Prior to the Mongols, the Xi-Xia Tanguts were mostly (sometimes?) allied with the Jin against Southern Song. GK 'forced' them to help him, in his initial forays into N China.I stand corrected. My initial understanding was that Genghis' initial attacks during the early 1200s caused Xi-Xia to submit to Genghis. It is not disputed that Xi-Xia started attacked Jin around 1211, but maybe that was because Xi-Xia wanted to curry favor with Genghis.. Bad move for them
The Song didn't really do all that much against the Jurchens - as usual (they allied with the Jurchens too, when they first invaded the Khitan Liao empire and then watched as the Jurchens conquered Yanjing without much Chinese help, and then kicked the Song all the way back to the Huai river-system with little trouble. The Northern Song very nearly perished then. But that's another story.).
The Mongols totally overturned the Confucian-styled official system, and appointed non-Chinese to tax-farm or otherwise managed vast tracts of the land.
And neither did the Romans; it was a more succinct way of noting that they took advantage of preexisting political-military conflicts in [China/the oikoumene] to have the ability to fight their enemies piecemeal. Not that the ultimate goal of [conquering China/conquering the Greek East] was always in the [Mongols/Romans]' minds, and that all efforts were directed toward that goal in some sort of Cunning Plan spanning decades and employed by different rulers, of course, but if you want to avoid writing a paragraph on the specifics you shorten it to something like that.
You're comparing dissimilar things.lolno said:
No, I only said this was not one of our better eras, politically and militarily.
No, I only said this was not one of our better eras, politically and militarily.
However the Southern Song was probably our greatest era, in terms of social mobility, general economic prosperity, education, 'industrial' output, inventiness, international trade and especially cultural prowess.
The loss of the north made the Southern Song a somewhat atypical Chinese dynasty. This is 'blue' maritime China at its best. Displaced to the Hangzhou area (to get out of the reach of marauding Jurchen forces), the Southern Song court turned its energies to the sea, and developed a vast marine fleet, to carry out international trade. So much so that the Chinese pushed the Arab and Indian merchants out of the international sea-trade in East and SE Asia. Remember that this was the China that developed paper money.
The educational level of the general populace also reached a new high, which was probably never exceeded until way into the PRC era. It was said that every village in the Hangzhou region had a school. There were chief ministers who came from the poorest backgrounds, due to the wide availability of literal education.
And food production was greatly boosted by the importation of some rice species fr SE Asia, that enabled double or even triple plantings in a year...
The loss of the north made the Southern Song a somewhat atypical Chinese dynasty. This is 'blue' maritime China at its best. Displaced to the Hangzhou area (to get out of the reach of marauding Jurchen forces), the Southern Song court turned its energies to the sea, and developed a vast marine fleet, to carry out international trade. So much so that the Chinese pushed the Arab and Indian merchants out of the international sea-trade in East and SE Asia. Remember that this was the China that developed paper money.
The Chinese themselves consider the Song to be their greatest dynasty.Good point. I was trying to say I agreed with your statement of how politically and militarily they weren't at their finest. I guess I didn't do it that well.
Certainly the Song still had a strong, vibrant culture in that era.
