the fall of song dynasty

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Mightypeon

Junior Member
VIP Professional
Roughly the same as "Germanic Roman", a sinocised ethnic mongol.

When a "culturally inferior" nation captured another one, especially one with a much larger population base, the conquerer usually picked up traits, concepts and other things from the conquered, if the difference was a great as between the Mongols and the Song, the conqueror may even consider himself to be "a new kind of Chinese/Roman" after a while.

The same happened when Germanic tribes took over the western Roman Empire, they founded their own Yuan dynasty look a like thing, the "Holy Roman Empire of the German nation"(although it was not called like that until a millenia later) as a successor to the former roman Empire, something the "true Romans" of Byzantium (nice northern Song/ Southern Song analogy here) were fairly pissed about.

Actually, Germans were to the Romans what the Xiognu or Mongols were to the various Chinese dynasties, the only difference beeing that the "Italians" never were able to get back to beeing the rulers.
 
H

handifei880210

Just Hatched
Registered Member
Song's army is the second best army in China(Yuan's army is the best), the corrupt official ruined the song dynasty.
 
M

Mashan

New Member
Long history of China, with many different dynasties. Each of them ruled China usually effectively until weak emperors begin to rule with no clear focus and the corruptions becomes the norm then war starts at the end the government is replaced.

It is repeated throughout the history of China. Twice China was ruled by outside forces (Mongolian and Manchurian). The main theme is that China recovers and starts a new governing body and continue down the road for better or worst.

So looking at it with a historical perspective, the previous Republic of China and the current People's republic of China are just part of China's continuous changing landscape. Government does not last forever, the country does.
 
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pla101prc

Senior Member
Song lasted longer than any European or middle Eastern states lol. Mongols wanted to get around the Yangtze defence so they went arounded and tried to hit Southern Song from the southeast. it was a brilliant strategy but nonetheless they encountered some pretty hard resistance, culminating at Xiangyang. but Mongol is still the greatest army ever though...as well as being one of my personal favourite
 
G

getready

Senior Member
according to a respected member at chf,

among the various reasons for the weak military in comparison to their neighbours, there was incoherency in the central coordination of the song military, like the tendency to shift generals between different armies constantly to prevent regionalism. resulting in the lack of coordination between the general and his soldiers. moreover the song had a chronic lack of war horses and breeding grounds for them.

but to quote him.

Judging by comparative terms on the world scale in material possession, just about all Chinese dynasties are world scale "superpowers". Many can even be considered unipolar "hyperpowers" by the amount of output share in the world, the military spending, human resource and political administration as well as allies and tributaries. The Song is no exception, the Northern Song and Liao were the two greatest powers on earth, the world orders they established incoporated up to half of the world's population and near 2/3 of the total world economic output. By military spenditure, the Liao empire has shown its capability by triumphing the Seljuk and allied Central Asian army of up to 100,000 with only 10,000 fleeing troops after the empire's destruction. By military power alone, a combination of European, Middle Eastern powers would fall short that of the Liao or the Song.
However in a Sino-Centric perspective, the Song was weak for the simple reason that it never established unquestionable authority with its neibours. The Liao was its equal, in later times, they became the Northern and Southern dynasties. So in a sense, the Song never even controlled all of the central plains.

Even during Mongol times, the Song was still one of the most powerful empire on earth, second only to the Jin. And the Jin was the toughest opponent the Mongols have faced.
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S

Schumacher

Senior Member
Like all past Chinese dynasties, Song simply reached the inevitable end of its life as 'destined' by the ancient political/succession system of the time.
The greatest khan Genghis Khan couldn't conquer Song. His grandson just happened to be there during the demise of Song.
 
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pla101prc

Senior Member
well you cant just take the credit away from the Mongols, they are the only one that conquered a Chinese dyansty that was still arguably not far away from its peak. Southern Song was quite prosperous when it was conquered. compare that to Ming dynasty, they had huge fiscal problems during their final years, but guess what? Qing was still not even close to conquering China until Ming fell at the hands of Li Zicheng
 
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