ABSTRACT
In 1206, the year of Chinggis Khan’s great quriltai, historically Chinese territory was divided under the control of three different states: Xi Xia (1038–1227), Jin (1115–1234), and Southern Song (1127–1279). The Mongol conquest of China began early in the thirteenth century with Chinggis Khan’s attacks on the Xi Xia and the Jin, two hybrid states that straddled Chinese and non-Chinese regions. The Jin shared several characteristics with other conquest dynasties or alien states that ruled significant amounts of historically Chinese territory. They typically straddled both steppe and sown, or the pastoral nomadic world to the north and the agricultural world of the Chinese to the south, ruling over both. The Mongols, frequently described in historical materials as being vastly outnumbered by Jin forces, nonetheless prevailed against them much more often than not. The reasons for this are complex and defy monocausal or reductionist analysis.
