The Song Dynasty
960-1279
Inventions/ Technology/ Science & Architecture
Songs were the best ship makers around. They found a way to change the average ship in the best ways. They upgraded steering, speed, and size. They also invented one of the most useful transportation devices in history. The compass.In addition they found away make books and other things that had words a lot faster, they made stamps. They made mechanisms that put stamps in an order which led to being able to print books.
Economics
Religion/ Culture/ Social Life
Politics
The first part of the Sung dynasty is called the Northern Sung. In 960 AD, one of the generals of the declining T'ang Dynasty managed to unify China under his control. This general's name was Chao K'uang-yin, but once became emperor he renamed himself Sung T'ai Tsu. But after Sung T'ai Tsu died, his successors did not do as well. The next Sung emperor were forced make a treaty with the Western Hsia in the north-west. The emperors had to pay heaps of gold to these people every year in order to keep them from attacking China. Then about 1110 AD, the Sung emperor made an alliance with the Jurchen of Manchuria to fight the Khitans and get them out of China. It worked great! But once the Khitans were out, in 1115, the Juchens took over the Sung capital of Kaifeng.
The second part of the Sung dynasty is called the Southern Sung. Another son of the Sung emperor ran away to southern China and in 1126 he started a new Sung Dynasty with its capital at Hangzhou. He took the name Kao Tsung. Kao Tsung and his successors were not very strong militarily, and could not take back northern China from the Juchen. In the 1230s, the Sung Dynasty made an alliance with the Mongols to get rid of the Juchen. Again, the plan worked, but the Mongols took over northern China instead. In 1279 AD the Mongols came even further south and killed the last of the Sung emperors.