no sooner placed on the throne than the Mongols invaded the Sung territory in great force, under the leadership of Bayan, who issued a manifesto setting forth the crimes of Chia Ssŭ-tao. Wu-ch'ang offered but a feeble resistance, and having reduced it, Bayan swept down the Yang-tsze, many cities opening their gates. In 1275 Chia Ssŭ-tao, who on hearing of the death of 劉整 Liu Chêng had advanced as Commander-in-chief to Wuhu, was routed after vain attempts to negotiate, and fled to Yang-chou. Nanking was abandoned; Soochow declared for the Mongols; and Hangchow was in a state of siege. All chance of peace was lost by the murder of Mongol envoys near Soochow, and a great naval defeat near Chinkiang sealed the fate of the dynasty. Bayan received the surrender of Hangchow early in 1276, the few patriots who had clung to the falling throne joining one or other of the Princes set up in Fuhkien. The Emperor and most of the Imperial family were sent to Peking, and the former died a year later in the desert of Gobi. Canonised as 恭宗皇帝.
157 Chao Hsü 趙頊. A.D. 1048-1085. Eldest son of Chao Shu, whom he succeeded in 1067 as sixth Emperor of the Sung dynasty. He possessed many virtues, but was cursed with an ambition to recover from the Liaos all the territory that had once belonged to the empire. Han Ch'i and other experienced men warned him in vain; and he found an ally in Wang An-shih, whose projects for increasing China's wealth and power resulted, owing to his own undue haste and the indiscriminating opposition of all the conservative officials, only in discontent and official persecution. Petty wars followed: with Hsia (1067 and 1082—83); with the Turfan (1072); with the aborigines of the south-west (1074); and with Cochin-China (1075—76). Intended as preparatory to a war with Liao, these wars cost vast sums and ended in no substantial gain; while the Emperor's evident ambition opened the
