Hangzhou (Lin'an): The Southern Song Capital City (1138)

Hangzhou, renamed Lin’an, was the capital of China’s Southern Song dynasty from 1138 until 1276. Chosen by Emperor Gaozong after the Jurchen conquest of the north, the city on West Lake and the Grand Canal grew into one of the largest and richest cities in the world. Marco Polo, who knew it after the Mongol conquest as “Quinsai”, called it the finest city on Earth.

Background: a court in flight

After the Jingkang Incident of 1127, when the Jin captured Kaifeng and carried off two emperors, Huizong’s son Zhao Gou was proclaimed Emperor Gaozong. Jin raids drove his court south across the Yangtze. Gaozong stayed in Hangzhou in 1129 and raised its status, renaming it Lin’an, meaning roughly “approaching peace”.

The city was not yet safe. In the winter of 1129–1130 the Jin general Wuzhu crossed the Yangtze and took Hangzhou, and Gaozong escaped by sea. Only after the Jin withdrew did the court return. In 1138 Gaozong formally settled at Lin’an, which remained the seat of government for the rest of the dynasty.

Why Hangzhou?

Hangzhou already had a long history. It had been the capital of the small Wuyue kingdom in the 10th century and was the southern end of the Grand Canal, linking it to the rice and silk regions of the lower Yangtze. It was protected by rivers and lakes, which hindered northern cavalry, and it had access to the sea through the Qiantang River estuary.

Officially the city was only the xingzai, the emperor’s “temporary residence”, because the court still claimed Kaifeng as its true capital. In practice the “temporary” capital became permanent.

The city in its heyday

The imperial palace stood on Phoenix Hill at the southern end of the walled city, with the main Imperial Way running north through the centre. Around it grew a dense urban world of canals, stone bridges, multi-storey houses, markets open late into the night, teahouses, restaurants, pawnshops and entertainment quarters called washe, where storytellers, puppeteers and acrobats performed.

Population estimates vary, but historians commonly suggest that the city and its suburbs held around one million people or more by the 13th century. Fire was a constant danger in the crowded wooden city, and the government maintained fire-watch towers and organised firefighting units.

West Lake, west of the walls, became the playground of officials, merchants and poets, lined with temples, pavilions and gardens. Writers such as Wu Zimu, whose Mengliang lu was completed in 1274, left nostalgic descriptions of its festivals, food and trades. Hangzhou was also where the general Yue Fei was imprisoned and put to death in 1142.

Trade, printing and culture

Lin’an was the political capital of an economy that was among the most commercial in the medieval world. Rice, silk, tea, porcelain and salt flowed along the canals, and the nearby seaport of Mingzhou (Ningbo) and the great southern port of Quanzhou linked the region to Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. Paper money and credit instruments were widely used, and the state drew a large part of its income from commercial taxes and monopolies.

The city was also a centre of learning and publishing. The Imperial Academy and the government printing office produced classical texts, and private bookshops printed poetry, almanacs and guides for examination candidates. The imperial painting academy, revived in the south, created the refined landscape style of painters such as Ma Yuan and Xia Gui, many of whose scenes show the misty hills around West Lake.

Mongol conquest and Marco Polo

After the Mongols broke through at Xiangyang in 1273, their armies under Bayan advanced down the Yangtze. In early 1276 the Song court, led by the grand empress dowager Xie, surrendered Lin’an without a siege. The boy Emperor Gong was taken north, and the city was spared large-scale destruction.

Under Yuan rule the city remained great. Marco Polo described “Quinsai”, from xingzai, as the noblest city in the world, praising its canals, bridges, bathhouses and markets, though his figure of 12,000 bridges is a clear exaggeration. The friar Odoric of Pordenone in the 1320s and the traveller Ibn Battuta in the 1340s also wrote about its size.

Key people

• Emperor Gaozong (1107–1187): founder of the Southern Song, who made Lin’an his capital.
• Wu Zimu: author of the Mengliang lu, a detailed portrait of the late Song city.
• Marco Polo (c. 1254–1324): the Venetian whose book made Quinsai famous in Europe.

Timeline

• 1127: The Jin take Kaifeng; Gaozong is proclaimed emperor.
• 1129: Gaozong stays in Hangzhou and renames it Lin’an.
• 1130, early: The Jin briefly capture the city; Gaozong flees by sea.
• 1138: Lin’an is formally fixed as the seat of the Southern Song court.
• 1142: Yue Fei is put to death in Lin’an.
• 1276: The Song court surrenders the city to the Mongol general Bayan.

Why it matters

As the Southern Song capital, Hangzhou showed how commercial, urban and cultural life in China flourished even after the loss of the north. Its fame, carried to Europe by Marco Polo, helped shape Western images of China’s wealth for centuries.