It’s always exciting to move into a new house. That sense of expectation, of planning where to arrange things, that glorious feeling of being home. It’s probably less thrilling if you’ve moved into your new home because the bank foreclosed on the old house. Even less so if the new place is half the size of the old one and you lost all of your furniture and savings in the move…and half your family was in the clutches of murderous marauders from the north. I’m just saying.
Such was the fate of the Southern Song, founded this date in 1127 after losing their capital, an emperor, most of the imperial family, and the top half of China to the Jurchen invaders of the Jin Dynasty. No worries though. Within 150 years years they’d lose the bottom half too, this time to the Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty. Whoopsie.
Sadder still, on June 12, 1127 the Southern Song weren’t even really moved in yet, it would be little while longer before a new capital was established at Lin’an (present day Hangzhou). Yep, they founded the new dynasty while, in imperial and dynastic terms, they were still sleeping in the Ryder truck.
That said, the Southern Song was a time of economic growth, a vigorous intellectual and artistic environment, and a dynamic society especially in the cities–at least until the Mongols crashed the party in the late-13th century.
Anyway…happy anniversary Southern Song!
Geez, with that first paragraph you had me thinking my in-laws had been raiding Dongzhimen Nei and had neglected to invite me along for the party….. But the last time they did that was back in the Warring States.