Course of the Event
In the late Northern Song, political corruption and repeated peasant uprisings accompanied an attempt by Emperor Huizong, Cai Jing, Tong Guan, and other ruling figures to take advantage of Liao’s decline, join Jin in destroying Liao, and recover the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun. In 1111, the first year of the Zhenghe era, the Liao subject Ma Zhi secretly visited Tong Guan at night and proposed an alliance with Jin against Liao. Emperor Huizong valued the proposal and bestowed on him the name Zhao Liangsi. In 1118, the first year of the Chonghe era, Song sent Ma Zheng to Jin to express orally the intention to cooperate against Liao. In 1120, the second year of Xuanhe, Song and Jin agreed on a joint attack: Song would take the Liao southern capital Yanjing, while Jin would attack the Liao central capital of Dading and other areas. After Liao’s destruction, the Yan–Yun region would go to Song, and Song would transfer to Jin the annual payments formerly made to Liao. This became known as the Alliance Conducted at Sea.
Song armies twice attacked the Liao southern capital, present-day Beijing, and were defeated both times by its defenders; the city was ultimately taken by Jin. Song agreed to pay an additional one million strings of cash each year as compensation for lost tax revenue, together with the annual tribute. In the fourth lunar month of 1123, the fifth year of Xuanhe, Jin returned Yanjing and six western prefectures of its nine-prefecture dependency to Song. Most of Yanjing’s inhabitants, however, had already been deported to the northeast as slaves, leaving Song a ruined and largely empty city. Song established Yanshan Circuit to administer the new territories, but the unresolved status of Yunzhou, the Liao western capital, remained a source of future conflict.
After Emperor Taizu of Jin, Aguda, died, Wuqimai succeeded as Emperor Taizong. He initially continued to observe the alliance, but the Jin commanders Wanyan Zonghan and Wanyan Zongwang opposed ceding Shanxi territory to Song. Zonghan further argued that Song had repeatedly accepted Jin defectors and rewarded them generously, violating the agreement against harboring fugitives or enticing border populations. In the eleventh lunar month of 1123, Jin defeated the rebel Zhang Jue, who fled into Song-held Yanshan. Jin demanded his surrender. Although the Northern Song eventually killed Zhang Jue and returned his head, the initial decision to shelter a Jin rebel became one of the pretexts later used for the invasion.
In the eighth lunar month of 1125, the seventh year of Xuanhe and third year of Tianhui, Wanyan Zongwang and Wanyan Zonghan requested authorization to attack Song on the pretext of the Zhang Jue affair. In the tenth lunar month, Zongwang led the eastern army from Pingzhou, present-day Lulong in Hebei, against Yanshan Prefecture. Han Minyi, the Song garrison commander at Yizhou, surrendered. In the twelfth lunar month Jin forces defeated Song armies at Baihe and Gubeikou, and the Song commander Guo Yaoshi defected, causing Yanshan’s defenses to collapse. Jin forces then moved south, taking Zhongshan, Zhending, and Xinde Prefecture and advancing toward Dongjing. On the western route, Zonghan marched from Datong against Taiyuan. He captured Shuozhou and Daizhou but was checked before Taiyuan and could not link up with the eastern army as planned.
Seeing the danger, Emperor Huizong abdicated in the twelfth lunar month in favor of Crown Prince Zhao Huan, Emperor Qinzong, who designated the next year as the Jingkang era. Huizong assumed the title “Daoist Sovereign Emperor” and prepared to flee south. On the third day of the first lunar month of 1126, the Jin eastern army crossed the Yellow River, captured Huazhou, and approached Dongjing. Huizong fled south that very night with only Cai You and a few eunuchs, claiming that he was going to offer incense; he traveled toward Bozhou and Zhenjiang. Tong Guan and Gao Qiu followed with troops as far as Sizhou, while Cai Jing fled toward Gongzhou under the pretext of accompanying the retired emperor. Public outrage followed. Imperial University student Chen Dong and others memorialized the throne, denouncing Cai Jing, Wang Fu, Tong Guan, Liang Shicheng, Li Yan, and Zhu Mian as the “Six Traitors” and demanding punishment. Qinzong dismissed Wang Fu, ordered the deaths of Li Yan and Liang Shicheng, and exiled Cai Jing and Tong Guan.
On the seventh day of the first lunar month, Zongwang’s eastern army reached the northwest of Dongjing and camped at Mutuogang, attacking Xuanze Gate that night. Li Gang, responsible for the defense of Dongjing, organized resistance and sent death-defying troops on sorties that killed more than one hundred men. Jin assaults over the next several days were all repelled. Zhong Shidao then arrived with one hundred thousand western troops, forcing Zongwang to pull back to Mengyang northwest of Kaifeng. Negotiations followed. Jin demanded five million taels of gold, fifty million taels of silver, ten thousand cattle and horses, one million bolts of silk, the three prefectures of Taiyuan, Zhongshan, and Hejian, and hostages in the form of a chief minister and an imperial prince. The Song court requisitioned wealth throughout the capital, collecting more than two hundred thousand taels of gold and over four million taels of silver. Prince Kang Zhao Gou and Grand Steward Zhang Bangchang went to the Jin camp as hostages. After Yao Pingzhong’s night raid on the Jin camp failed, Li Gang and Zhong Shidao lost their military authority. Qinzong sent envoys to explain and ordered that Jin soldiers not be provoked. When Zongwang attacked again he was repelled by the western troops, so he halted the assault, replaced Zhao Gou with Prince Su Zhao Shu as hostage, and released Zhao Gou. On the tenth day of the second lunar month, the Jin army withdrew north and the first siege ended.
After the Jin withdrawal, disputes between the war faction and the peace faction at the Song court intensified. Zhong Shidao proposed stationing large forces on both banks of the Yellow River to prevent another invasion, but the peace-oriented officials Wu Min, Tang Ke, Geng Nanzhong, and others rejected the plan. Li Gang was transferred out as pacification commissioner for Hebei and Hedong, achieved little, and was eventually exiled to Jiangxi. Soon afterward, the Jin envoy Xiao Zhonggong visited Song. Emperor Qinzong attempted to send secret wax-sealed letters encouraging the former Liao aristocrat Yelü Yudu to defect and act as an internal ally. On returning to Jin, Xiao presented the letters to the Jin court. Emperor Taizong used them as another pretext and in the eighth lunar month of 1126 launched a second invasion.
Zonghan’s western army captured Taiyuan, while Zongwang’s eastern army took Zhending and Daming. The two armies joined outside Dongjing in the intercalary eleventh lunar month. By then Qinzong had dismissed Li Gang, morale among the defenders was low, and troop strength was inadequate. After a month-long siege and continuous assaults, the outer city fell on the twenty-fifth day of the intercalary eleventh month. Qinzong submitted a formal surrender, and after entering the city Jin forces carried out extensive seizures that emptied the government treasuries. In the third lunar month of 1127, the second year of Jingkang, the Jin installed Zhang Bangchang as emperor of the puppet state of Chu. In the fourth lunar month, they carried Emperor Huizong, Emperor Qinzong, imperial consorts, princes, princesses, clansmen, imperial sons-in-law, civil and military officials, and more than three thousand people northward. The Northern Song came to an end.