Also unlike the Tang Dynasty, the Song would confront a large, power-
ful, and coherent steppe empire to its northeast, the Kitan Liao Dynasty, and
a smaller, but still potent kingdom to its northwest, the Tanguts, or Xixia (as
the Song called them). These polities presented a number of challenges to the
Song and limited its northward influence. Beginning in the early twelfth
century a new steppe power developed to the north of the Liao. The Jurchen,
formerly a people subject to the Liao, began what would prove to be an
inexorable process of destroying their overlords. The Song government,
implacably, if irrationally, hostile to the Liao even after a century of peace,
allied themselves with the Jurchen to destroy the Liao. This move was
successful in some respects–the Liao Dynasty was destroyed in 1125 –
but it ultimately turned out poorly for the Song as well. The Jurchen, like the
Kitan Liao before them, adopted a Chinese style dynastic name, the Jin, and
a hybrid steppe-Chinese government system; they quarreled with the Song
over the spoils of the war against the Liao. In the conflict that followed, the
Jurchen Jin army captured the Song capital at Kaifeng, along with the
emperor, retired emperor, and most of the imperial family in 1127.
One of the imperial princes who escaped this disaster reformed the Song
government in south China. The Jurchen, who had not expected to capture
the Song capital, quickly shifted their efforts to destroying completely the
remnants of the Song imperial house. One of the great patriotic heroes of
Chinese history, a general named Yue Fei ( 1103 – 42 ), emerged in the
ultimately successful struggle for Song survival. But the Song did not
recover the north and remained deadlocked with the Jurchen at the line
of the Huai River. Repeated major wars with the Jin did little to change
things until, as happened before, a new power arose to the north of the Jin.
Once again the Song court allied itself with the new power, the Mongols,
and once again the object of their mutual hostility was duly destroyed.
History continued to replay itself, though this time it took half a century
for the Mongols to conquer the Song. While the Song held out forfifty
years, the Mongols conquered enormous swathes of Eurasia, establishing
the largest land empire in human history.
The period between the Tang and the Song dynasties wasfirst called the
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period in the eleventh century. Ever
since then Chinese historians have generally neglected the period, summa-
rily dismissing it as an aberrant time of disunion between great dynasties.
Perhaps just as important, at least for modern historians, the period lacked
a unifying political focus and is therefore extremely difficult to study. In
terms of martial arts, apart from the extensive amount offighting and
many impressive warriors, the only innovation seems to be the appearance
114 The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms and the Song Dynasty