During the Song Dynasty (960–1279), the country experienced a revolution in agriculture, water transport, finance, urbanization, science and technology, which made the Chinese economy the most advanced in the world from about 1100. Mastery of wet-field rice cultivation opened up the hitherto underdeveloped south of the country, while later northern China was devastated by Jurchen and Mongol invasions, floods and epidemics. The result was a dramatic shift in the center of population and industry from the home of Chinese civilization around the Yellow River to the south of the country, a trend only partially reversed by the re-population of the north from the 15th century. By 1300, China as a whole had fallen behind Italy in living standards and by 1400, England had also caught up with it but its wealthiest regions, especially the Yangzi Delta, may have remained on par with those of Europe until the early 18th century.