Fall of the Southern Song
Also called: Battle of Yamen, Siege of Xiangyang
Yuan forces took Xiangyang and received the surrender of the Song capital Lin’an. In 1279 the last Song fleet was destroyed at Yamen, and all of China came under the rule of a northern nomadic people for the first time.
From 1268 the Yuan besieged the twin strongholds of Xiangyang and Fancheng on the Han River for five years, finally taking them in 1273 with counterweight trebuchets built by engineers from the Ilkhanate. In 1274 Bayan led the Yuan army down the Yangtze and in 1276 received the surrender of Lin’an and the boy emperor. Loyal ministers raised young princes and held out along the southern coast, but when their fleet was destroyed at Yamen in March 1279, the minister Lu Xiufu leapt into the sea with the last emperor, Zhao Bing, on his back. The captured Wen Tianxiang refused to submit and was executed in 1283.