ssible effort to avoid war. There was
long-continued fighting with the Kitan, and at times also with the
Turco-Tibetan Hsia, but diplomacy carried the day: tribute was paid to
both enemies, and the effort was made to stir up the Kitan against the
Hsia and vice versa; the other parties also intrigued in like fashion.
In 1110 the situation seemed to improve for the Sung in this game, as a
new enemy appeared in the rear of the Liao (Kitan), the Tungusic Juchen
(Jurchen), who in the past had been more or less subject to the Kitan.
In 1114 the Juchen made themselves independent and became a political
factor. The Kitan were crippled, and it became an easy matter to attack
them. But this pleasant situation did not last long. The Juchen
conquered Peking, and in 1125 the Kitan empire was destroyed; but in the
same year the Juchen marched against the Sung. In 1126 they captured
the Sung capital; the emperor and his art-loving father, who had retired
a little earlier, were taken prisoner, and the Northern Sung dynasty was
at an end.

The collapse came so quickly because the whole edifice of security
between the Kitan and the Sung was based on a policy of balance and of
diplomacy. Neither state was armed in any way, and so both collapsed at
the first assault from a military power.

(2) The Liao (Kitan) dynasty in the north (937-1125)

1 _Social structure. Claim to the Chinese imperial throne_

The Kitan, a league of tribes under the leadership of an apparently
Mongol tribe, had grown steadily stronger in north-eastern Mongolia
during the T'ang epoch. They had gained the allegiance of many tribes in
the west and also in Korea and Manchuria, and in the end, about A.D.
900, had become the dominant power in the north. The process of growth
of this nomad power was the same as that of other nomad states, such as
the Toba state, and therefore need not be described again in any detail
here. When the T'ang dynasty was deposed, the Kitan were among the
claimants to the Chinese throne, feeling fully justified in their claim
as the strongest power in the Far East. Owing to the strength of the
Sha-t'o Turks, who themselves claimed leadership in China, the expansion
of the Kitan empire slowed down. In the many battles the Kitan suffered
several setbacks. They also had enemies in the rear, a state named
Po-hai, ruled by Tunguses, in northern Korea, and the new Korean state
of Kao-li, which liberated itself from Chinese overlordship in 919.