History of the Song Dynasty

The Song dynasty (Chinese: ; pinyin: Sòng cháo; 960–1279) of China was a ruling dynasty that controlled China proper and southern China from the middle of the 10th century into the last quarter of the 13th century. The Song is considered a high point of classical Chinese innovation in science and technology, an era that featured prominent intellectual figures such as Shen Kuo and Su Song and the revolutionary use of gunpowder weapons (catapult-projected bombs, fire lances, flamethrowers, and land mines). However, it was also a period of political and military turmoil, with opposing and often aggressive political factions formed at court, which impeded progress in many ways. The frontier management policies of the Chancellor Wang Anshi exacerbated hostile conditions along the Chinese-Vietnamese border, sparking a border war with the Lý dynasty. Although this conflict was fought to a mutual draw, there was subsequently an enormous military defeat at the hands of invading Jurchens from the north in 1127 during the Jin–Song wars, forcing the remnants of the Song court to flee south from Kaifeng and establish a new capital at Hangzhou. It was there that new naval strength was developed to combat the Jurchen's Jin dynasty formed in the north. Although the Song dynasty was able to defeat further Jurchen invasions, the Mongols led by Genghis Khan, Ögedei Khan, Möngke Khan, and finally Kublai Khan gradually conquered China, until the fall of the final Song Emperor in 1279.

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