The Jingkang Incident — the Jurchen Conquest of Northern China
The Northern Song had allied with the newly risen Jurchen Jin to destroy the Liao dynasty, expecting to recover territory in the north. The campaign revealed to the Jurchen how weak the Song army was, and having finished the Liao they turned on their ally. Kaifeng fell in 1127. The sack was catastrophic. The retired emperor Huizong — an accomplished painter and calligrapher whose court had been among the most refined in Chinese history and whose government had been among the least competent — and his son Qinzong were taken north into captivity with thousands of the imperial clan, court women and craftsmen, and died in exile. The imperial collections were carried off or destroyed. A surviving prince re-established the dynasty at Hangzhou as the Southern Song, holding the line of the Huai River. The rump state was militarily weaker and considerably richer than its predecessor: the south's rice agriculture, the expansion of maritime trade through Quanzhou and Guangzhou, paper money and a flourishing of Neo-Confucian scholarship all belong to this period. It lasted a century and a half until the Mongols, who destroyed the Jin first.
- Year: 1127 CE
- Category: Military
