Mongol Invasion and End of The Song Dynasty
Following the death of Gaozong and the emergence of the Mongols, the Song Dynasty formed a military alliance with the Mongols in the hope of finally defeating the Jin Dynasty. Several tens of thousands of carts full of grain were sent to the Mongol army during the siege. Following the destruction of the Jurchens in 1234, the Southern Song generals broke the alliance, proceeding to recapture the three historical capitals of Kaifeng, Luoyang and Chang'an. However the cities, ravaged by years of warfare, lacked economic capacity and yielded little defensibility. This breaking of alliance meant open warfare between the Mongols and the Song Chinese. Ögodei Khan's forces conquered fifty-four out of Sichuan's fifty-eight total districts by 1236, while ordering the slaughter of over a million people that inhabited the city of Chengdu, which was taken by the Mongols with ease.
Read more about this topic: History Of The Song Dynasty
Famous quotes containing the words invasion and/or song:
“We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the National Militia, and under the provision of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name of President Monroe.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“The screech and mechanical uproar of the big city turns the citified head, fills citified ears—as the song of birds, wind in the trees, animal cries, or as the voices and songs of his loved ones once filled his heart. He is sidewalk- happy.”
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1869–1959)