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[By the time Jin fell, the north–south fracture created by nearly three centuries of confrontation between Liao, Song, and Jin had already become starkly visible.
On one hand, there were Jurchens like Wanyan Chen Heshang, men who read classical history, studied the Xiaoxue, the Analects, and the Zuo Commentary, and proudly styled themselves scholars.
On the other hand, when Jin collapsed, quite a number of Han officials died for it, regarding Jin as the legitimate dynasty of the Central Plains while viewing the Southern Song as a foreign state.
After the Battle of Mount Sanfeng, Emperor Aizong held out in Bianjing for a year before fleeing, first to Guide, then stationing himself in Caizhou. This final stronghold, too, fell rapidly under Mongol assault.
During the last battle of Caizhou, unwilling to witness the state's extinction, Emperor Aizong abdicated and committed suicide.
The new emperor of Jin lasted less than an hour from enthronement to dying in battle against the Mongols who stormed the city, setting the record for the shortest reign in imperial history.
The Southern Song contributed little to the campaign. The most important captured official was the Jin Han official Zhang Tiangang, who had served as Commissioner of Military Affairs.
Since he was Han, after the ritual presentation of prisoners at the ancestral temple, he naturally entered the standard procedure for surrender and recruitment.
From the Southern Song perspective, Jin was gone anyway. Offer a high office and generous rewards, let him perform the ritual of submission, and both sides come out satisfied. Why not?
But Zhang Tiangang, though a prisoner, wanted none of it. And he spoke with complete conviction:
"I was born in Jin and served Jin. Naturally I am loyal to Jin.
'The rise and fall of states happens in every age. How does Jin's fall compare to your two emperors?'"
That remark struck directly at the sorest point. The magistrate of Lin'an who presided over his interrogation flew into a rage and had him beaten half to death.
The case was eventually brought before Emperor Lizong of Song, who asked whether Zhang Tiangang truly did not fear death.
Zhang answered calmly. "A great man only fears that his death may fall short of righteousness. What is there to fear?" He asked only to die quickly so that he might preserve his integrity.
From Jin records, Zhang Tiangang had always opposed campaigns against Song and instead advocated alliance with Western Xia and Song to resist the Mongols.
In the final days of Jin, some suggested driving starving refugees into Song territory to create chaos before attacking. Others proposed teaching soldiers qigong so they would not need food and would become immune to blades. Still others suggested giving cavalry lion and tiger masks to frighten Mongol horses.
Zhang Tiangang rejected all of these ideas one by one. By any reasonable standard, he was a good official.
Emperor Lizong admired his talent and promised that if he would only write a confession, he would be spared. Zhang responded with curses: "If you mean to kill me, then kill me. What confession is there to write?"
Zhang Tiangang may have preserved the final shred of dignity for Jin, but his case also revealed how deep the north–south identity divide had already become.
Later, the unified Mongol Empire fractured through conflicts among the khanates. Kublai established the Yuan dynasty in his own territories and classified people into ranked groups, placing the Han at the bottom. This further intensified both identity divisions and material inequalities between northern and southern Han.
From this perspective, although the Hongwu Emperor was praised by later teachers as second only to Emperor Taizong of Tang in military skill, his contribution to healing the north–south divide was even more remarkable.
His later reply to Liu Sanwu's theory about governing northern and southern populations was especially impressive:
"The land has north and south, but the people do not hold two hearts. A ruler must treat all equally. How could there be divisions between them?"
Yet by the end of the twenty-second year of Hongwu, even Liu Sanwu, then a Hanlin Academician, still believed the north could only be ruled through coercion. That alone shows how difficult the problems left from Song–Liao times to the fall of Yuan truly were.
But that is drifting too far afield. With Jin destroyed and the Mongols advancing south, the last cultivated gentlemen of the Southern Song finally stepped forward.]
[Server Chat Log]
[IronAFK: During Northern Song and Liao times things were still manageable. After Northern Song fell, though, everything became a complete mess. Zhao Gou personally set the tone by refusing to recognize northern Han, and later Jin's policy of Jurchens ruling Jurchens, while Han ruled Han meant those who did well there naturally felt loyalty to Jin.
It was not that Jin was wonderful. Southern Song was just that bad.
MarchPaused: The Song court clearly knew it too. Zhang Tiangang only mentioned the "two emperors" without even naming them, and they immediately panicked.
As if we do not know which two emperors those were. This is practically a Soviet joke in real life.
CommandLag: The issue carved out by centuries of warfare was not something one Hongwu reign could solve. Even with the Yongle Emperor continuing the effort, north–south rivalry still ran through all of Ming.
But at least it became a regional divide between northerners and southerners, no longer a question of whether southerners counted as Han at all. On that point alone, Hongwu and Yongle's achievements were extraordinary.
OfflineLegion: From the An Lushan Rebellion to the fall of Yuan, Hebei, once the foundation of Chinese statehood, spent six centuries being slaughtered again and again until its population fell below Shanxi's. Rather than saying Ming's economic center shifted south, it is more accurate to say the northern leg was broken, leaving only the southern leg able to bear weight.
TooOldForPvP: The Mongols did accomplish something remarkable by ending the fragmentation among Song, Liao, Jin, Western Xia, Dali, and the Tibetan regions. The price was simply too high.
Not just China. Wherever the Mongols went, things shattered. In Rus' they fractured the land into the roots of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. In Central Asia they broke Turkic identity and laid the groundwork for the five modern states. In the Middle East they killed the last Abbasid caliph and ended the final unifying authority of the Islamic world.
LagSlayer: China's case is clear enough. Zhu Yuanzhang had the strength to settle the problem instead of passing it on. Otherwise we might have ended up fighting each other endlessly like modern Arabs or Slavs.
Was Western Xia not wiped out completely? I thought their script even disappeared.
Western Xia's disappearance is not entirely tied to Yuan. The latest excavated Tangut Buddhist texts date as late as the reign of the Hongzhi Emperor, which suggests the Tangut people were gradually assimilated during Ming.]
"Are we… that old?"
The Ming emperor instinctively stroked his beard, even tugging at a few strands to see whether more had turned white.
Beside him, Empress Ma saw clearly that her husband's mouth was curling upward so hard it barely closed. If she were not present, he might already have burst into loud laughter.
But since she was here…
"Your Majesty Chongba, need not worry. Once Luo Guanzhong is brought here, we can compare what he wrote with what this young man says and determine whether the name 'Old Zhu' is nonsense or not…"
By the time she finished, even she could barely hold back her laughter.
Watching the empress nearly collapse in amusement, Zhu Yuanzhang twitched his beard and pretended not to hear the nickname at all.
"What that young man recorded does sound like something I would say."
"I have heard the name Liu Sanwu before. In Jingjiang Prefecture he already had a reputation for scholarship. Someone once recommended him."
As for what came of that recommendation, Zhu Yuanzhang skipped over it entirely and continued instead:
"If he truly becomes a Hanlin Academician eight or nine years from now… then perhaps what this young man says really is our future."
"This descendant… understands our difficulties."
Now he was not excited anymore. He simply slapped his thigh, as if someone had casually touched a burden long buried in his chest. He almost wished the speaker stood before him so they could speak hand in hand.
Suppressing her smile, Empress Ma took his arm and comforted him.
"If things truly unfold as described, then your efforts will succeed in the end. You should be glad."
"If governance endures after the ruler is gone, and there is a Yongle Emperor to continue what you began, how could that not be a blessing?"