page_title: Mongol conquest of Song China
section_title: Last stand of the Song loyalists (1276–79)
hierarchical_section_title: Mongol conquest of Song China / Last stand of the Song loyalists (1276–79)
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Emperor Song Modi.
context_page_description: The Mongol conquest of Song China beginning under Ögedei Khan and completing under Kublai Khan was the final step for the Mongols to rule the whole of East Asia under the Yuan dynasty. It is considered the Mongol Empire's last great military achievement.
context_section_description: Empress Dowager Xie had secretly sent the child emperor's two brothers to Fuzhou. The strongholds of the Song loyalists fell one by one: Yangzhou in 1276, Chongqing in 1277 and Hezhou in 1279. The loyalists fought the Mongols in the mountainous Fujian–Guangdong–Jiangxi borderland. In February 1279, Wen Tianxiang, one of the Song loyalists, was captured, transported and executed at the Yuan capital Khanbaliq (Dadu, modern Beijing).
  The end of the Mongol-Song war occurred on 19 March 1279, when 1000 Chinese warships faced a fleet of 300 to 700 Yuan Mongol warships at Yamen. The Yuan fleet was commanded by Zhang Hongfan (1238–1280), a northern Chinese, and Li Heng (1236–1285), a Tangut. Catapults as a weapon system were rejected by Kublai's court, for they feared the Song fleet would break out if they used such weapons. Instead, they developed a plan for a maritime siege, in order to starve the Song into submission.
  But at the outset, there was a defect in the Song tactics that would later be exploited by Yuan at the conclusion of the battle. The Song wanted a stronger defensive position, and the Song fleet "roped itself together in a solid mass[,]" in an attempt to create a nautical skirmish line. Results were disastrous for the Song: they could neither attack nor maneuver. Escape was also impossible, for the Song warships lacked any nearby base. On 12 March, a number of Song combatants defected to the Mongol side. On 13 March, a Song squadron attacked some of the Mongols' northern patrol boats. If this action was an attempted breakout, it failed. By 17 March, Li Heng and Zhang Hongfan opted for a decisive battle. Four Mongol fleets moved against the Song: Li Heng attacked from the north and northwest; Zhang would proceed from the southwest; the last two fleets attacked from the south and west. Weather favored the Mongols that morning. Heavy fog and rain obscured the approach of Li Heng's dawn attack. The movement of the tide and the southwestern similarly benefited the movement of the Mongol fleet which, in short order, appeared to the north of the Song. It was an unusual attack in that the Mongol fleet engaged the Song fleet stern first.
  Prior to the battle, the Mongols constructed archery platforms for their marines. The position enabled the archers to direct a higher, more concentrated rate of missile fire against the enemy. Fire teams of seven or eight archers manned these platforms, and they proved devastatingly effective as the battle commenced at close quarter.
  Li Heng's first attack cut the Song rope that held the Chinese fleet together. Fighting raged in close quarters combat. Before midday, the Song lost three of their ships to the Mongols. By forenoon, Li's ships broke through the Song's outer line, and two other Mongol squadrons destroyed the Song formation in the northwest corner. Around this time, the tide shifted; Li's ships drifted to the opposite direction, the north.
  The Song believed that the Mongols were halting the attack and dropped their guard. Zhang Hongfan's fleet, riding the northern current, then attacked the Song ships. Zhang was determined to capture the Song admiral, Zuo Tai. The Yuan flagship was protected by shields to negate the Song missile fire. Later, when Zhang captured the Song flagship, his own vessel was riddled with arrows. Li Heng's fleet also returned to the battle. By late afternoon, the battle was over, and the last of the Song navy surrendered.
  The Song dynasty elite were unwilling to submit to Mongol rule, and opted for death by suicide. The Song councilor, who had been tasked with holding the infant child-emperor of the Song in his arms during the battle, also elected to join the Song leaders in death. It is uncertain whether he or others decided that the infant Emperor should die as well. The councilor therefore jumped into the sea, still holding the child in his arms.  Tens of thousands of Song officials and women threw themselves into the sea and drowned. The last Song emperor died with his entourage, held in the arms of his councilor. With his death, the final remnants o
caption: Emperor Bing, the last Song emperor claimant.
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