Yuan forces capture the Song capital Lin'an

1276

After decades of slow reduction, Bayan's Mongol army occupied Lin'an, modern Hangzhou, without serious resistance. The child emperor and the empress dowager surrendered. The Song court, or its remnants, fled south with loyalists into the mountains of Fujian and Guangdong. The fall of Lin'an, once the most populous and prosperous city on earth, marked the beginning of the end for the last Chinese dynasty.