Jin Destroys Northern Song; Southern Song Founded

In joining Northern Song to attack Liao, Jin saw Northern Song's political corruption and military weakness. After destroying Liao in 1125, Jin forces at once marched south against Song in two columns. Emperor Huizong of Song panicked and passed the throne to his son Emperor Qinzong. In early 1126 the Jin eastern army besieged Kaifeng; the pro-war minister Li Gang organized soldiers and civilians to hold on, and the Jin could not take it and withdrew after Song agreed to cede the three prefectures of Taiyuan, Zhongshan and Hejian and pay large amounts of gold and silver. Qinzong and Huizong had no heart to resist and thought only of compromise, and after the Jin withdrew they dismissed Li Gang and relaxed their guard. That autumn the Jin came south again, and a Jin commander remarked: “The southern court has no men. With even one or two thousand guarding the river, how could we have crossed!” In the intercalary eleventh month of 1126 Jin forces broke Kaifeng. In 1127 Jin demoted Huizong and Qinzong to commoners and carried the two emperors, with consorts, the imperial clan and officials, over three thousand people in all, to the north, ending Northern Song. As this occurred in Qinzong's Jingkang era, it is called the “Jingkang Incident” or “Humiliation of Jingkang”. In the fifth month of that year Huizong's ninth son, Zhao Gou, Prince of Kang, took the throne at Yingtian Prefecture (present-day Shangqiu, Henan) and refounded Song as Emperor Gaozong. As the Jin kept pressing south, Gaozong retreated step by step and eventually made Lin'an (present-day Hangzhou, Zhejiang) his capital: Southern Song.