Chinese History - 1127-1279 AD - Southern Song Dynasty
Repeated incursions by the Kin forced Kao Tsung (1127-1162) to remove the capital from Nanking to Lin an (Haiigchau) in Chekiang. The struggles of the Chinese against the Kin were by no means invariably unsuccessful. The general Yoh Fei especially distinguished himself in this warfare, but his attempts to induce the emperor to make a decisive attack upon the enemies of the empire were rendered nugatory by the minister Tsin Kuei, who was apparently hi the pay of the Kin. Eventually Yoh Fei and his son were thrown into prison, and executed in 1141. Yoh Fei was canonised in 1179, and his opponent is still regarded with abhorrence both by the Chinese people and the native historians.
The sole feature of interest in the history of the southern Sung dynasty, which consists of a series of struggles, first against the Kin and then against the Mongols, is the revival of philosophic study, which reached its highest point in the exegetical school of Chu hi (1130-1200). His exhortations upon the classical books, and those of his pupils Chau Tun-i, Cheng Teh shiu, and others, are still authoritative works for the explanation of the orthodox belief.
A convention concluded by the emperor Li Tsung (1225-1264) with Ogotai, the son and successor of Genghis Khan, in 1239, proved advantageous rather to the Mongols than to the Chinese, although the Chinese troops won a great victory over the Kin under the agreement. Ogdai continued the campaign of devastation until his death in AD 1241. The Kin Emperor in the north held out in his new capital until all the aged and infirm had been slaughtered to lessen the ravages of famine, till all the able-bodied men had fallen, and women alone were left to guard the walls. Then he set fire to the city and burned himself alive in his palace, so that the storming parties of the allies found only a smoking ruin. The Mongols got possession of Tsaichau (Shu-ning), where Ai Tsung and Mo Ti, the last emperors of the Kin dynasty, lost their lives. So ended the Kin dynasty of the north, a line whose nine Emperors had ruled in that part of China just a hundred and eighteen years.
All attempts of the Chinese to check the advance of the Mongols by force of arms or by offers of submission proved vain. The Sungs in the south, whose folly had brought the Mongol invaders to their very borders, held out for some time longer against the victors, but the war was pressed by the new Khan, Mangu, son of Tuli, Ogdai's brother, with such vigor that ultimate success was made certain. More than once, however, there were heroic episodes which go to show that the Sungs had not altogether lost their early soldier-like qualities. One incident in particular deserves much wider fame than it has ever yet succeeded in gaining, namely, the five years' defense of the city of Hsiangyang. The heroism of the two captains, Changshim and Chang-kwei, who "broke through all" to reprovision the starving city, and the magnificent valor of Chang-kwei in attempting to cut his way out again when his task had been successfully accomplished, has moved a modern writer to say, "A Chinese historian might be pardoned for placing this episode on a par with Sir Richard Grenville's defense of the 'Revenge.'" But there has been so far lacking a Tennyson to make the ballad of Hsiangyang.
The death of Mangu in AD 1259, and the accession of his able younger brother, Kublai Khan, marks the point at which it may be said that the Sung dynasty had ceased to exist and the new era, to be known as the Yuan (original) or Mongol dynasty had begun. Still for twenty years more resistance went on. Brave generals, devoted to the Sung cause, set up one puppet king after another, but all in vain. In 1276 the Mongol general Bayan (Bo yen) conquered Hang-chau, captured the emperor Kung Ti with almost all the members of the royal family, and carried them northward into captivity.
The eldest son of Tu Tsung (1265-1274), by name Chao Shi, succeeded in escaping from the enemy, and was recognised for nine years as emperor in Fuchau, under the name of Tuan Tung. However, he was soon obliged to flee before the advancing Mongols to Kwangtung, where he died in 1278. His younger brother, Ti Ping, fled with the last of his adherents to the island of Yai shan, which was attacked by the Mongols in 1279. The last stand was made by the two faithful generals, Chang Shih-chieh and Lu Hsiu-fu, at an island off Canton. The retreat after some months was carried by storm, and, when Lu Hsiu-fu had seen to the suicide of his wife and children, he clasped the last claimant of the Sung throne, the nine year old emperor Ping Ti, in his arms and leaped with him into the sea, both being drowned together. This example was followed by a number of the court attendants upon the young emperor to avoid capture at the hands of the Mongols. The minister of the dead king, Wen T'ienhsiang (a very sympathetic figure in Chinese history) was made prisoner, carried to the court of Kublai Khan, and there, preferring death to the renunciation of his allegiance to the fallen dynasty, was finally slain. "Thus perished the dynasty of Sung." The southern Sung dynasty came to an end with the subjugation of the Chinese people by the Mongols.
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