Ch’in K’ui, one of the largest landowners of all.  His estates were around Nanking, and so in the deployment region and the region from which most of the soldiers had to be drawn for the defensive struggle.  Ch’in K’ui secured the assassination of the leader of the military party, General Yo Fei, in 1141, and was able to conclude peace with the Juchen.  The Sung had to accept the status of vassals and to pay annual tribute to the Juchen.  This was the situation that best pleased the greater gentry.  They paid hardly any taxes (in many districts the greater gentry directly owned more than 30 per cent of the land, in addition to which they had indirect interests in the soil), and they were now free from the war peril that ate into their revenues.  The tribute amounted only to 500,000 strings of cash.  Popular literature, however, to this day represents Ch’in K’ui as a traitor and Yo Fei as a national hero.

In 1165 it was agreed between the Sung and the Juchen to regard each other as states with equal rights.  It is interesting to note here that in the treaties during the Han time with the Hsiung-nu, the two countries called one another brothers—­with the Chinese ruler as the older and thus privileged brother; but the treaties since the T’ang time with northern powers and with Tibetans used the terms father-in-law and son-in-law.  The foreign power was the “father-in-law”, i.e. the older and, therefore, in a certain way the more privileged; the Chinese were the “son-in-law”, the representative of the paternal lineage and, therefore, in another respect also the more privileged!  In spite of such agreements with the Juchen, fighting continued, but it was mainly of the character of frontier engagements.  Not until 1204 did the military party, led by Han T’o-wei, regain power; it resolved upon an active policy against the north.  In preparation for this a military reform was carried out.  The campaign proved a disastrous failure, as a result of which large territories in the north were lost.  The Sung sued for peace; Han T’o-wei’s head was cut off and sent to the Juchen.  In this way peace was restored in 1208.  The old treaty relationship was now resumed, but the relations between the two states remained tense.  Meanwhile the Sung observed with malicious pleasure how the Mongols were growing steadily stronger, first destroying the Hsia state and then aiming the first heavy blows against the Juchen.  In the end the Sung entered into alliance with the Mongols (1233) and joined them in attacking the Juchen, thus hastening the end of the Juchen state.

The Sung now faced the Mongols, and were defenceless against them.  All the buffer states had gone.  The Sung were quite without adequate military defence.  They hoped to stave off the Mongols in the same way as they had met the Kitan and the Juchen.  This time, however, they misjudged the situation.  In the great operations begun by the Mongols in 1273 the Sung were defeated over and over again.  In 1276 their capital was taken by the Mongols and the emperor was made prisoner.  For three years longer there was a Sung emperor, in flight from the Mongols, until the last emperor perished near Macao in South China.