The Mongols Could Not Take Walls, Until They Learned How

The Jin emperor leaves Zhongdu in 1214, taking his court south while the people behind its walls stay behind. What looks like a way to save a dynasty turns into the moment a capital is left to be taken. This is episode 3 of The Mongol Empire: The Storm from the Steppe. It starts with the weather that pushed herders south out of the Gobi, then follows the consequences. In 1209 Genghis Khan turns on the Tangut kingdom of Xi Xia and forces tributary obligations without destroying it. From 1211 he wages real war on the Jurchen Jin, whose frontier policy had depended on a divided steppe. That advantage is gone. The Mongols break through and raid deep, but speed alone cannot take a defended city. Defectors and Chinese siege specialists change what the army can do. In 1214 the Jin court settles and pays tribute, then moves its government from Zhongdu, at the site of modern Beijing, to Kaifeng in the south. The Mongols treat that as cause to resume the war. Zhongdu falls in 1215. One capital falls. Two dynasties keep fighting. The Jin hold on until 1234, and the Southern Song rule in the south long after that. What this episode really shows is a gap being closed: an army that could not take walls, learning from the people who knew how. Subscribe for more stories from the moments that changed the world: https://www.youtube.com/@historythrea... #MongolEmpire #GenghisKhan #History