Allying with the Jin to Subjugate the Liao: Decision-Making and Demise of the Northern Song State, 1120-1127

Abstract

From 1005 AD to 1120 AD, the Chinese Song Empire (960 AD —1179 AD) and its northern neighbor, the Khitan Liao Empire (907 AD —1125 AD), maintained an unprecedented friendship due to the Treaty of Chanyuan signed in 1004 AD. However, in 1120 AD, the Song decided to ally with the Jurchen Jin, a newly rising power in Northeast China, in an attempt to subjugate the Liao and recover the Sixteen Prefectures (modern-day Beijing, Hebei, Shanxi, and Tianjin), a Liao territory inhabited by Han Chinese. This decision, later known as Allying with the Jin, was seen as not only a betrayal of the friendship that the Song and the Liao had established and maintained, but also the greatest mistake that Emperor Song Huizong (1082 AD—1135AD) and his scholar-officials made, for it directly led to the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty seven years later. Why did the Song Empire decide to break the status quo, abandoning the hard-won peace with the Liao and instead ally with the Jin? Scholars like Zhang Yun Zheng attribute the decision-making to Song Huizong’s incompetence as an emperor. Other scholars like Nicolas Tackett believe that nationalism among the Song elites drove the alliance. This paper shall explore the role nationalism played in the Song-Jin Alliance and examine the roles of external forces in the decision-making process that eventually led to the downfall of the Northern Song Dynasty. This paper will also examine other historical conclusions that result from prior Song-centric research, as this paper ultimately concludes that military pragmatism was a more significant contributing factor to the Song-Jin Alliance than was nationalism.