jurchen landowners, and redistributes it to the Jurchen settlers in North China.

Still, many Jurchen's prefer not to work their land plots, but lease them to Chinese farmers, and engage in heavy drinking instead.

The emperor criticizes his people for losing their martial spirit and military skills, such as archery and riding.

To give an example to his subjects, Shizong makes hunting an annual royal activity in 1162, and until 1188 he will go hunting almost every autumn and winter.

He likes archery and ball games as well.

As part of his promotion of the Jurchen culture and Jurchen language, soon after ascending the throne Shizong starts a program of translating Chinese classics into Jurchen.

The Jurchen version of the Chinese Classic of History (Shang shu) wil lbe first to be published; by the end of the Dading era, many other Chinese classics will have become available in Jurchen as well.

The present Beisi Pagoda in Suzhou dates to the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) (with renovations in following eras), but the historical site of construction for the pagodas dates back seventeen hundred years.

A Buddhist pagoda built during the reign of Sun Quan in the third century originally stood at the site (in honor of his wet nurse), along with another pagoda built during the Liang Dynasty (502-557).

The current design of the pagoda structure is made between the years 1131 and 1162, during the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

The base of the pagoda has an octagonal frame, and the tower rises nine stories in a total height of seventy-six meters (two hundred and forty-nine feet).

The pagoda was once eleven stories tall, but was damaged and reduced to nine stories.

its double eaves and flying corners are similar to that of the Liuhe Pagoda found in Hangzhou.

Its base and outside walls are made of brick, the balustrades made of stone, and the eaves and banisters encircling the structure are made of wood.

Patronage and construction for the Song era pagoda had been headed by the Buddhist monk Dayuan.

However, the pagoda will be burnt down by fire towards the end of the Song Dynasty and rebuilt during the Ming.