The Songreich was threatened with danger from outside, from the second wave of invasions from the northern peoples. Since the time of the Five Dynasties, the Liao dynasty of the Mongol-Tungus Kitan (907–1125) occupied the region around Beijing with 4 million Chinese subjects. The name of the Kitan became the medieval European (Cathay) and the Russian (Kitai) name for China. The Song dynasty was forced to pursue a policy of coexistence, backed up by annual tributes and embassies. At the same time, the song lay with the Tangut border state of Xixia (Hsi-hsia, 1032–1227) during the war, had to buy peace from him and recognize his ruler as the “son” of the Chinese emperor. Finally the song succeeded, together with the subjects of the Kitan, the Tungusian Jurdsches, who had proclaimed their dynasty Jin (Chin, 1115-1234) in Manchuria, to make a front against Liao. But even then, the area around Beijing could not be regained. Rather, the Jurds, recognizing the military weakness of the Song, invaded northern China after the expulsion of the Kitan (1125) and took possession of the Kaifeng imperial residence in 1126. While all of northern China was lost to the Jin Empire, the Chinese court had to go to Lin’an (now Hangzhou) flee where the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279) continued the legacy of the Northern Song (960–1127).
The territory of the Jin Dynasty was separated from that of the Southern Song by the Huai River (after a peace treaty of 1141). At around 50 million, their population is likely to have been higher than that of all of Europe at that time; Almost 2 million households were recorded in the metropolitan area around Kaifeng alone. The empire was a multi-ethnic state in which the ruling class of the Jurds probably made up no more than 10%. At the beginning of their rule, the Jurds tried to “barbarize” the Chinese, but later a ruling class emerged that included the Jurds as well as the Chinese and the Kitan. They all felt themselves to be the upholders of Chinese traditions, no longer the descendants of invaders.
The desire to regain the northern territories led the Song court to enter into an alliance with the new great power of the Mongols, who had been pushing against the Jurassic empire since 1211. The Jindynasty was destroyed by the Mongols in 1234, but the Song Empire did not benefit from it. The Mongols gradually snatched the west and southwest from him, only to occupy all of China in 1279 under the leadership of the Great Khan Kubilai (as Chinese Emperor Shizu, Shih-tsu, 1279–94) and to incorporate it into their world empire as the last and greatest booty.
Yuan (Yuan, 1271-1368)
The Mongols, the Beijing They made it their seat of government in 1264, and in 1271 they gave their dynasty the programmatic name Yuan (Yüan, “primordial beginning”). No foreign people before and after them had ever succeeded in conquering southern China, with its numerous watercourses and lakes, which was particularly difficult in terms of military topography for an equestrian people like the Mongols. However, the southern Chinese were particularly punished for their resistance when the victorious Mongols ordered the introduction of a four-tier society leader: at the top were the Mongols themselves as the ruling class – with barely 1 million extremely narrow -, followed by their Central and Near Eastern subjects; the third group consisted of the 10 million or so northern Chinese, Kitan, Jurdsch and others who fell to the Mongols during the conquest of the Jin Empire. The base of the pyramid was formed by around 50 million. Southern Chinese who were contemptuously dubbed “southern barbarians”. The social and economic discrimination – the first two groups were exempt from the tax – corresponded to the political one: the Chinese were only allowed into the lowest local offices. The most influential offices were reserved for members of the Turkic peoples and Persians. As wholesale merchants, tax collectors, moneylenders and financial advisors, they also dominated the Mongolian economic life, which was increasingly different from what was already invented at the time of the Song The most influential offices were reserved for members of the Turkic peoples and Persians. As wholesale merchants, tax collectors, moneylenders and financial advisors, they also dominated the Mongolian economic life, which was increasingly different from what was already invented at the time of the Song The most influential offices were reserved for members of the Turkic peoples and Persians. As wholesale merchants, tax collectors, moneylenders and financial advisors, they also dominated the Mongolian economic life, which was increasingly different from what was already invented at the time of the Song Paper money was mastered.
Even after the conquest of southern China, a country located in Asia according to commit4fitness.com, the Mongols relied heavily on their military power by covering China with a network of military posts that rendered resistance futile. In administration, however, they used the Chinese structures; The division of the empire also largely followed traditional borders, as did Chinese law. During and immediately after the conquest of China, further expansions of the Mongols in East Asia took place, which perhaps arose from the idea of taking over the foreign policy claims of the Song: in 1261 Korea was subjugated; from there the Mongols made two unsuccessful forays into Japan in 1274 and 1281. Other expeditions went as far as Java, others along the western borders of China to the south, to Annam as well as Northern Burma.
