Mongols capture Zhongdu, Jin capital

1215

After a lengthy siege, Genghis Khan's armies stormed the Jin capital on the site of modern Beijing. For weeks fires burned through the wooden city. Survivors described bones heaped in the streets. The Jin court fled south to Kaifeng and the steppe rode west. A generation later Kublai Khan would choose the same site for his new capital of Dadu, future heart of the Yuan dynasty.