Diminished Empire and Nomadic Challengers 79
true porcelain, using purifi ed clays, fi ring at temperatures of 1300 degrees
centigrade, and producing the fusion of glaze and body to produce a
glossy translucent surface. Song porcelains are particularly treasured by
collectors around the world for their beautiful monochrome glazes and
simple, elegant shapes. While the Song court sponsored the manufacture
of large quantities of the fi nest porcelain, for the fi rst time in the Song
period, highly skilled artisans began to produce such things as porcelain
and lacquerware on a large scale for the marketplace. During the Song,
porcelain surpassed silk as the premier Chinese export, reaching markets
as far west as the Persian Gulf and the west coast of Africa.
Perhaps no cultural symbol is more closely associated with the Song
dynasty than landscape painting. Song painters emphasized the beauty,
harmony, and magnifi cence of the natural world, particularly forested
mountains amid streams and valleys. In many paintings, human beings
are absent or barely visible, blending into the larger harmonies of nature.
If a hut or house appears, it blends in with the natural landscape and
never dominates or detracts. The busy urban offi cial treasured the rare
times when he could get away to the tranquility of deserted mountains
and streams and took great pleasure and solace in the landscapes hung on
his wall, or rolled in his drawer, to be brought out and shared with friends
over wine and the chanting of poetry. Poetry and painting were identifi ed
in another way, as painters and calligraphers regularly wrote poems on
landscape paintings. The beautiful language and calligraphy of the inscrip-
tion came to be seen as necessary complements to the painting itself.
Despite the economic prosperity, intellectual brilliance, and artis-
tic greatness of the Song dynasty, it was continuously under military
pressure from its nomadic neighbors to the north and west and in the
thirteenth century succumbed to a newly arrived nomadic force, the
Mongols of Central Asia.
Before defeating the Southern Song, the Mongols created the most
effective fi ghting force and the largest land empire the world had ever
seen. The process began with the rise in 1203 of Temuchin, a skilled
fi ghter, who was able to unify a whole federation of Mongol and other
nomadic tribes into one large fi ghting force. In 1206 Temuchin took
the title Genghis Khan, or “Ruler of the Oceans” (that is, the world).
Skilled and ferocious fi ghters, the Mongols under Genghis Khan, and
later his son, Ögödei, established their capital at the oasis town of Kara-
korum in today’s Mongolia. Mongol troops were organized in groups
of 100, 1,000 and 10,000, and there were 129 thousand-soldier units
when Genghis died in 1227. Troops traveled with three to fi ve horses
per soldier so they could carry supplies and weapons, change mounts