Jin Dynasty

On 31 May 1215, Genghis Khan’s Mongols captured Zhongdu, the capital of the Jin Dynasty. It was the watershed moment when a nomadic steppe confederation acquired the siege technology, wealth, and administrative centre needed to build the largest contiguous land empire in history.

On 9 January 1127, Jin forces took Bianjing, the Song capital, and seized both Emperor Qinzong and his retired father Huizong - China's greatest painter and its worst tactician. The Northern Song dynasty ended. The humiliation never did.