The Mongols would not have long to enjoy their plunder. In July of 1214, when they were fattening their horses on the steppe, came the disturbing news that Emperor Xuanzong had abandoned Zhongdu, the Northern Capital. On 30,000 carts, and accompanied by 3000 camel loads of treasure, the Jin court and government had left Zhongdu and was on its way to the Southern Capital (current-day Kaifeng), hopefully out of reach of further Mongol incursions. Many Jurchens viewed this apparent refusal to face the Mongol threat head-on as abject cowardice on their part of their leadership. Mutinies broke about among Jurchen troops and even more units defected to the Mongols. The Southern Sung Dynasty, sensing the impotence of the Jin, refused to cough up the tribute it had previously promised to pay them. Chingis Khan, after the humiliating terms he had early imposed on the Jin, considered them to be subordinate to the Mongols, indeed part of the nascent Mongol Empire, and he viewed the move south as a treacherous attempt on the part to Jin Emperor to regroup and continue the fighting, despite the treaty agreements of early 1214. Obviously the war with the Jin was not over.
In the autumn of 1214 Mongols armies again poured off the Mongolian Plateau, and by the end of the year the Northern Capital of Zhongdu was once more invested. The court and government may have fled, but the inhabitants of Zhongdu, including the army units that had remained, were by no means ready to surrender their walled and well-fortified city. In their earlier battles with the Xi Xia the Mongols had failed to take any major fortified cities due to their ignorance of siege techniques. This weakness again manifested itself. The walls of the city refused to yield, and a brutal war of attrition played out through the winter and spring of 1215. Food supplies within the city were soon exhausted and according to the Secret History, “the remaining soldiers, who began to grow thin and die, ate human flesh.”
When a relief train sent to the beleaguered city was captured by the Mongols the defenders knew they were doomed. The commandant of the Northern Capital, Wayen Fuxing, committed suicide, and in late May or early June of 1215 troops led by the Khitan Shimo Mingan, who as we have seen had defected to the Mongols back in 1211, forced their way into the city. A month-long orgy of looting and mayhem ensued. According to one account, 60,000 women and girls committed suicide by throwing themselves from the city walls in order to avoid capture by the Mongols. This was no doubt an exaggeration, but a large part of the populace was massacred and much of city burned, but not before huge amounts of loot was seized.
Chingis then ordered an inventory of the gold, silver, fine fabrics and other valuable goods that had been plundered in the city and sent three men, Öngür, Arkhai Khasar, and Shigikhutug to take control of the looted goods. The Vice-regent of the vanquished city, a man named Khada met them, in the words of the Secret History, “face to face, taking with him some gold-embroidered and patterned satins.” There are hints that near the end of the siege this man had opened the gates of Zhongdu to the Mongols, apparently in an effort to save his own life.
Now it appeared he was offered gifts—bribes, that is—to the three Mongols, in an effort to ensure their good will. Shigikhutug, a member of the Tatar tribe who as a small boy had been captured by the Mongols and adopted by Chingis’s mother, refused to take the gift. Pointing out that the city of Zhongdu and everything in it belonged to Chingis Khan., he said, “How can you steal Chingis Khan’s goods and satins and bring them here and give to us behind his back? I will not take them.” The other two men took the gifts. Later Chingis, perhaps expecting that Khada would attempt to bribe them, asked the three men if they had offered them any gifts. Shigikhutug replied that Khada had offered them “gold-embroidered and patterned satins,” adding he had refused the gift but the other two had taken it. Chingis “angrily rebuked” the two other men but praised Shigiikhutukh for his honesty. He asked Shigiikhutukh, “Will you not become my seeing eyes, my listening ears?” This might be construed to mean that Chingis was asking him to become a spy and informer; in any case, Chingis later appointed him as a judge and he would play an increasingly important role in the Mongol court. For our purposes, this incident shows the importance the Mongols attached to satins and other luxurious fabrics.
Meanwhile, the Eastern Capital (current day Liaoyang in Liaoning Province) had also fallen to the Mongols. No siege had been necessary. By means of various subterfuges the nomads had entered the city “without firing a single arrow.” One hundred thousand soldiers threw down their arms and surrendered and seized vast amounts of loot were seized. Thus by the summer of 1215 Chingis Khan again occupied much of North China. This time he had no intention of allowing all of his troops to return to Mongolia and handing nominal control of the conquered areas back to the Jin. He demanded that Xuanzong, still cowering in the Southern Capital, cede to him outright the lands the Mongols now occupied plus addition areas in current-day Hebei and Shandong provinces which were still claimed by the Jin. Henceforth, Xuanzong would rule over only a small rump state in the middle Yellow River Valley (modern-day Henan Province) with Kaifeng as its capital.
The Jin would not be totally extinguished until 1234, but by the end of 1215 Chingis Khan had at least nominal control of most of Northern China and ruled as suzerain over Xi Xia to the west and Uighuria still farther west. The great trade routes which Occidental peoples would later call the Silk Road were now open from its various eastern terminuses, including the old Jin Central Capital of Zhongdu, through the Gansu Corridor to the great Oasis Cities of Uighuristan at the foot of the Tian Shan Mountains. News of these monumental events quickly spread beyond the Tian Shan and soon ambassadors of the great Islamic Empires of Central Asia were wending their way eastward to learn what they could about the great conqueror who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and now stood astride one the world’s most ancient civilizations.
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