Fall of Northern Song: Disaster, Captivity, and the Flight South

The Northern Song fell in the winter of 1127 CE — the Jingkang Incident. Its emperor was taken captive. Its capital was sacked. Its civilization — the most commercially sophisticated, most culturally refined the medieval world had produced — was destroyed in months by a military force it had failed to take seriously. In The Fall of the Northern Song, E L Hunter reconstructs the catastrophe and its...