Jingkang Incident

The Jingkang Incident (simplified Chinese: 靖康事变; traditional Chinese: 靖康事變), Humiliation of Jingkang (simplified Chinese: 靖康之耻; traditional Chinese: 靖康之恥), or The Disorders of the Jingkang Period (simplified Chinese: 靖康之乱; traditional Chinese: 靖康之亂) took place in 1127 during the Jin–Song Wars when the invading Jurchen soldiers of the Jin dynasty besieged and sacked Bianjing (modern Kaifeng), the capital city of Song China. The Jin forces abducted Emperor Qinzong, his father the Taishang Huang, Emperor Huizong, and many members of the imperial court.

This ended the era known as the Northern Song, when the Song controlled most of China. The rest of the imperial family was forced to flee and establish a new government, now known as the Southern Song, at Lin'an, which was to become their capital. This incident is so named because this was the major incident during the short reign of Emperor Qinzong, whose era name was "Jingkang" (Chinese: 靖康).

Background

In 1120, under the Alliance Conducted at Sea, the Jin and Northern Song agreed to jointly attack the Liao dynasty and, if victorious, divide up the territory. The Jin would get a large portion of the northern land and the Song would get a smaller portion in the southern region called the Sixteen Prefectures.

The Jin army sacked the Liao capital of Shangjing and ended the dynasty. The Song army in the south, however, could not even penetrate Liao’s defensive positions and the army was defeated by the remaining Liao troops afterwards. This exposed the limitation of the Song army as well as the corruption and bureaucracy in Song’s imperial court. At the end, the Jin army took control of the entire Liao territory.

After the fall of Liao, Song court wanted the Sixteen Prefectures as promised. Jin sold the land at a price of 300,000 bolts of silk and 200,000 ounces of silver. This price was considered to be extremely generous because it was the tribute that Song was previously paying to the Liao annually since the Chanyuan Treaty of 1005.

Prelude to the war

According to the Twenty-Four Histories (二十四史), in 1123, three years after the fall of Liao, a Jin general by the name of Zhang Jue (張覺) defected to the northern Song dynasty (both they and Zhang Jue were Han Chinese). Since he was governor of the Jin-controlled Pingzhou Prefectures, an area just north of the Sixteen Prefectures on the other side of the Great Wall of China, the Pingzhou Prefectures were also merged into Song territory. The imperial court initially welcomed the defection and awarded Zhang an honorific title and land. Jin, on the other hand, sent a small army aimed to overturn the defection but was defeated by Zhang’s troops.

Soon after that, the Song court realized Zhang’s defection would only bring more hostile actions from the north. Zhang Jue was executed in the winter of 1123. This came too late: in the fall of 1125, Emperor Taizong of Jin issued an order of full-scale attack on Song territories.

First Siege of Kaifeng

A portrait of Emperor Huizong

Taizong’s armies invaded Song territory from the west and from the north. The Northern Force took swift action, sacked Qinhuangdao in October 1125, sacked Baoding, Dingzhou, Zhengding and Xingtai in January of the year after. The Northern Force, commanded by Wanyan Wolibu, did not meet much resistance as most of the Song generals surrendered themselves and the cities as soon as the Jin army arrived. On the other hand, the Western Force, commanded by Wanyan Nianhan, was held up near the cities of Datong and Taiyuan from the very beginning and did not make much progress for the rest of the war. In February 1126, the Northern Force crossed the Yellow River and began the siege of Kaifeng, the capital city of Song. Before the invaders surrounded the city, Emperor Huizong (徽宗) abdicated in favour of his twenty-six-year-old son who became Emperor Qinzong (钦宗) and fled to the countryside with his entourage. Jin’s Northern Force faced difficult siege fighting that was not designed for cavalries as Kaifeng put up a fight in the face of invaders. At the same time, Jin's Western Force was still held up in Datong area and could not come to aid. In an effort to end the battle sooner, the young emperor sent his brother Zhao Gou, who later on became the first emperor of Southern Song Dynasty, to the enemy camp for peace talks. Taizong ordered to take Zhao Gou as hostage until the Song court came up with a ransom. Eventually, the Song court came forth with the money and the city of Taiyuan was also given to Jin as a “good faith gift.” Soon, Zhao Gou was released and the Northern Force started to withdraw.

Second Siege of Kaifeng

Everything went back to normal as soon as the invaders retreated: lavish parties continued to be held daily at the imperial palace. The “run-away emperor” – Huizong returned from the countryside, and joined the parties that were being held by his son. Song generals suggested that large numbers of troops ought to be garrisoned along the border of the Yellow River. Qinzong rejected the proposal by citing that the Jin might never come back. Many experienced generals who defended the city in the first siege of Kaifeng were removed from the capital and posted elsewhere in the country. Many army groups were decommissioned or sent back to their prefectures of origin.

Three months after the first siege of the city, Jin sent two ambassadors to Song. The two ambassadors were nobles from the former Liao Dynasty. Qinzong misjudged the situation and believed that they could be used to turn against their Jin ruler. The emperor sent a coded letter which was sealed in candle wax, inviting them to join Song to form an Anti–Jin alliance. The two handed the letter to Taizong right away. Furious, the Jin emperor ordered an even bigger army to attack Song. This second campaign would eventually topple the Northern Song Dynasty.

Since most of the Jin troops just returned from their first expedition and had not even unpacked, the army was quickly mobilized. Following precedents set in the previous campaign, the Jin army divided into two groups, Wolibu's Northern Force and Nianhan's Western Force, even daring to take the same routes again.

In September 1126, the two Jin army groups set foot in Song territory. Unlike the previous battle, however, the Western Force was able to sack Datong within only one month. Cities like Luoyang and Zhengzhou surrendered themselves, clearing the way to the capital. The Northern Force, having sacked Baoding, Dingzhou and Zhengding in September, regrouped and crossed the Yellow River in November. It then went on a rampage and sacked Qingfeng, Puyang and other satellite cities around the capital in December. By the middle of December, the two forces regrouped at Kaifeng and the capital was finally besieged.

Unlike the first siege, Kaifeng’s defenses in the second siege had some fatal flaws:

1. Due to the lack of experienced generals and personnel, the whole defense process was unorganized with no–prioritization.
2. The Jin army was much bigger than the last time. Taizong sent a 150,000 strong force, having learnt from the first siege, when the Western Force was held up in Datong and could not advance on Kaifeng. This time, however, Datong was sacked within a month, and the full strength of the Western force was under the city walls.
3. Although Qinzong called for help and many responded, the rapidity of deployment of Jin troops made it impossible to aid the city. Song troops from all over the country, including Zhao Gou’s troops came to Kaifeng but were not able to get into the city.
4. Qinzong's trust in a minister who claimed he could bring "divine soldiers" (神兵) from the Heaven to the battleground was misplaced, causing much wasted time and human life.

On the January 9, 1127, Kaifeng fell. Emperor Qinzong and his father Huizong were captured by the Jin army and the Northern Song Dynasty fell.

Abduction

On March 20, 1127 AD, Jin troops summoned the two captured emperors to their camps. Awaiting them was a directive from Taizong that they were to be demoted to commoners, stripped of their ceremonial trappings and Jin troops would compound the imperial palace. This was just the beginning of weeks of looting, rapes, arson and execution of prisoners of war and civilians.

According to The Accounts of Jingkang, Jin troops looted the entire imperial library and the decorations in the palace. Jin troops also abducted all the female servants and imperial musicians. The royal family was abducted and their residences were looted. All the female prisoners were ordered, on pain of death, to serve the Jin aristocrats no matter what rank in society they had previously held. A Jin prince wanted to marry Huizong’s daughter Fujin, who had been other's wife. Later on the emperor’s concubines were also given to the prince by Taizong. To avoid captivity and slavery under the Jurchen, a lot of Chinese palace women committed suicide.

Taizong feared that the remaining Song troops would launch a counter offensive to reclaim the capital. Therefore, he set up in Kaifeng a puppet government for the lands south of the Yellow River (called Chu, 楚), and ordered all the assets and prisoners to be taken back to Jin's capital – Shangjing (near today's Harbin) in Manchuria. The captives would march to the Jin capital along with the assets. Over 14,000 people, including the entire royal family (except Zhao Gou) went on this “one-way” journey. Their entourage — almost all the ministers and generals of Northern Song Dynasty — suffered from sickness, dehydration and exhaustion, and many never made it. Upon arrival, each person had to go through a Jurchen ritual where the person has to be naked and wearing only sheep skins. Empress Zhu committed suicide because she could not bear the humiliation. Men were sold into slavery in exchange for horses with a ratio of ten men for one horse. Women were kept in a part of Jin palace called huanyiyuan(浣衣院) or offered for public bidding. Some Song princesses became Jin princes' concubines. Someone bought an “ex–royal” for less than ten ounces of gold.

Aftermath and appraisal

• The scale of destruction and devastation was unprecedented: treasures, art collections, scrolls from the imperial library and human lives were lost on a scale that the Chinese had never seen before. Due to the heavy damage to the country's economy and military, and the loss of talented manpower, the Southern Song Dynasty did not recover the lost territories, despite constant fighting between the Song and Jin, the territory was ruled by non-Han emperors. It would take another 200 years, in Ming Dynasty, to claim back all the territories that Song Dynasty lost.

• Many foreign–sounding, non-traditional Chinese family names existing in China today can date back to this incident, as the Han Chinese were forced to adapt a Jin last name. In fact, many members of the royal family of Qing Dynasty held the surname “Jueluo” (觉罗); it is believed that they were the descendants of Huizong and Emperor Qinzong.

• This invasion, combined with the later Mongol rule, were speculated to have caused China's advance into capitalism to fall behind by several centuries; although the Ming later restored the old order, their own fall to the Manchu were to stagnate China once more. This view is supported by the fact that the Song economy had been advanced, and exhibited many features of capitalism. According to this view, the Jingkang Incident holds historic significance in regard to China's decline in the modern age.

• Researchers in China who published their findings in the People's Political Consultative Daily in 2001, pointed out that this incident led to the transformation of Women's Rights after the Song Dynasty. Since the members of the royal family who were captured were sold as slaves or concubines, Chinese rulers after Song emphasized the importance of Sexual norm, especially a woman's chastity and loyalty towards her husband. Chinese rulers of later dynasties instructed that when a woman is confronted between the choice of survival or the honor of chastity, survival is not an option.

"The Four Generals of Zhongxing," painted by Liu Songnian during the Southern Song Dynasty. Yue Fei is the second person from the left. It is believed to be the "truest portrait of Yue in all extant materials."

Cultural references

• This incident was referred to as the "Lingering Humiliation of Jingkang" (靖康恥，猶未雪) in Man Jiang Hong, a lyrical poem commonly attributed to Song General Yue Fei which was written by someone else during the Ming Dynasty.

• In The Legend of the Condor Heroes, a wuxia novel by Jinyong, this national humiliation inspired the Quanzhen Taoist Qiu Chuji to name the two main characters, Guo Jing and Yang Kang, who were born soon afterwards in the storyline.

• In Bandit Kings of Ancient China, a video game by Koei, failure to win the game before 1127 results in the Jurchen occupying the entire China in January 1127, ending the game.

• Guy Gavriel Kay liberally fictionalizes the incident in River of Stars, an alternate historical fiction novel for adults. Kay uses alternate names for historic places and fictional characters.

See also

• Jin campaigns against the Song Dynasty
• Timeline of the Jin campaigns against the Song Dynasty
• Han Shizhong
• Li Qingzhao
• Zhou Tong (archer)

Further reading

• Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. (2013). Emperor Huizong (Harvard University Press; 2013) 661 pages; scholarly biography online review
• Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. (1999). The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-66991-X (paperback).
• Jing-shen Tao (1976) The Jurchen in Twelfth-Century China. University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95514-7.
• Franke, Herbert and Denis Twitchett. Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368 (Cambridge History of China, vol. 6). Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-521-24331-9. Partial text on Google Books.
• Kaplan, Edward Harold. Yueh Fei and the founding of the Southern Sung. Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Iowa, 1970. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1970.