Song bing

Sòng Bǐng ( 宋帝 昺 )
Family name :	Zhào ( 趙 )
First name :	Bǐng ( 昺 )
Posthumous title : (short)	Dì (帝) or Wèiwáng (衛 王)
Reign:	May 10, 1278-19. March 1279
Era names :	Xiángxīng ( 祥興 ) 1278-1279

Song Bing ( Chinese  宋帝 昺 , Pinyin Sòng Dì Bǐng ; * 1271 in Hangzhou ; † March 19, 1279 in the Pearl River near Yamen), also known under the posthumous name Di or Weiwang , was the last emperor of the southern Song dynasty ( Chinese  南宋 , Pinyin Nán Sòng ), the last epoch of the Song dynasty .

Born under the name Zhao Bing ( 趙 昺 , Zhào Bǐng ) as the son of Emperor Duzong , he was the younger brother of his predecessor, Emperor Duanzong . In 1274 he became King Xin (信 王), in 1276 he received the titles of Prince Guang (廣 王) and Prince Wei (衛 王). On May 10, 1278 he was crowned emperor in Gangzhou (碙 州) in southern China, where his predecessor died, at the age of seven.

A year later the last ruler of the Song dynasty, a boy of eight, fled with his retinue to southern Guangdong . Large parts of China had been conquered by the Mongols under Kublai Khan since 1276 . At Yamen ( 崖门  /  崖門  - "Cliff Gate") in today's Xinhui District (新 会 / 新 會) on the left bank of the Pearl River Delta (lower reaches of the West River ( 西江 , Xī Jiāng )), the leaders of the Song Dynasty tried through one Sea battle in the delta area to turn the tide. The Battle of Yamen on March 19, 1279, one of the greatest naval battles in world history, turned into a disaster despite the numerical superiority of the Song Forces under their Admiral Zhang Shijie, which killed more than 100,000 people. The prime minister and advisor Lu Xiufu ( 陆秀夫 , 1232–1279) recognized the hopelessness of the situation, took the child emperor and jumped with him into the river at Yaishan to kill himself and his ruler before the Mongol army on Mount Ya reached near the river, which is why the battle is also called "Sea Battle on Mount Ya". The act should be seen as a sign of resistance and inflexibility towards the stranger. The Song dynasty ended after 314 years, and the foreign rule of the Mongolian Yuan dynasty began.

According to contemporary reports, the next day a monk found the body of the little emperor floating in the water near Shekou (蛇口 - in what is now the Nanshan district of Shenzhen City ), recognized it by the emperor's seal he was carrying and buried it. In the 1980s a memorial grave was erected there for the child emperor. In the past, several temples were built in this area in memory of the last greats of the Song Dynasty.

literature

• Jacques Gernet : The Chinese World. The history of China from the beginning to the present time (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch. 1505). 1st edition, reprint. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-518-38005-2 .

Web links

• Statue of Lu Xiufu with his ruler Song Zhao Bing

predecessor	Office	successor
Duanzong	Emperor of China 1278–1279	Kublai Khan (Yuan Dynasty)
Duanzong	Emperor of the Song Dynasty 1278–1279	End of the dynasty