The Death Of Tsongtse Induced The Kins To Make A More Strenuous Effort To
Humiliate The Sungs, And A Large Army Under The Joint Command Of Akouta's
Son, Olito, And The General Niyamoho, Advanced On The Capital And Captured
Yangchow.
Kaotsong, who saved his life by precipitate flight, then agreed
to sign any treaty drawn up by his conqueror.
In his letter to Niyamoho he
said, "Why fatigue your troops with long and arduous marches when I will
grant you of my own will whatever you demand?" But the Kins were
inexorable, and refused to grant any terms short of the unconditional
surrender of Kaotsong, who fled to Canton, pursued both on land and sea.
The Kin conquerors soon found that they had advanced too far, and the
Chinese rallying their forces gained some advantage during their retreat.
Some return of confidence followed this turn in the fortune of the war,
and two Chinese generals, serving in the hard school of adversity,
acquired a military knowledge and skill which made them formidable to even
the best of the Kin commanders. The campaigns carried on between 1131 and
1134 differed from any that had preceded them in that the Kin forces
steadily retired before Oukiai and Changtsiun, and victory, which had so
long remained constant in their favor, finally deserted their arms. The
death of the Kin emperor, Oukimai, who had upheld with no decline of
luster the dignity of his father Akouta, completed the discomfiture of the
Kins, and contributed to the revival of Chinese power under the last
emperor of the Sung dynasty.
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