Jingkang incident

9 January 1127: the Xuanhua and Tongjin gates

On the twenty-fifth day of the intercalary eleventh lunar month — converted to 9 January 1127 — Jin troops broke through Kaifeng's defenses at the Xuanhua and Tongjin gates and entered the city.

The fall came after more than twenty days of the second Jin siege. Two armies had converged on the capital: Wanyan Zongwang's eastern force and Wanyan Zonghan's western one, the latter arriving after taking Taiyuan.

Divine soldiers

Contemporary accounts blame the collapse partly on Guo Jing, whose promised supernatural soldiers persuaded Song leaders to withdraw or weaken the regular troops holding parts of the outer wall.

Those accounts were produced under the Southern Song and were politically invested in explaining the catastrophe; their claims should be cross-checked rather than read as neutral reporting.

What is not in doubt is that Jin troops began looting once through the wall, and that the occupation involved killing, sexual violence, coercive exactions, abduction and enslavement.

A week, then months

The breach did not make both Song emperors prisoners in a single stroke. Qinzong formally surrendered and became a captive on 16 January.

With the capital lost he relinquished his standing as an equal sovereign and declared himself a minister of the Jin ruler; the Jurchens took him captive anyway. On 20 March 1127 the Jin formally reduced both him and his father Huizong to commoners.

The conquerors did not carry off only gold: court books, maps, instruments, artisans, musicians and members of the imperial household went north as well.