-The Northern and the Southern The Sung Dynasty 969 AD – 1126 AD -The Northern and the Southern

Why two divisions of one dynasty? The intervening years, known as the Period of Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, were a time of division between north and south, and of rapidly changing administrations. Therefore, created the two divisions of the north & the south of the Sung Dynasty.

The Northern Dynasty The Southern Dynasty The Northern Song (960-1127) signifies the time when the Song capital was in the northern city of Kaifeng and the dynasty controlled most of inner China. The Southern Dynasty The Southern Song (1127-1279) refers to the time after the Song lost control of northern China to the Jurchen Jin dynasty. The Song court retreated south of the Yangtze River and made their capital at Hangzhou

The Northern Sung Dynasty (969 AD – 1126 AD)

The Northern Sung Dynasty Restored & marked the unity of China since the fall of the T’ang Dynasty in 907AD Cannot compare to the empire of T’ang Foreshadowing the era of barbarian domination The Sung remembered w/T’ang as the classic period of Chinese civilization Chu Yuan-chang, founder of Ming, promised the restoration of “the T’ang and the Sung”

Family The Genealogy of the Sung is entirely from the Nihon Kodaishi Daijiten (Dictionary of Ancient Japanese History) […isn’t this suppose to be about China?? ] Both the Northern & the Southern Sung are included in the same diagram Surprisingly, should note how the first Emperor of the Southern Sung was actually the brother of the last Emperor of the Northern Sung. the succession then passed to a very distant (sixth) cousin (once removed). The succession subsequently made an eve larger leap to another collateral line.

The Southern Sung Dynasty (1127 - 1279)

Challenges The Southern Sung is inevitably remembered mainly as the victim of Mongol conquest. the Sung gave the Mongols the hardest time of any of their ultimate conquests. The southern terrain and the inconveniency of traveling for Mongols to meet with their accustomed cavalry tactics The saying in China is that "in the north, you go by horse; in the south, you go by boat." The Mongols undoubtedly were more comfortable with horses than with boats.

More Info The Sung state was also more formidably organized than many opponents of the Mongols. The Sung had resources unavailable to the Russians or the Khawarizm Shâhs. But the wages of resistance to the Mongols was, of course, death. Qubilai Khân, in the course of his conquest and rule over China, killed "more than 18,470,000 Chinese" This would put him in the same league, at least, as Adolph Hitler.