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| 1086–93 |
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| During the Yuanyou reign, the hostile empress dowager recalled Sima Guang, Su Shi, and others to court to rescind the entire Wang reform package. The anti-Wang group became known as the Yuanyou clique. | 1 |
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| 1100–25 |
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| During the reign of Emperor Huizong (1082–1135), anti-Wang forces were dismissed. Cai Jing (1047–1126), his prime minister, proscribed (1102) the work of 98 of the Yuanyou partisans. | 2 |
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| 1114 |
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| Jurchen tribes, forerunners of the Manchus who would later conquer China, defeated the Khitans in Manchuria. | 3 |
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| 1115 |
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| Wangyan Aguda (1068–1123), the Jurchen leader, declared himself emperor of the JIN DYNASTY. Having long received Jurchen tribute, the Song assumed amicable ties with them, sending allied armies (1118) to attack the Khitans from the south. A Song-Jurchen treaty of 1122 led to a joint attack on the Khitans. The Liao dynasty was finally destroyed in 1125, when the Jurchens took Beijing. They returned the 16 Chinese prefectures held for many years by the Khitans. | 4 |
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| 1125 |
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| The Jurchens attacked the Song and were at the door of Kaifeng. Huizong abdicated in favor of his son. The capital finally surrendered, and the Song were forced to send tribute. When they failed to keep the provisions of the treaty, the Jurchens invaded Kaifeng again, took Huizong and his son captive along with the entire court, and moved their own capital to Beijing. | 5 |
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| 1127–1279 |
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| The SOUTHERN SONG DYNASTY effectively began when a younger prince, Gaozong (1107–87, r. 1127–62), was placed on an itinerant throne in Nanjing and later Hangzhou. Only from 1130, when Chinese forces began to defeat the Jurchens, did the Southern Song acquire some sense of security; the capital was firmly established in Hangzhou in 1138. A peace treaty with the Jin was signed in 1142, with the Chinese accepting vassal status to the Jin, relinquishing everything north of the Jinling Mountains and the Huai River to the Jurchens, and paying annual tribute. Debates continued throughout the Southern Song about the feasibility of reconquering the north, dating from the somewhat earlier discord between General Yue Fei (1103–41) and Prime Minister Qin Gui (1090–1155). | 6 |
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