[Illustration:  12 Ancient tiled pagoda at Chengting (Hopei). Photo H. Hammer-Morrisson.]

[Illustration:  13 Horse-training.  Painting by Li Lung-mien.  Late Sung period. Manchu Royal House Collection.] The Hsia state had a ruling group of Toba, but these Toba had become entirely tibetanized.  The language of the country was Tibetan; the customs were those of the Tanguts.  A script was devised, in imitation of the Chinese script.  Only in recent years has it begun to be studied.

In 1125, when the Tungusic Juchen destroyed the Liao, the Hsia also lost large territories in the east of their country, especially the province of Shensi, which they had conquered; but they were still able to hold their own.  Their political importance to China, however, vanished, since they were now divided from southern China and as partners were no longer of the same value to it.  Not until the Mongols became a power did the Hsia recover some of their importance; but they were among the first victims of the Mongols:  in 1209 they had to submit to them, and in 1227, the year of the death of Genghiz Khan, they were annihilated.

(4) The empire of the Southern Sung dynasty (1127-1279)

1 Foundation

In the disaster of 1126, when the Juchen captured the Sung capital and destroyed the Sung empire, a brother of the captive emperor escaped.  He made himself emperor in Nanking and founded the “Southern Sung” dynasty, whose capital was soon shifted to the present Hangchow.  The foundation of the new dynasty was a relatively easy matter, and the new state was much more solid than the southern kingdoms of 800 years earlier, for the south had already been economically supreme, and the great families that had ruled the state were virtually all from the south.  The loss of the north, i.e. the area north of the Yellow River and of parts of Kiangsu, was of no importance to this governing group and meant no loss of estates to it.  Thus the transition from the Northern to the Southern Sung was not of fundamental importance.  Consequently the Juchen had no chance of success when they arranged for Liu Yue, who came of a northern Chinese family of small peasants and had become an official, to be proclaimed emperor in the “Ch’i” dynasty in 1130.  They hoped that this puppet might attract the southern Chinese, but seven years later they dropped him.

2 Internal situation

As the social structure of the Southern Sung empire had not been changed, the country was not affected by the dynastic development.  Only the policy of diplomacy could not be pursued at once, as the Juchen were bellicose at first and would not negotiate.  There were therefore several battles at the outset (in 1131 and 1134), in which the Chinese were actually the more successful, but not decisively.  The Sung military group was faced as early as in 1131 with furious opposition from the greater gentry, led by