Song-Yuan Wars
| Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Mongol invasion of China and Kublai Khan's Campaigns | |||||||||
 Southern Song before Mongol World conquests |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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Song dynasty | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Ögedei Tsagaan Khochu Töregene Güyük Khan Möngke Khan (possibly †) Kublai Bayan Aju Arikhgiya Shi Tianze Zhang Hongfan Zhang Rou Guo Kan |
Emperor Lizong of Song Emperor Duzong of Song Emperor Gong of Song Emperor Duanzong of Song Emperor Bing of Song † Jia Sidao Lü Wenhuan Li Tingzhi Zhang Shijie Wen Tianxiang |
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| Strength | |||||||||
| More than 450,000 (including the Mongols, the Khitan, the Jurchens, the Chinese, the Alans, the Turkics, Central Asians) | unknown | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Very heavy | Unknown | ||||||||
The Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty under Kublai Khan (r. 1260–1294) was the final step for the Mongols to rule the whole of China under the Yuan dynasty. It is also considered the Mongol Empire's last great military achievement.
Before the Mongol–Jin War escalated, an envoy from the Song dynasty arrived at the court of the Mongols, perhaps to negotiate a united offensive against the Jin dynasty, who the Song had previously fought during the Jin–Song Wars. Although Genghis Khan refused, on his death in 1227 he bequeathed a plan to attack the Jin capital by passing through Song territory. Subsequently, a Mongol ambassador was killed by the Song governor in uncertain circumstances. Before receiving any explanation, the Mongols marched through Song territory to enter the Jin's redoubt in Henan. In 1233 the Song dynasty finally became an ally of the Mongols, who agreed to share territories south of the Yellow River with the Song. Song general Meng Gong defeated the Jin general Wu Xian and directed his troops to besiege the city of Caizhou, to which the last emperor of the Jurchen had fled. With the help of the Mongols, the Song armies were finally able to extinguish the Jin dynasty that had occupied northern China for more than a century. A year later, the Song generals fielded their armies to occupy the old capitals of the Song, but they were completely repelled by the Mongol garrisons under Tachir, a descendant of Boorchu, who was a famed companion of Genghis Khan. Thus the Mongol troops, headed by sons of the Ögedei Khan, started their slow but steady invasion of the south. The Song forces resisted fiercely, which resulted in a prolonged set of campaigns; however, the primary obstacles to the prosecution of their campaigns was unfamiliar terrain that was inhospitable to their horses, new diseases, and the need to wage naval battles, a form of warfare completely alien to the masters of the steppe. This combination resulted in one of the most difficult and prolonged wars of the Mongol conquests. The Chinese offered the fiercest resistance of among all the Mongols fought, the Mongols required every single advantage they could gain and "every military artifice known at that time" in order to win. A greater amount of "stubborn resistance" was put up by Korea and Song China towards the Mongol invasions than the others in Eurasia who were swiftly crushed by the Mongols at a lightning pace.
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Wikipedia