A Military History of China

4. The Northern Frontier

70 Y David C. Wright soon emerge to threaten China’s northern borders and even conquer large sections of northern China. SONG CHINA AND THE KITAN LIAO AND JURCHEN JIN A proto-Mongolian people known as the Kitan came to power in Mongolia , Manchuria, and northern China in 907, the same year as the fall of the Tang. (China did not achieve lasting national unification until 960 and the founding of the Song dynasty.) The Kitan regime eventually became known as the Liao and ruled over Manchuria, southern Mongolia, and parts of northern China (including modern Beijing) as a classic conquest dynasty until 1125, when it was destroyed by the Jurchens, who ruled over an even greater portion of northern China as the Jin dynasty (1126–1234), a conquest dynasty par excellence. A portion of northern Chinese territory that came to be known as the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun had been lost to the Kitans in 936, and the founding Song emperor refused to consider China completely reunified until this territory was recovered. As it turned out, however, the Song never did govern this territory, although two attempts were made in the late tenth century to recover it militarily. In 979 the Song attacked the Liao but was beaten back with heavy losses; during the campaign even the Song emperor Taizong himself was injured by two arrows. He tried again in 986 to recover the territories and met with some initial success, but was ultimately forced to withdraw after Liao generals managed to cut his supply lines. The accession in 997 of Zhenzong, the timid and naive third Song emperor (r. 997–1022), emboldened the Kitan to make their own incursions into Song territory. Low-level clashes between the two states broke out between 1001 and 1003, but the real conflict began in the summer of 1004, when Kitan cavalry launched several reconnaissance raids deep into Song territory. By the fall the Kitans’ hostile intentions were obvious even to Zhenzong, and he reluctantly began making preparations for a major military confrontation with the Liao. He accepted advice from his two imperial counsellors to rally the Song troops and overawe the Kitan by personally leading an expeditionary force from Kaifeng (the Northern Song capital, just south of the Yellow River) to Shanyuan, the first major town on the north side of the river. Meanwhile, the Kitans were advancing steadily southward into Song territory , and by late 1004 they seemed poised to overwhelm Shanyuan, cross over the Yellow River, and advance to Kaifeng. Zhenzong wavered in his resolve and momentarily considered withdrawing to Jiangsu or Sichuan, but ...