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Conflict1211 – 1234

Mongol Conquest of the Jin

Also called: Mongol–Jin War, Fall of the Jin

Genghis Khan invaded the Jurchen Jin and overran northern China; Ögedei Khan, allied with the Southern Song, destroyed the Jin in 1234.

Battle between the Mongols and the Jin in 1211 — illustration from Rashid al-Din’s Jami al-tawarikh
Battle between the Mongols and the Jin in 1211 — illustration from Rashid al-Din’s Jami al-tawarikh

Sayf al-Vâhidî. Hérât. Afghanistan · Public domain · Source

In 1211 Genghis Khan invaded the Jin and smashed its main army at Yehuling. After the capital Zhongdu fell in 1215, the Jin moved south to Bianjing (Kaifeng). While Genghis campaigned against Khwarazm, Muqali continued the war in the north; Ögedei defeated the Jin at Sanfengshan in 1232 and, allied with the Song, besieged Caizhou. In the first month of 1234 Emperor Aizong killed himself and the Jin fell. In these years Khitan refugees fleeing the Mongols entered Goryeo, leading to the Battle of Gangdong Fortress.

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The map in 1211

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States and rulers at the time
Mongol Empire · conqueror — Genghis Khan
Jin · fell — Prince Shao of Wei
Song · allied force — Emperor Ningzong
Places
Beijing

People

  • Genghis Khan1162 – 1227

    commander · Founder of the Mongol Empire, born Temüjin, proclaimed Genghis Khan at the kurultai of 1206; he attacked Western Xia, Jin and Khwarazm

  • Ögedei Khan1186 – 1241

    monarch · Third son of Genghis Khan and second Great Khan, who destroyed the Jin, walled Karakorum and sent armies against Goryeo and Europe

1 part of this event

  1. 1215Fall of Zhongdu

    The Mongols took Zhongdu (present-day Beijing), the Jin capital — after the Jin court had already moved south to Bianjing.

Before and after

Earlier
1209 Mongol Conquest of Western Xia
Later
1218 Battle of Gangdong Fortress

Themes that include this event

  • Song, Ming and Samurai JapanAD 960 – 1500

    The age when the civil-minded Song bought peace from Liao, Western Xia and Jin while the lower Yangtze boomed and Neo-Confucianism took shape, and the Ming, having driven out the Yuan, rebuilt the East Asian order through imperial autocracy, the sea ban and tribute — as Japan passed through the Kamakura and Muromachi warrior governments into the Warring States era, and Korea from Goryeo to Joseon

  • The Mongol Conquests1206 – 1294

    From the rise of Genghis Khan to the Yuan conquest of the Song — eighty years in which the Mongols swept Eurasia from Goryeo to Hungary