Major conflict1271 – 1279 · 8 years
Yuan Conquest of Southern China
Southern Song · Yangtze River · South China
Mongol forces systematically conquered the Southern Song Dynasty, ending a century of divided Chinese rule.
Estimated casualties
500K – 2.0Mestimated dead
HEADLINE2.0M — the single figure used on the map
1271-1279 CE; Yuan conquest
SOURCEMongol and Chinese records; Clodfelter
What happened
The Mongol Yuan Dynasty had conquered northern China by 1234; southern China remained under the Song Dynasty until the 1270s. Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, launched a systematic invasion of Song territories. Key battles included the naval Battle of Yamen (1279), where Song forces were defeated and the Song emperor drowned, ending the dynasty. Mongol cavalry and siege warfare gradually overwhelmed Song resistance. Cities like Xiangyang held out but eventually fell to superior numbers and logistics. By 1279, all of China was under Mongol rule. The conquest involved tens of thousands of soldiers and lasted nearly a decade.
Why it mattered
The Mongol conquest unified China under foreign rule for the first time. The Yuan Dynasty adopted Chinese administrative practices but maintained Mongol military supremacy and ethnic privileges. The conquest demonstrated the superiority of nomadic cavalry tactics over settled populations. However, the Yuan's authoritarian policies and Mongol privilege sparked resentment, leading to the Ming Dynasty's restoration in 1368.
Belligerents2
- Yuan Dynasty
- Song Dynasty
ON THE MAPYuan DynastySouthern Song Dynasty
Sources
- Wikipedia: Yuan Conquest of Southern China
- Clodfelter, Warfare and Armed Conflicts (4th ed., 2017)
- Wikipedia — text reused under CC BY-SA 4.0
Open in the atlas →Seeks the timeline to 1271 and opens this record.
Cite as: Yuan Conquest of Southern China (1271 – 1279). War Atlas. https://waratlas.org/c/yuan-conquest-south-china · Sources & methodology