The History of China - #170 - S. Song 13: Stay of Execution

Episode Date: July 29, 2019

The Mongol Khanate is on the warpath against all who would stand against it... until several unexpected system errors for the whole system to reboot. How will Song China deal with these unexpected years of preparatory time? Time Period Covered: 1241-1260 CE Major Historical Figures: Song Dynasty: Emperor Lizong Chancellor Jia Sidao Mongol Empire: Ögedei Khan Toregene Khatun Guyuk Khan Oghul Khaimish Khatun Sorkhokhtani Beki Möngke Khan Khubilai Ilkhan General Uriyangkhadai Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. History isn't black and white, yet too often it's presented as such. Grey History, The French Revolution is a long-form history podcast dedicated to exploring the ambiguities and nuances of the past. From a revolution of hope and liberty to the infamous Reign of terror. You can't understand the modern world without understanding the French Revolution. So search for the French Revolution today. Hello and welcome to the History of China. Episode 170, Stay of Execution.

Last time, we left the besieged Song Dynasty round about the death of the second great Khan of the Mongols, Ogedei, in 1241. As I intoned then, this left the Mongol Empire in a strange state of flux. So today we're going to begin with a general overview of what was going on in both Mongolia and Song China that would result in most of the 1240s being a curious period of relative peace between the two otherwise warring empires. Then we'll get back into the action when Monga at last assumes the title of Great Khan. And just as a note, as usual, you can expect this to be covered in significantly more detail from the Mongol perspective when we get to it in the bonus episodes. But until then, consider this at least a primer so that we're all on roughly the same page. Ogedei Khan, a man infamous for his alcoholism and incessant drunkenness,

died as a result, most likely, of an extended drinking binge that caused his body to at last give out and fail. There was, however, considerable controversy at the time that he might have actually been poisoned by his youngest sister, Al-Atun, an accusation for which she was put to death by Ogedei's followers without trial, and for which they were subsequently condemned as having murdered an innocent girl solely to seize her lands. Ogedei would be the third of Genghis Khan's four sons by his queen, Bort, to die. His eldest brother, Jochi, had died just prior to his own father's death in 1225 under mysterious circumstances. Some indications seem to point to alcoholism, while others indicate that Genghis may have suspected him of betrayal,

a charge leveled against him by his own brother, Chagatai, and ordered him poisoned. The youngest son of Genghis, Tuli, had died in 1232 under likewise questionable circumstances. Duveni posits that he too succumbed to rampant alcoholism, but the Mongol histories paint a far more vivid story of Ogedei Khan, having just returned from campaigning in the south, being racked to the point of coma and near death because of quote-unquote Chinese water spirits wreaking vengeance on the outsider who had dared invade their lands. According to such tellings, when the Khan's shamans asked the spirits to divine them a means of releasing their grip on their lord, that perhaps

offering up a kinsman a sacrifice might suffice, Ogedei immediately awoke from his death-like state. Upon hearing what the shamans had divined, both Ogedei and Tolui agreed that the younger brother should sacrifice himself to free the great Khan of the spirit's curse. The shamans gave him a draught of what the secret history refers to as an oath-swearing draught, which he drank and then died. Many modern historians posit that he may simply have been poisoned unawares without having nobly volunteered himself first. Thus, at the time of Ogaday's death, there remained only Chagatai, Genghis and Bort's second son, who was still alive. Thus, there could be no doubt that it would be Chagatai who would succeed to the position of Great Khan. Yet within a year of Ogedei's death in 1242, Chagatai would

follow all three of his brothers, and under similarly murky circumstances. He is the only son for whom alcoholism seems to be an unlikely cause of death, since he's noted for having loudly and repeatedly criticized his younger brothers for overindulging in drink. Instead, and once again, poison seems the likely culprit. His wife, Yusulun, would accuse Chagatai's own steward, a Uyghur named Vajir, of fatally dosing the khan, and thereafter have him put to death. With all of Genghis's sons suddenly and prematurely dead, the Mongol Empire went into something of a system shock. The mechanisms were long in place to have absorbed Ogedei's passing, but certainly not Chagatai's so shortly thereafter. As such, the whole Asia-spanning war machine suddenly blue-screened of death.

No great Khan was immediately apparent or waiting in the wings, and the long-growing enmity between the Borjigin family's branches threatened to tear the empire apart, especially because there had never been a really clear layout of successional order. Why was that? Well, it all harkens back to one of the few decisions that Genghis Khan made when he was still alive that can well and truly be said to be stupid in hindsight. That is, he divided up his empire into four vast pieces and gave one of those chunks to each of his sons. Now, since he knew that at least two of his four sons hated each other outright, namely Jochi and Chagatai, he'd made all of them agree and swear that they would work

together, a promise that his sons had all honored to the last, and in any case was never really put to the test, owing to the fact that Jochi died prior to his own father's death. But the intervening decades had only seen those family branches grow more distant and more mutually hostile, and now three out of four of them were ruled over by the queens Genghis's sons had married. From Weatherford, quote, Yisulun, Chagatai's widow, ruled Central Asia or Turkestan. Sokhotani served as regent for eastern Mongolia and her son's advancing territory in northern China. Porygin ruled the territory of her late husband in the center of Mongol territory, and as empress, she presided over the whole empire. Only the Golden Horde of Russia, under the control of Batu Khan,

remained under male rule. Women ruled from Korea to the Caucasus Mountains, and from the Arctic to the Indus, but not one was the daughter of Genghis Khan, a member of the Borjigin clan, or even technically a Mongol. Never before or since had or has such a large empire been ruled by women. Yet these women were not allies, they were rivals, as each sought more power and lands for herself and her sons. End quote. It would be Torugin, the first woman to assume the title of Yekekatsun, meaning great queen or simply empress, who would assume formal command of the empire as these factions vied for supremacy and the right to declare one of their own as a next great Khan. Such authority had, in fact, been effectively hers for years prior to her husband's death, as he had given himself over

to hunting and drinking and been only too happy to allow his brilliant and ambitious queen to rule in his stead. It had long been the custom of the Mongols that a wife would assume the duties of the head of household when a husband died, until such a time as her eldest son came of age. It was therefore a natural and ready transference of this personal expectation to that of the state. As the deceased Great Khan's Empress, Turgene would reign as Queen Regent of the Mongol Empire until the next Great Khan was elected and enthroned via Kharltai, formerly making him the head of the family and the nation. Naturally, Turgene wished for her own son, the 36-year-old Goyuk, to replace his father and confirm her branch's preeminence among the Borjgians.

If she thought that she was going to have an easy sell to the other three family branches, however, she was in for an unpleasant surprise. Led by Batu, Jochi's eldest son, whose family had long nursed the grudge that their rightful place as the head of family had been displaced by Chagatai's slanderous accusations that Jochi was not truly one of Genghis's sons, and who had personally hated Guyuk over a dispute the two had had years prior. As such, the other three branches of the Borjigin clan were able to drag the confirmation process out for a painful four and a half years, Portoghene's mandate was nevertheless limited in scope. Where she held the most sway was in internal matters of the empire, specifically regarding

administrative and taxation-based policies. It seems that she had wide latitude to hire, fire, and reorganize ministers and officials at virtually every level of government, as well as personally implement and oversee new coinage and taxation policies within the realm. The most significant hobble put on her regency was in the realm of foreign policy, namely the ongoing conquests that had automatically been put on pause the moment that Ogedei had dropped dead. As virtually all Mongols of note were required to participate in the Great Kuril Thai to confirm the next Great Khan, major operations across all theaters, from Europe to Arabia to China, were all recalled virtually overnight, leaving the haggard defenders of those

regions often baffled by their seemingly invincible foes in explicable evaporation. Only operations already planned or in motion, that were of narrow enough scope to not require high-level oversight by those needed in Karakorum, could be carried out while Toregin reigned. Thus it was that the world got a five-year reprieve from its looming death sentence. So what did the Song Chinese do with this desperately needed time that the Borjigin family squabble had bought them? Well, for one, they were deeply misjudging the degree to which this internecine struggle was going to delay or weaken Mongol designs against them. The Song had apparently completely ruled out the prospect of a peaceful coexistence with the Mongols, to the point that they'd even arrested and held an inbound peace delegation sent by

Turgene in 1242. What they did do, however, was take the opportunity afforded them to strengthen their defenses and reorganize their command structures. This was especially needed along the western frontier, where the Mongol assaults had been most frequent and devastating. Especially effective generals were reassigned from their central or eastern command posts to Sichuan and Guizhou to better utilize their talents. New militia units were created and trained up, while old ones that had grown perhaps a little too unruly or threatened local order were disbanded and replaced. Yet, in spite of this overall increase in the number of local militias, the Song government also took this opportunity to decide that it really could cut down on costs if it substantively shrank its

regular army forces in critical regions at the same time. Quote, in better times, Sichuan had been defended by up to 80,000 men. The number fell to less than 50,000 by the 1240s. The quality of military leadership in Sichuan may have been enhanced, but the quantity of material resources invested by the Song court was minimal. Instead, in terms of both men and supplies, such vulnerable border regions were forced to rely largely on local recruitment and collection efforts, and Sichuan in particular, ravaged as it had been by repeated Mongol attacks, was critically short of both. This level of short-sighted miserliness seems only really explainable if the court at Hangzhou truly thought that the threat had passed, and that a more permanent state of border security had developed with their Mongol neighbors. Yet again, at the same time, the court abjectly refused to so much as speak of a permanent treaty to that

effect with the Khanate. It's enough to make one's head spin. And if they thought that the Mongol menace had permanently retreated, they wouldn't have too terribly long before being thoroughly disabused of any such notion. Back up in Karakorum, Turgi and Khatun's son, Glyuk, was at last confirmed as the third great Khan as of 1246, at the age of 40. In order to secure this, both she and Glyuk had been forced to undergo extensive political horse trading with the other Borjgin family lines, to the point that by the time of his confirmation, Glyuk Khan was extensively indebted to most of them. What was more, ever his father's son, Glyuk had from a youngbted to most of them. What was more, ever his father's son, Gliuk had from a young age followed Ogedei's tradition of drinking himself stupid day in and

day out. As a result, by the time of his election, he was already so plagued with chronic illness and both physical and mental weakness, quote, that he had neither the vitality nor the inclination to take an active part in managing the empire's affairs. He developed no general plan of action around which to mobilize the energies of his people, and his policy initiatives, few in number, were never forcibly implemented." Instead, he directed what energy he did still possess to partake in hunting, partying, drinking, and keeping an ever-watchful eye on his distant cousin, Batu. As I've mentioned earlier, the relationship between Goyuk and Batu was about as hostile as two people could possibly get. Whoever coined the term,

blood is thicker than water, had clearly never met either of these two. It had been largely through the efforts of Batu that Goyuk's confirmation had taken nearly five years. This was owing to the fact that in the tradition of the Kuril Thai, all family heads must be present at the ceremony and lend their unanimous support to the candidate for the decision to carry any weight. Much like the modern United Nations Security Council, any one of the family heads effectively carried veto power over any such decision, should they decide simply to not participate. Now, Batu wasn't quite so brazen as to outright say that he simply wasn't going to come or participate, or that he outright disapproved of Guyuk becoming the next Kayan. Instead, he claimed time and again that he was debilitated by a repeated flare-up of gout, which made the lengthy journey from the

Russian steppes impossible. Still, even by 1246, he still refused to personally come, likely and rightly fearing for his own life after having thwarted his soon-to-be great Khan for so long, and instead sent his elder brother, Orda, to act as representative. What this meant in the post-election period of 1246 and beyond was that in both Karakorum and Russia, both Khans were loath to commit their respective forces to any major military operations for fear that the other might move against him. Quote, Because an open conflict between the two seemed imminent,

the princes were unwilling to commit large numbers of their troops to a new round of external expansions. The empire, in brief, was edging towards civil war, and the potential antagonists were husbanding their resources for the inevitable clash of arms. End quote. It would be Guyuk, in an uncharacteristic display of decisiveness and resolve, who would make the first move in 1247.

Claiming that he was merely going on an imperial inspection tour, he set out from Karakorum westward into Dzungaria, the northern half of Xinjiang bordering Mongolia and Kazakhstan, and then proceeded further westward. At this point, the widow of Tuli, Sorkhaktani Beki, who had outwardly supported the house of Ogedei and Guyuk's claim to the throne, sent a secret message to Batu, informing the Khan of the golden horde of his cousin's movements and his hostile intentions. She did this, wisely it would

turn out, in an attempt to secure the goodwill of the Jochid line to further her own son, Monks, eventual claim to the throne. Batu thus mobilized his own force and proceeded eastward from his headquarters, Sarai Batu, near modern Astrakhan, Russia. It was all set to be a massive clash between the two greatest armies under Mongol command. And then, it sputtered and died. Literally. At a place called Kumsangar, one week's march from Beshbalik in Dzungaria, the old Uyghur summer capital on the slopes of the Tien Shan Mountains, Goyuk Khan died at the age of 42. And, as has now become startlingly typical of the Borjgi men, there was little agreement about how or why his death occurred.

Some analyses blame his, yep, alcoholism. As Frank puts it, quote, Glioc's frail constitution finally gave way, end quote. Others suspect poisoning, while still others, such as the contemporary Franciscan missionary Willem van Rubrik, who would write of his second hand following his stay in the court of Monk Khan in the mid-1250s, Glioc got into a brawl with one of Batu's younger brothers, Prince Shiban, and was killed in the court of Mongkhan in the mid-1250s, Gliuk got into a brawl with one of Batu's younger brothers, Prince Shiban, and was killed in the ensuing melee. Insert here new blue screen of death reference, queue shutdown of the entire empire, call off the armies. Yes, we need a new new Kuril Tai, only two years after the last one. And of course, in the interim, we'll need a regent,

a yeke katun like Toregin before. And like Toregin had been for Ogedei, it would again be the great Khan's widow, this time Queen Ogul Gaimish. She was, however, not nearly as smooth of an operator as her predecessor, and as it would quickly become apparent, no match for Sorkhaktani's political machinations. Oluogaymesh's own powers were much diminished from those of Turgigin, but even though she did retain, she and her family used to counterproductive ends. For instance, during her tenure, she opted to dramatically raise levels of taxation on nomads' herds from approximately 1%, as it had been since at least 1234, to an unprecedented 10% by 1250. Exactly why she found this necessary is difficult to fathom, but it undoubtedly did little to endear her, and thereby her whole Ogedei line, to one of the most critical populations of the Mongol Empire,

the pastoral nomads, and at a time when currying such favor was of utmost importance. Even worse, though, was the fact that her family seemed completely unable to rally around a single candidate to replace Glyuk as the next great khan. No fewer than three young men vied for the position, two of Ogil Gaimish's own sons, as well as a cousin, each of whom established their own separate courts and curried favor among the electorate for themselves. Sorkhaktani and her Toluids, on the other hand, had long laid the groundwork for this moment, and quickly rallied to a united front around their predetermined candidate, her eldest son, Monk. The Jyotids under Batu Khan,

remembering Sorkhaktani's earlier help, and likewise determined that no further scion of Ogedei should be elevated, were quick to lend their own support to Möngke's election campaign, calling for an immediate kurultai to be convened where Batu was now encamped, where his army had stopped on its way to meet Guyuk when the great Khan had died, a place called Alakamakh. At this suggestion, the Ogedeids balked. Since the elevation of Holy Genghis, no Mongol kurultai had ever been convened anywhere but along the sacred Karalun and Onon rivers, on the home soil of Mongolia, and they'd certainly brook no deviation from that tradition now. The House of Chagatai lent their support to this complaint, and as such, the initial congress was brought to a halt. a single candidate, however. As time wound on, it became increasingly difficult for Ogil Gaimish to repeatedly deny Batu and Sorkaktani's repeated exhortations that a new Khan must be chosen. At last, when they threatened that should the houses of Ogadai and Chagatai continue to demur, then the houses of Tolui and Jochi would move forward without them, and neither their voices

nor counsel would be heard, nor their requirements taken into consideration. With little else that any of them could do now, Ogilgheimish's two sons at last agreed to send representatives to the Alakamak Keraltai, even though they still refused to personally take part. In all human history, there are few stories like that of ancient Egypt. On the banks of the Nile, these people created one of the most enduring and significant cultures. Their tale comes to life in the History of Egypt podcast. Every week, we explore the tales of this amazing culture, from the legendary days of creation and the gods, all the way to Cleopatra, and everything in between. The History of Egypt podcast is written and produced by a trained Egyptologist.

We go much deeper than your average documentary or magazine article, to uncover tales of life, great endeavours, and the amazing arc of a mighty kingdom. The History of Egypt podcast is available on all podcasting platforms, apps, and websites. Come, visit ancient Egypt, and experience a legendary culture. The outcome was, of course, never in any serious doubt, even when a messenger from Ogilgaimish arrived and belatedly put forth her son, Sheremun, as a candidate. While pleading his case, when the emissary noted that Sheremun had been duly nominated by Ogaday as his successor, the Toluids responded by pointing out that the deceased Kayan's

instructions on this score had been blatantly violated years ago by his own family and were thus no longer in force. Unable to counter this argument, Sheramun's spokesman sat down, end quote. Thus, following short speeches by first Batu Khan and then the son of the late great general Subutai, or Yanggadai, urging all assembled to acclaim among their new lord, the gathered notables did so unanimously without delay. The following year, in a belated and thoroughly cynical effort to ex post facto legitimize the whole proceeding, a second pro forma curl tie was arranged, as per tradition, on the Mongol steps at the confluence

of the Keralun and Onon rivers. This would be marked by a notable attempt on the new great Khan's life, but that's a story for another episode. The long and the short of it was that by 1250, Monk, Tolui's eldest son reigned supreme over the empire in what had been, at least nominally, a peaceful transference of power. It would be the last such succession to prove so halcyon. It would be under Monk, or more accurately, his younger brother Kublai, that military operations against Song China would not only reinitialize, but transform from mere harassment, pillage, and weakening to out-and-out conquest. This came as merely one part of the far broader effort by Meng Khan to fulfill his grandfather's mandate to rule all under Tangri, and reflected the new sovereign's confidence in his empire's ability to mobilize sufficient men and material across multiple warfronts simultaneously. Almonk himself would initially maintain focus on the further subjugation of Persia and the West. He directed Kublai, at this point in his mid-30s, and his chief lieutenant, Subedai's son Uriankadai, to conduct operations against the Song

in much the same way as they had against the Jin, namely by encircling and then strangling their foe from all directions, allowing them no chance of respite or escape. This ringing operation would therefore begin with Kublai overseeing operations against the far southwestern kingdom of Dali in modern Yunnan, ruled over then by the Duan royal family. Quote, starting from Shaanxi, the Mongolian armies reached the Tao River in the fall. The advanced force under the Chinese general Wang Dechun then penetrated the Sichuan Basin, defeating the local Song garrisons, and established a major Mongolian base in the city of Lijou. With its forward operating base thus established, and its supply and communication lines well secured, Kublai then advanced directly against the Dali kingdom in

the fall of 1253. Once he arrived and established his command post along the Jinsha river to the west, Kublai divided his army into three columns and marched against the unsuspecting kingdom. It would not prove to be a protracted war. Beginning direct combat in December of 1253, within a single month's time, Dali's resistance had been quelled and its capital taken. Interestingly, though the Dali government refused to surrender outright, often a harbinger of great destruction to follow, in this instance, the damage seems to have been very limited. The Duan government was allowed to remain intact and in place under Mongol suzerainty and oversight, and its king, Duan Xingzhi, was ultimately transported to Mongkhan directly, and thereafter

confirmed as the kingdom's subjugated ruler, given the title Moholotsa, a phoneticization of Maharaja, or Great King. With Dali thus brought to heel, Kublai subsequently returned to Mongolia toward the end of 1254 to report his success to his brother and consult with him about their next step against the Song. He would leave General Uriyankidai in charge of the southwest, charged with the further pacification and subjugation of the local Man and Lolo tribes that had yet to bend to Mongol hegemony. His efforts, though they'd take a few years in the dense jungles of Yunnan, would ultimately prove successful, and he would return north to Gansu to rejoin the central command as of early 1257 and inform Meng that the whole of Yunnan was firmly under Mongolian control. Following this,

Uriankadai would soon return south to prepare for further operations against the kingdoms of Southeast Asia, first targeting the northern Vietnamese kingdom of Annam. But again, that's a tale for another time. Meanwhile, in the north, Kublai had been busy as well. Beginning in 1254, raiding and reconnoitering operations were stepped up considerably by monks Ilkhan of the left, as well as a campaign of political and propagandistic warfare aimed at inducing defections among the Chinese, all while preparing for the upcoming python squeeze that was to follow. The details of such plans, and what they signaled was inevitably to come, were not lost on the Song court, and they took what countermeasures they could.

As of early 1257, for instance, more than 100,000 troops were transferred to Sichuan in preparation for the Mongol strike. They could scarcely have been timelier, because almost as soon as they arrived at their post, the main Mongol assault commenced in force. For several years at this point, Kublai had been carefully and secretly building up his headquarters in and around Hunan as an independent power base from which he might eventually challenge the authority of his elder brother. Markedly unlike Monk's other brother, Hulagu, who had been assigned as the Great Khan's Ilkhan of the Right in Western Asia and Europe, Kublai had always chafed under his sibling's command

and wished to succeed monk. Now, that title, Ilkhan, I've thrown around a couple of times at this point, and it bears taking a minute to flesh out just what exactly it means. As I touched upon already, upon Genghis's death in 1226, he divided his empire up among his four sons, each of them becoming the rulers of their own Khanate, to have broad internal authority of law, custom, taxation, and military affairs, but to be overarchingly ruled by the Great Khan or Khayan. These individual Khanates within the larger Great Mongol Empire and their titles were inheritable within the ruling families of each, namely the lines of the first Khayan's sons. It's broadly analogous to the concept of regional kings or princes or even

governors having general sovereignty in their individual realms while remaining under the ultimate jurisdiction of an emperor. Monk's two brotherly Ilkhans, on the other hand, had been directly and simultaneously appointed by him in 1251. As a result, they had far less autonomy over their mandates or their actions. They were both given command over field armies and placed in control of the theaters of operation, with Hulagu again in West Asia and Kublai in North China, and they were both allowed to build up a court of local specialists to assist them in governance of their territories and the furtherance of their respective war efforts. But there were key differences in their powers from that of the greater Khans. As direct appointees of Munk,

the great Khan reserved the right to appoint and discharge key officials within his brother's jurisdictions. Both, in other words, were subordinate Khans, whose rights to their territories were entirely contingent on the emperor's will, and neither, because their lands had been granted to them by their elder brother in a secondary dispensation, had the stature of the other regional Khans, such as the Jochids and Chagadids, whose lands and titles had been allotted to them by Genghis's original dispensation. End quote. So that was what had Kublai all forlorn and unhappy and quasi-treasonous, that he was a lesser Khan, a mere ill Khan, and that's all he would ever be. Unless...

Unfortunately for him, in 1257, ostensibly tipped off by complaints of corruption in Shanxi, but likely because he'd received a hot tip about his brother's plans to make a power grab for the throne itself, Monk initiated a massive investigation of Kublai's activities in China. His agents seized records, interrogated officials, executed those found guilty of malfeasance, at least at the lower and mid-tiers of the officialdom, and ultimately subjected the whole region to punitive levels of taxation and levies. Against this level of scrutiny, Kublai had no option but to, in essence, throw himself upon the mercy of his brother's court. Again from Frank, Although outraged at this turn of events, Kublai was in no position to defy the emperor at this time. On the advice of Yao Shu, he exercised his only viable option and traveled to Mongolia in

early 1258 to reaffirm his loyalty and beg his older brother's indulgence. The latter, placated by this show of submissiveness, drastically curtailed Kublai's administrative authority in northern China, but took no further punitive action against him." Apparently satisfied that his brother was once again under his thumb, Meng retained his attention on China as a whole. With the Song government very clearly unwilling to read the writing on the wall, and still flatly rejecting peace proposal after peace proposal sent by the Khanate, Mong thus resolved to put this recalcitrant kingdom in its place once and for all, and thereby invited his contrite younger brother to take his due place at his side in executing this operation. Moving south of the Gobi and into northern China,

Mong joined Kublai and the other Mongol princes, where the Khan laid out his campaign strategy. His armies would be divided into three invasion forces, the western army to be led by the great Mongk joined Kublai and the other Mongol princes, where the Khan laid out his campaign strategy. His armies would be divided into three invasion forces, the Western army to be led by the Great Khan himself, the center by Kublai Ilkhan, and the eastern force by Prince Tagachar. They would undertake simultaneous assaults against Sichuan, the Middle Yangtze region, and Huanan, respectively. They'd likewise be supported by a fourth assault from the southwest as General Uriankidai struck northward from his base in Yunnan, a four-pronged talon piercing Song from every direction but the Pacific. One by one across western Sichuan, the Mongol Emperor led his force in reducing and seizing city after Chinese city, and accepting the surrenders of numerous Song officials. In January of 1259, he attacked and

sacked Yan'an, and then advanced on the major garrison city along the Jialing River known as Hezhou. Meng's siege of the city would be maintained across that spring and summer until July, when, having heroically thwarted every attempt by the Khan's army to storm their positions, the Hezhou defenders must have been deeply relieved to see the bulk of the Mongol soldiers arrayed outside their walls disappear over the horizon. Even so, Meng had some 3,000 of his men maintain their blockade of the city. The rest of his army, he decided, would be better used in attacking Chongqing to the far south. Against this unprecedentedly ferocious assault, far and away the most significant invasion in the last 20 years at least, what was the Song bureaucracy and its emperor Lidong doing? Well, apart from having wisely

sent 100,000 troops to Sichuan the year prior, surprisingly little. Lidong himself had rather lost himself to the pursuit of women, infamously hosting lavish parties and even inviting common prostitutes from the streets to entertain him in private, and all with the assistance of the palace eunuchs, if the puritanical Confucian moralist pro-clutching of the later historians is to be taken at face value at least. Regardless, it is very clear that a certain bizarre torpor had gripped the Song imperial court in the latter half of the 1250s. Though the chancellor in 1256, Cheng Yuanfeng, did augment the standing western armies, that was his only notable achievement in terms of defense, even as the

imminent Mongol invasion was undeniable. He, quote, devised no imaginative scheme for financing and expanding the war, no new strategy to counter the Mongol initiative in Sichuan, and no peace alternative should the fortunes of the war turn unfavorable, end quote. In fact, mere months into the renewed hostilities of 1258, Chancellor Cheng resigned his office, and if Cheng's general malaise had been questionable, then his chosen replacement was truly inexplicable. The new chief counselor would be Ding Datuan, who was appointed that spring. In spite of the fact that Sichuan was, you know, currently on fire, Ding responded with, no it isn't, everything's fine, it's just, uh, Aurora Borealis. Davis writes, quote, Ding is charged by the traditional historians with being

oblivious to the crisis. Initially refuting his predecessor's warning about inadequate defenses, he later imposed a ban on all discussion of the border situation. End quote. Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within Sichuan? Yes. May I see it? No. Unsurprisingly, Ding's attempt to say that the house wasn't on fire would have been laughable if it didn't threaten the immediate future of the entire dynasty. Unproductive, unenforceable, and just out-and-out incomprehensible, it served only to further tarnish his already not-exactly-squeaky-clean reputation both at the time and in later histories. Fortunately, perhaps, his tenure was relatively short. By the end of 1259, even the usually quiet and reserved Emperor Lidong

had grown tired of Ding's incompetence and dismissed him. Instead, he would now turn to an old and trusted personal friend, the minister Jia Sidao, who was appointed Chief Counselor of the Right in November of 1259. Now, I know there's probably a fair few of us for whom Josset out is, if you've heard of him at all, little more than the main antagonist of season one in Netflix's blessedly brief Marco Polo series. And big shocker, they played pretty fast and loose with the details. As I've said before, and I'll say again, just about the only thing that show got right were the costumes, the sets, and casting Benedict Wong as Kublai. Okay, so let's go ahead and dispel some Netflix myths right off the bat. There was a rumor that he did like cricket fighting, but there's no evidence that he was

like weirdly obsessed with it to the point that he was called the cricket minister or gave crickets as gifts to the child emperor. No, He did not come from some impoverished background of beggars, but instead a very well-to-do and highly respected family. It seems like the show took the charge that he never passed the civil service exam, which was true, and then took that to mean he was a beggar who pimped out his sister. No. He did have a sister, yes, and yes, she was one of the favored concubines of Emperor Li Zong for a time, but Consort Jia actually had died in 1247, more than a decade prior to his appointment as Chancellor. She certainly wasn't the oriental femme fatale Machiavellian mastermind behind her brother's success that we see in the show.

And for goodness sake, Jia Sidao absolutely did not practice Mantis-style kung fu. That style wasn't even invented until the mid-Ming dynasty. I mean, come on, Netflix. And finally, no, he would never once blow away an Empress Dowager with a porcelain shotgun, although that scene was, to be fair, hilarious. So now that we've successfully exercised the quote-unquote cricket minister from our souls, let's take a little look at the actual Jia Sidao, the man who will play such a crucial role in the decade of warfare to come between the Song and the Mongols. A native of Taizhou,

Zhejiang, along the south-central coast of China, Sidao was the son of the commissioner of Shandong. As I mentioned, his family had been favored by the imperial court with the appointment of Sidao was the son of the Commissioner of Shandong. As I mentioned, his family had been favored by the imperial court with the appointment of Sidao's sister, Lady Jia, as an imperial consort. Though he, like his father before him, lacked the jinshi examination credentials that were typical of imperial officials, Sidao nevertheless was recognized from an early age as being marked out for rapid advancement through the ranks because of his own intelligence and achievements. In his 20s and 30s, he held an unusually high number of posts, especially those of military interface and oversight, including prefect, pacification commissioner, and fiscal

overseer. Davis writes, quote, these promotions were rare even for degree holders, and Joss Hedau's meteoric rise can be explained only by his natural talent backed by family privilege. He would likewise hold posts as commissioner of Jiangnan West, Jinghu, and the Yangtze regions, all of which gave him valuable political and military experience in strategically vital theaters along the northern border. By 1254, he was given his first assignment at the capital itself as an associate administrator at the Bureau of Military Affairs. So this is not some dunce kid, he is a brilliant strategist and mastermind. Owing to his lack of the official credentials, this actually placed Jia Sidao in a fairly unique position within the Song command structure. Undeniably talented and capable as a

bureaucrat and administrator, Sidao was likewise able to achieve ranks and appointments beyond and outside what a quote-unquote normal bureaucrat could seek within the divided military bureaucratic system of the dynasty, namely to quasi-military postings with which he'd come to closely identify and associate himself in his career. As you'll no doubt recall, for the vast majority of Song history, such close associations with the military would have effectively been career poison for an aspiring bureaucrat of the normal variety. But the times, they were a-changing, and the existential military crisis that now gripped the empire at the dawn of 1260 necessitated that the emperor, quote,

place an unusually high premium on military expertise, end quote, meaning that Jia Sidao, especially as an old and trusted friend to Lidzong, was just the man for the task. As the new chancellor of the right, Sidao moved with alacrity to purge the Song government of the cronies and lackeys of the previous administrations who had failed so utterly to counter the growing Mongol threat to the north and the west. He cancelled the proposal, for instance, by ex-chancellor Ding, that the capital be moved further from the border, from Hangzhou to Mingzhou, rejecting such an idea outright as rank defeatism, and insisted that the current border would be where the Song would make their stand against this foreign invasion army. At long last was a head of government willing, ready, and able to take a bold military stance against the Mongol menace. The Song was as prepared as it could be for a final epic clash

between them, for the sake of civilization itself and future generations of free Chinese. Right up until word arrived from Sichuan in late 1259 or early 1260 that there would be no great clash of civilizations, at least not for now and not for the foreseeable future. Because the messages all said the same thing, that the Mongol force that had been ravaging the west all packed up and had gone home. Mongk Khan was dead. Outside the city walls of Chongqing, the Great Khan had opted to stay over the summer, rather than withdrawing north as was typical for the steppe warriors. There, in the sweltering humidity of the southern Sichuan summer,

likely because of either dysentery or an infected wound that he'd received from a defensive cannon, Meng became feverish, unresponsive, and then had died on the 11th or 12th of August, 1259. Kublai had taken almost all of his forces back north along with his brother's body, calling off all further campaigning in China. It was far more pressing business at hand for him to attend to, for there would need to be another great Kurultai, and he intended to emerge as its victor and the next great Khan of his grandfather's empire. For the Song, and once again for much of the known world not yet within the Mongol sphere of influence, it would mean yet another stay of execution and yet another lease

on life, in Song China's case delaying its own destruction by a further two decades. For the great Mongol nation, it would mean the shattering of Genghis's dream and his empire. His sons had maintained through gritted teeth the semblance of unity and a greater loyalty to the unity of the empire than their own ambitions. The election of monk had strained that civility to its limits, and now, with a curl tie of 1260, the grandsons of Genghis will plunge their empire into a civil war that will shatter it forever. Thanks for listening. never set. I'm Samuel Hume, a historian of the British Empire, and my podcast Pax Britannica follows the people and events that built that empire into a global superpower. Learn the history of the British Empire by listening to Pax Britannica everywhere you find your podcasts,

or go to pod.link slash pax.