The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 06. Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368
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THE POLITICAL HISTORY
OF
CHIN AFTER II42
251
Mongols for a long time, and bloody feuds had flared up between them time
and again. The Tatars were loosely allied with the Chin, but around 1190
they renounced their allegiance. A punitive expedition against them was
organized by the Chin under the imperial clansman Wan-yen Hsiang in
1196,
and the Mongols joined this campaign to take their revenge against
their old enemies. Jurchen and Mongolian forces together penetrated deeply
into Mongolia and at last, in the eighth month of 1196, succeeded in
inflicting a crushing defeat on the Tatars, whose tribal chief perished on this
occasion.
The Mongolian contingents had fought together with their allies from the
Kereyid tribe under To'oril. Their assistance in quelling Tatar power and
aspirations was rewarded by the Chin emperor; To'oril was given the rank of
prince (wang) and was henceforth known as Ong khan, whereas Temiijin (the
name by which Chinggis khan was called before his enthronement as khan in
1206) was invested with a lesser title, probably of Khitan origin. In any case
he had to regard himself from then on as an outer vassal of the Chin, although
the title he had received from the Chin court must have enhanced his prestige
among the other steppe tribes. It is self-evident that after his rise in 1206
Chinggis khan was no longer content to be treated as a Chin vassal and that he
aimed at formal independence from the Chin, however loose his vassal status
might have been. An additional motive might have been the conquest of Chin
territory, a country that must have seemed full of incredible riches to the
steppe nomads. A third motive was perhaps revenge for the death of
Ambaghai khan. Ambaghai had been proclaimed as the successor of Khabul
khan and the leader of the Mongolian federation. He was a cousin of Khabul
and the founder of the Tayichi'ud lineage of the Mongols. He, too, was on bad
terms with the Tatars, who in one of the constant raids on each other took him
prisoner and extradited him to their Chin overlords. The Chin, it seems, then
had him killed cruelly. Chinggis khan, who considered himself a legitimate
successor of Ambaghai khan as leader of the Mongols, perhaps resented the
ignominious death of Ambaghai at the hands of the Chin, but this must
remain speculative in view of the deficiency of our sources.
Finally, yet another reason for Chinggis's hatred of Chin may well have
been personal biases of the Chin ruler
himself.
When he was still a minor
Chin prince, Wei-shao wang had accepted the customary tribute presents
from Chinggis khan and, in the eyes of the Mongolian ruler, had behaved
insolently toward him. When they received an order from the ruler of Chin,
the Mongolian tribute bearers should have kowtowed before the representa-
tives of the Chin state. But when Chinggis khan learned that the new Chin
emperor was Wei-shao wang, who had earlier insulted him, he flew into a
rage and in 1210 broke off tributary relations with Chin, deciding on an all-
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252 THE CHIN DYNASTY
out attack against his Jurchen overlords.'
8
This decision was certainly
prompted by information that the Chin state at that time was suffering from
a severe famine.
In the spring of 1211 the Mongols advanced on the Chin borders with two
armies, the eastern one led by Chinggis khan himself (see Map 19). The
border fortifications constructed some years earlier under Chang-tsung were
easily overrun, and soon the Mongolian forces were able to take the strategic
pass of Chii-yung kuan that protected the Chin Central Capital (modern
Peking) in the north. The reinforcements sent by the Chin high command
were easily defeated by the Mongols, who then plundered and ravaged the
countryside around the capital. But there was no attempt to invest and take
the city at that time. On the western front the Mongols advanced into Shansi
and thereby prevented Chin auxiliary troops in Shensi, where strong garri-
sons protected the border with Hsi Hsia, from coming to the rescue of the
Chin armies on the eastern front. All of this shows the strategic ability of
Chinggis khan, but apparently the campaign of 1211 did not yet have
conquest as its objective; it was, rather, a series of reconnaissance raids and
expeditions to pillage the countryside. During the winter the Mongols with-
drew their armies, which gave the Chin a chance to reorganize their northern
and northwestern defenses.
The Mongols renewed their attacks in the autumn of 1212. In the next
spring, they again took Chii-yung kuan and this time penetrated even more
deeply southward into northern China, devastating parts of Hopei, Shan-
tung, and Shansi and taking several towns. During the winter of 1213—14
the Mongols effectively blockaded the Central Capital.
All this happened at a time when the Chin court itself was in
a
state of
chaos.
In the eighth month of 1213 Wei-shao wang, a ruler who despite his irregular
succession to the throne had shown a keen concern for the defense of his state,
was killed in a conspiracy. The leader of this plot was Hu-sha-hu from the Ho-
shih-lieh clan, a Jurchen grandee who had been the commander of the Western
Capital (Ta-t'ung in Shansi Province), which had fallen to the Mongols. He
enthroned the elder brother of Chang-tsung, Wu-tu-pu (1163-1223), later
canonized as Hsiian-tsung (r. 1214-23). One of the reasons that led Hu-
sha-hu to do away with Wei-shao wang and to install an emperor whom he
believed he himself could control was apparently that he feared disgrace and
punishment for having lost the strategic areas under his command.
These events happened when Mongolian troops were advancing toward the
Central Capital and their cavalry detachments were already raiding the north-
ern parts of Hopei, Shantung, and Shansi provinces. There was, however,
18 This is the version given in Sung Lien et al., eds., Yiian sbib (Peking, 1976), 1, p. 15 (hereafter cited
as YS). See also Chapter 4 in this volume.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
:::;*;*;* Border of
Chin
and Hsi-Hsia V™ Mongolia
» Campaigns 1211—12 ^
'-£ Jebes
campaign
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---*• Campaigns 1213-14 1211-12
* Samukha's campaigns, 1216—17
Chinggis
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from
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1911
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200 miles
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19. Chinggis's campaigns against Chin
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254 THE CHIN DYNASTY
another factor besides the dissension at the Chin court that had contributed
decisively to the defeats suffered by their armies. Repeated droughts in north
China had led to widespread famine and thereby undermined the logistics of
the Jurchen war machine. In a last-minute effort the government tried to
rally all population groups against the Mongols by abandoning the existing
differentiations among the races. Military and civilian posts were opened to
Khitans and Chinese without the former numerical limitations.
In spring of 1214 the Chin sent envoys to the Mongols to ask for peace and
also offered in marriage a daughter of Wei-shao wang to Chinggis khan. The
Mongols withdrew from the Central Capital. The situation in the north
remained precarious, however, and so Hsiian-tsung decided to transfer his
court to the Southern Capital (K'ai-feng), which was not only in the center of
the agriculturally developed Chinese plains but was also protected from the
north by the Yellow River. This transfer of the capital was interpreted by
Chinggis khan as a preparation for the resumption of
war,
and so he decided
to march again against the Central Capital. On 31 May 1215 the city
surrendered to the Mongols and former subjects of the Chin such as Khitans
and Chinese who had defected to them. The capital was by far the most
populous and important city conquered so far by the Mongols in East Asia.
At about the same time, diplomatic relations between Chin and Hsia
collapsed, after many years of increasing strain, and a period of intermittent
warfare and intense hostility characterized the decade from 1214 onward.
This unfortunate development replaced the formerly good relations between
Chin and Hsia and was largely the result of factionalism and power struggles
at the courts of both states, which undermined their ability to turn back the
Mongols.
Rebellions
in Shantung
The disastrous loss of the Central Capital, a major Chin administrative center
and military stronghold, was paralleled by serious setbacks in other parts of
the state.
In 1214 the Chin had asked the Sung to deliver the payments stipulated by
the treaty of 1208 one year in advance in order to make up for losses suffered
in the past. Instead, the Sung refused to pay at all and thereby aggravated the
fiscal problems in the tottering Chin state. This coincided with the outbreak
of local rebellions in Shantung, a part of China that had throughout history
been a hotbed of social and religious unrest (see Map 20).
The first leading figure of
the
rebellion was Yang An-kuo. He came from a
fortified village in eastern Shantung inhabited by members of the Yang clan,
who specialized in manufacturing boots and other leather goods, an occupa-
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ILIAO
|
Rebel regimes
Chin territory
1223
/
ITA-CHEN
WAN-NU PlbjHSIEN
1215-33
H
Oppressed
1233
by
Mongols preparatory
to invasion
of
KORYO
\
Vassal of Mongols
HS
I -
HSIA
conquered
by
Mongols
OCCUPIED
BY
MONGOLS
BY
1223
AIN
I NG
TERRITORY
LI-CHUAN
attacks Sung
1230
.killed
1231
500 km
300miles
MAP
20. The rebellions in Manchuria and Shantung
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256 THE CHIN DYNASTY
tion that earned Yang An-kuo the nickname of Yang An-erh, "Yang the
saddler." Yang, a strong and ruthless man, was the village headman and
already during the war of 1206—8 had emerged as a leader of
a
group of local
rebels against the Chin authorities. After the war had ended, Yang An-kuo
returned to his allegiance and was rewarded by the Chin government with a
minor prefectural post and a military command. When the Mongolian at-
tacks in 1213 and 1214 disrupted the administrative machinery of the state,
Yang An-kuo resumed his rebellious activities and began to plunder country
towns in the eastern part of
the
Shantung peninsula. In the summer of 1214
he even proclaimed himself emperor in a small coastal town (modern P'eng-
lai) and adopted the reign title of Tien-shun, "Heavenly Obedience." This
was too much for the Chin authorities who, despite being pressed hard by the
Mongols in the north, mobilized an army against him under P'u-san An-
chen. This expedition was successful, and by late autumn 1214 the strong-
holds of Yang An-kuo had been reduced. Yang tried to flee by boat but was
captured and killed at the beginning of
1215.
His "empire" had lasted hardly
more than three months.
Yang was not the only rebel in Shantung; two more had risen indepen-
dently in central Shantung. They, too, were eliminated during P'u-san An-
chen's punitive expedition in 1215. But the general unrest in Shantung
persisted, and the former lieutenants of Yang An-kuo and the other rebels
continued guerilla warfare in the inaccessible mountainous parts of the penin-
sula. Around 1215 the rebel leaders adopted the color red for their uniforms,
and they were known from then on as the Red Coats (Hung ao). Red has
always been an auspicious color in China, signaling good luck and hope. The
choice of the color red had, in all probability, nothing to do with the
insurgents' pro-Sung feelings (red was the emblematic color of the Sung,
correlated with the element of fire). Nor can we assign any religious or
sectarian motivations to the various rebel leaders; the aims and objectives of
all these condottieri who disturbed Chin rule in Shantung seem to have been
purely selfish and secular. Each of them tried to carve out for himself a region
in which to build up a center of local power.
When in 1217 yet another devastating flood of
the
Yellow River prevented
Chin military actions in Shantung, the Sung government tried to use the Red
Coats movement to their own advantage. They offered official ranks to the
rebel leaders and promised them material assistance. One of them was Li
Ch'iian, a colorful person who had become famous for his physical strength
and ruthlessness and was a relative by marriage of Yang An-kuo, either his
brother-in-law or his son-in-law. In 1218 Li Ch'iian was nominated as a
commanding prefect in Shantung by the Sung court, but in fact he was more
or less independent and administered his territory as he pleased. By 1219 the
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THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF CHIN AFTER II42 257
Chin government had lost its control over eastern Shantung where Li Ch'iian
reigned on his own. His submission to the Sung, which in any case had been
a formality, did not last long. From 1225, as the Mongolian armies advanced
into Shantung, Li Ch'iian realized that he would do well to come to terms
with the invaders. In 1227 he declared his allegiance to the Mongols and
later turned against his former protectors, the Sung. In 1230 he even ad-
vanced with his troops deep into Sung territory and attacked Yang-chou on
the Yangtze River. But this expedition failed, and Li Ch'iian was killed on 18
February 1231. His death marked the end of the Red Coats. In 1231 his
adopted son Li T'an (Marco Polo's "Liitan sangon") inherited his office and
continued the warlord career begun by his father. His loyalty turned out to
be as fickle as that of Li Ch'iian: When in 1262 he tried to surrender
Shantung to the Sung, Khubilai khan had him executed.
19
In later traditional Chinese historiography and in modern times the Red
Coats "movement" has frequently been labeled as nationalistic and patriotic
and as indicative of antiforeign feelings among the lower classes. The
Shantung insurgents were not, however, motivated by such modern concepts
as nationalism but, rather, were simple adventurers who tried to ally them-
selves with whichever major power could enhance their own prestige and
emoluments. In normal times none of them would have been able to resist
the Chin state for long, but in the turmoil following the Mongolian inva-
sions,
their rebellions could succeed to a limited extent and thus eliminate
Jurchen control over the eastern part of what remained of their state.
The
loss
of Manchuria:
Yeh-lii
Liu-ko and
P'u-hsien
Wan-nu
The Manchurian homelands of the Jurchens, where many of them still lived,
and, in particular, the comparatively prosperous region of Liao-tung, could
have been an area for retreat for the Chin government. Indeed, a Jurchen
minister had advised Hsiian-tsung to withdraw from the Central Capital
(Peking) to the Eastern Capital (Liao-yang) instead of K'ai-feng. However,
whereas the Liao-tung region was still under the firm control of Chin when
the Mongols attacked in 1211, northern and central Manchuria had already
been lost because of the insurrection of Yeh-lii Liu-ko. Liu-ko was a scion of
the Liao imperial family and, like so many other Khitan insurgents, had
cherished hopes of gaining independence from their Jurchen overlords. With
19 On the Red Coats movement under Yang An-kuo, see CS, 102, pp. 2243—5;
an
^ Franchise Aubin,
"The rebirth of Chinese rule in times of trouble: North China in the early thirteenth century," in
Foundations
and limits of state power in China, ed. Stuart R. Schram (London and Hong Kong, 1987),
pp.
113-46. On Li Ch'iian, see
T'o-T'o
et al., eds.,
Sung
shih (Peking, 1977), chaps. 476 and 477
(hereafter cited as SS); and his biography by Franchise Aubin in Sung
biographies,
ed. Herbert Franke
(Wiesbaden, 1976), vol. 2, pp. 542—6.
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258 THE CHIN DYNASTY
his followers, mostly Khitan cavalry and soldiers, he declared his allegiance
to Chinggis khan in 1212, quickly gained control of central and northern
Manchuria, and was even allowed to adopt the title emperor of
Liao
in 1213.
A Chin punitive expedition against him in 1214 failed.
Liu-ko's puppet state survived until 1233 when the Mongols destroyed it.
The general responsible for the abortive Chin campaign against Yeh-lii Liu-ko
was Wan-nu, a member of
the
Jurchen P'u-hsien clan. After his defeat by the
Khitan rebels, Wan-nu retired with his troops to the region of the Eastern
Capital in southeastern Manchuria. Like so many others he realized that the
end of Chin was near and therefore tried to carve out a portion of territory for
himself from the remnants of the once-great empire.
In the spring of 1215 Wan-nu, too, declared himself independent, adopt-
ing the title of king and naming his state Ta-chen. This name was not a
geographical name, as practically all Chinese state names had been before this
(including that of Chin
itself,
though in this case there were overtones of
Chinese cosmological symbolism). Ta-chen is a highly literary expression
standing for "gold" in Taoist texts. This name, therefore, was meant to
proclaim that Wan-nu regarded himself as the true successor of
the
Chin, and
to underline this point he also adopted the clan name of
Wan-yen,
the ruling
house of Chin. The Taoist connotations of the state name and other features
of Wan-nu's regime were the result of the influence of
a
very curious person,
the Chinese Wang Kuei. He came from the region of modern Shen-yang and
had been a specialist in fortune-telling and the exegesis of
the
l-ching
(Book of
changes), at the same time being an adherent of the Taoist religion. Al-
though he lived as a hermit, Wang Kuei's reputation as a sage must have
been great because he had been summoned to the Chin court as long before as
1190.
He had refused and had again refused in 1215 when Hsiian-tsung had
invited him to court and offered him high office. Instead he became the chief
adviser of Wan-nu, whom he continued to serve until he was well over ninety
years old.
Wan-nu saw no chance of regaining the plains of central Manchuria, which
were at that time firmly held by Yeh-lii Liu-ko in alliance with the Mongols,
and so he turned eastward and to the north. His state covered the eastern,
forested, and mountainous part of Manchuria and also included the region of
the former Supreme Capital on the Sungari. Wan-nu's territories thus bor-
dered on Koryo, and he would certainly have liked to extend his domination
in that direction, but his invasions into Koryo led to no lasting results. The
state of Ta-chen existed for over eighteen years until the Mongols, during
their campaign against Koryo, advanced against Wan-nu's strongholds and
took him prisoner in 1233. Wan-nu's political role can be compared with
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THE ANNIHILATION OF CHIN 259
that of the insurgent Li Ch'iian
in
Shantung: Both established themselves
in
border regions
far
away from the center
of
the Chin state,
and
both tried
to
remain independent
of
the advancing Mongols with whom, however, they
sometimes nominally allied themselves.
For the Chin state the loss
of
Manchuria, first
to
Liu-ko and Wan-nu and
subsequently
to
the Mongols, was a severe blow because
it
cut off the remains
of their state
in
China from their main horse-
and
cattle-breeding areas
and
from those regions with
a
substantial Jurchen population,
on
whose loyalty
they could have relied. As the situation was
in
1215, Chin had lost not only
the grain surplus—producing areas
of
northern Hopei
but
also
the
regions
from which they
had
obtained
a
great number
of
their cavalry horses.
It is
surprising that despite these formidable,
and
indeed fatal, losses, Chin
was
still able
to
survive
as a
state
for
some years.
One
reason was certainly that
from
1219
onward Chinggis khan directed
the
greater part
of his
forces
westward
in
order
to
attack western Asia; another factor may well have been
the fear
of the
Mongols that united loyal Jurchens
and
Chinese against
a
common foe.
THE ANNIHILATION
OF
CHIN, 1215-1234
The events
of
1215 had reduced the Chin territories
to
the region around
the
Yellow River
and
transformed
it
into
a
buffer state hemmed
in by the
Mongols,
Hsi
Hsia,
Li
Ch'iian
and his Red
Coats
in
Shantung,
and, of
course,
the
Sung
in the
south. Although
the
strategic situation seemed
hopeless,
the
Chin court
in
K'ai-feng decided
to
attempt
to
compensate
for
its losses
in the
north by means of
a
southern campaign against the Sung.
In
1217
it
decided
to
attack
the
Sung
on the
Huai River front,
but the
Chin
troops could
not
advance as deeply into Sung territory as they had been able
to do
in
1206-7.
At
the same time Hsi Hsia attacked the western borders of
Chin; here, however,
the
Chin were able
to
push back
the
invaders. There
followed a confused series of battles for border towns
in
the Huai region, with
no decisive results. Repeatedly
the
Chin sued
the
Sung
for
peace (which
always implied
the
demand
for
continued payments),
but in
1218 the Sung
did not even allow the Chin envoys
to
enter their territory. Another attempt
to invade Sung followed, this time with some tactical gains
but
no strategic
success.
In the meantime the Mongols, this time under Mukhali (d. 1223), one of
Chinggis khan's most able
and
trusted generals, maintained their relentless
pressure, chiefly
in
Shansi, where
the
strong strategic fortress-city
of
T'ai-
yiian was taken
(see
Map 21). Hsiian-tsung seems
to
have planned further
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'
Campaign in Shansi, 1218
1
Campaign in Shansi, 1219
Campaigns in Hopei and Shantung 1220
Campaigns in Shansi andShensi .•••"
1221-23 ;"
1221x
Feng-chou
Mongol
forces
fail
to take cities
300 km
~~2<Somiles
MAP
2
i.
Mukhali's campaigns against Chin
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