Jin–Song Wars
1125 CE to 1234 CE
The Jin–Song Wars are a series of conflicts between the Jurchen Jin dynasty (1115–1234) and Chinese Song dynasty (960–1279).
In 1115, the Jurchens had rebelled against their overlords, the Khitan Liao dynasty (907–1125), and declared the formation of the Jin.
Allying with the Song against their common enemy the Liao, the Jin promise to return to the Song the territories in northern China that had fallen under Liao control since 938.
The Jurchens' quick defeat of the Liao combined with Song military failures make the Jin reluctant to cede these territories.
After a series of failed negotiations that embitter both sides, the Jurchens attack the Song in November 1125, dispatching one army towards Taiyuan and the other towards Kaifeng, the Song capital.Surprised by the news of an invasion, the Song general stationed in Taiyuan retreats from the city, which is besieged and later captured.
As the second Jin army approaches the capital, Emperor Huizong of the Song abdicates and flees south.
A new emperor, Qinzong, is enthroned.
The Jurchens begin a siege against Kaifeng in 1126, but Qinzong negotiates for their retreat from the capital after he agrees to pay a large annual indemnity.
Qinzong reneges on the deal and orders Song forces to defend the prefectures instead of fortifying the capital.
The Jin resume their war against the Song and again besiege Kaifeng in 1127.
The Chinese emperor is captured in an event known as the Jingkang Incident, the capital is looted, and the Song loses northern China to the Jin.
Remnants of the Song retreat to southern China and, after brief stays in several temporary capitals, eventually relocate yo Hangzhou.
The retreat of the Song court marks the end of the Northern Song era and the beginning of the Southern Song.The Jurchens tried to conquer southern China in the 1130s, but they are bogged down by a pro-Song insurgency in the north and a counteroffensive by the Song generals Yue Fei, Han Shizhong, and others.
The generals regain some territories but retreat on the orders of the Southern Song emperor, who supports a peaceful resolution to the war.
The Treaty of Shaoxing in 1142 settles the boundary between the two empires along the Huai River, but conflicts between the two dynasties will continue until the fall of the Jin in 1234.
A campaign against the Song by the fourth Jin emperor, Prince Hailing, is unsuccessful.
He loses the Battle of Caishi (1161) and is later assassinated by his own disaffected officers.
An invasion of the Jin motivated by Song revanchism (1206–1208) is also unsuccessful.
A decade later, the Jin launch an abortive military campaign against the Song in 1217 to compensate for the territory that they had lost to the invading Mongols.
The Song form an alliance with the Mongols in 1233, and in the following year jointly capture Caizhou, the last refuge of the Jin emperor.
The Jin dynasty collapses that year in 1234.
After the demise of the Jin, the Song dynasty itself becomes a target of the Mongols, and falls in 1279.The wars engendered an era of technological, cultural, and demographic changes in China.
Battles between the Song and Jin bring about the introduction of various gunpowder weapons.
The siege of De'an in 1132 is the first recorded appearance of the fire lance, an early ancestor of firearms.
There are also reports of battles fought with primitive gunpowder bombs like the incendiary huopao or the exploding tiehuopao, incendiary arrows, and other related weapons.
In northern China, the Jurchen tribes are the ruling minority of an empire that is predominantly inhabited by former subjects of the Northern Song.
Jurchen migrants settle in the conquered territories and assimilate with the local culture.
The Jin government institutes a centralized imperial bureaucracy modeled on previous Chinese dynasties, basing their legitimacy on Confucian philosophy.
Song refugees from the north resettle in southern China.
The north is the cultural center of China, and its conquest by the Jin diminishes the international stature of the Song dynasty.
The Southern Song, however, quickly return to economic prosperity, and trade with the Jin is lucrative despite decades of warfare.
The capital of the Southern Song, Hangzhou, expands into a major city for commerce.
Subject
Related Events
Showing 10 events out of 24 total
The Jurchens of North China had rebelled in 1115 against their overlords, the Khitan Liao dynasty (907–1125), and declared the formation of the Jin Dynasty.
Allying with the Song dynasty against their common enemy the Liao, the Jin promise to return to the Song the territories in northern China that had fallen under Liao control since 938.
The Jurchens' quick defeat of the Liao combined with Song military failures make the Jin reluctant to cede these territories.
After a series of failed negotiations that embitter both sides, the Jurchens attack the Song in November 1125, dispatching one army towards Taiyuan and the other towards Kaifeng, the Song capital.
The Song general stationed in Taiyuan, surprised by the news of an invasion, retreats from the city, which is besieged and later captured.
As the second Jin army approaches the capital, Emperor Huizong of Song abdicates and flees south.
A new emperor, Qinzong, is enthroned.
The Jurchens begin a siege against Kaifeng in 1126, but Qinzong negotiates for their retreat from the capital after he agrees to pay a large annual indemnity.
Qinzong reneges on the deal and orders Song forces to defend the prefectures instead of fortifying the capital.
The Jin resume their war against the Song and again besiege Kaifeng in 1127.
The Chinese emperor is captured in an event known as the Jingkang Incident, the capital is looted, and the Song dynasty loses northern China to the Jin.
Remnants of the Song retreat to southern China and, after brief stays in several temporary capitals, eventually relocate to Hangzhou.
The retreat of the Song court marks the end of the Northern Song era and the beginning of the Southern Song.
The central Song court remains politically divided and focused upon its internal affairs until alarming new events to the north in the Liao state finally come to its attention.
The Jurchen, a subject tribe within the Liao empire, have rebelled against the Liao and formed their own state, the Jin Dynasty.
The Song official Tong Guan (1054–1126) advises Emperor Huizong (1100–1125) to form an alliance with the Jurchens, and their joint military campaign topples and completely conquers the Liao Dynasty by 1125.
However, …
…the Jurchens, observing the poor performance and military weakness of the Song army, immediately break the alliance with the Song, launching an invasion into Song territory north of the Hwang He in 1125.
Scholars and farmers demonstrate around Kaifeng for the restoration of a military official, Li Gang, from January through March.
Small conflicts erupt between the protesters and the government.
The Jurchen cross the river and besiege Kaifeng, the Song capital, in 1126.
Song emperor Huizong abdicates on January 18, 1126, in favor of his son, Qinzong.
The Jurchens invade again in 1127, capturing not only the Song capital at Kaifeng, but the retired emperor Huizong, his successor Qinzong, and most of the Imperial court, remnants of which flee south, including much of the populace and communities such as the Kaifeng Jews.
(It is surmised that a small community of Jews, most likely from Persia or India, had arrived either overland or by a sea route, and settled in the Sung capital, a cosmopolitan city on a branch of the Silk Road.)
The remaining Song forces regroup under one of the Song emperor’s sons, the self-proclaimed Emperor Gaozong, and withdraw to Nanjing, then retreat further south.
The Jurchen had followed their conquest of southern Manchuria by seizing Liao territory in northern Shanxi (Shansi) and Zhili (Chihli) in China, then erected a capital at Huining Fu and established the Jin (“golden”) dynasty.
During the early years of building up their empire, Jurchen rulers have often moved people from elsewhere in China to their capital, Shangjing.
The first Jin emperor, Wanyan Aguda (r. 1115-1123) resettled captives to the Shangjing area during his war against the Liao Empire.
Aguda's successor, Wanyan Wuqimai (r. 1123-1134) has continued the policy, resulting in numerous wealthy people, skilled craftsmen from Yanjing (Beijing) and the former Northern Song capital Bianjing (Kaifeng) being relocated to Shangjing.
Historical accounts report that, after the fall of Bianjing in 1127, the Jurchen generals brought to Shangjing (and elsewhere in North China) several thousand people, including: "about 470 imperial clansmen; erudites and students of the imperial academy; eunuchs; medical doctors; artisans; prostitutes; imperial gardeners; artisans of Imperial Constructions; actors and actresses; astronomers; musicians".
A variety of valuable goods captured in Bianjing is brought to the Jin capital as well.
Palaces were not much more than tents in Aguda's days, but in 1123 Jurchen had built their first ancestral temples and tombs (where the captured Song emperors Huizong and Qizong venerate the Jin ancestors in 1128), and in 1124 the new emperor Wuqimai had ordered a Chinese architect, Lu Yanlun, to build a new city on uniform plan.
The city plan of Shangjing emulates major Chinese cities, in particular Bianjing (Kaifeng), although the Jin capital is much smaller than its Northern Song prototype.
The Liao emperor, eight years after the establishment of the Jurchen Jin Dynasty, had fled in 1123 to Western Xia, whose Emperor Chongzong had submitted to the Jin demand of the emperor’s person.
Western Xia becomes a vassal state of Jin.
After the Jin Dynasty’s destruction of the Northern Song Dynasty in 1127, Western Xia attacks and takes several thousand square miles of land from the former territory of the Northern Song.
Another Jurchen invasion across the Yangtze River in 1129 causes the Nanjing-based Song government, under emperor Gaozong, to retreat south to Lin'an (in modern Hangzhou), from where the southern Song dynasty, as its rulers become known, control only a truncated southern regime.
The Jurchen conquest of northern China and shift of capitals from Kaifeng to Lin'an is the dividing line between the Northern Song Dynasty and Southern Song Dynasty.