--- title: China: the Song and the Mongols — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «China: the Song and the Mongols», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Under the Song dynasty, from 960 to 1279, China had huge cities, iron works, canals and the world's first government paper money, the jiao --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / China: the Song and the Mongols # China: the Song and the Mongols Lesson 55 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 15 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/0/) — Under the Song dynasty, from 960 to 1279, China had huge cities, iron works, canals and the world's first government paper money, the jiaozi. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/1/) — Imagine paying for a bun with a printed note while most of Europe still paid in coins. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/2/) — Then came the Mongols. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/3/) — Genghis Khan's riders attacked northern China from 1211, and his grandson Kublai Khan finished the conquest in 1279 and founded the Yuan dynasty. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/4/) — Mei says «China absorbed the Mongols», the teacher says «the Mongols ruled China»: the Yuan was a Mongol dynasty ruling through a Chinese-style state. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/5/) — Mei also says the Mongols never lost a battle; ask Japan, where storms helped wreck two Mongol fleets, or Egypt, where the Mongols lost at Ain Jalut. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/6/) — The Yuan ended when floods, famine and rebellions shook it, and a former peasant and monk, Zhu Yuanzhang, took Beijing in 1368 and became the first Ming emperor. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/8/) — The Song capitals Kaifeng and later Hangzhou may each have had over a million people, among the largest cities on Earth, while London had perhaps 20,000; Marco Polo called Hangzhou the finest city in the world. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/9/) — Foot binding, tightly wrapping girls' feet to keep them small, spread from the Song era; it caused lifelong pain and was banned in the early 20th century, and most Chinese today see it as a cruelty of the past. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/10/) — Genghis Khan's Mongols began attacking northern China in 1211, and his grandson Kublai Khan completed the conquest of the Song in 1279 and founded the Yuan dynasty. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/11/) — Marco Polo said he served Kublai Khan for 17 years; some doubted it because he did not mention the Great Wall or tea, but most historians think he really went, because details like salt and paper money fit Chinese records. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/12/) — Kublai Khan's fleets attacked Japan in 1274 and 1281 and failed, partly because of storms the Japanese called «kamikaze», divine wind; the Mongols also lost at Ain Jalut in 1260 and in Vietnam. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/13/) — Knowledge of gunpowder reached the Islamic world and Europe in the 13th century, likely through Mongol contacts and trade, though the exact route is debated. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/15/) — The Black Death of the 14th century probably started in Central Asia and spread along trade routes to Europe; China also suffered epidemics in that century. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/17/) — Mongolia is an independent country that declared independence in 1911 and was recognised by China in 1946; Inner Mongolia is a region of China. - ← previous: [China: the Silk Road and the Tang](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/) - next →: [China: the Ming and Zheng He's voyages](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/56-china-the-ming-and-zheng-he-s-voyages/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)