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Emperor Taizu reunified much of China in 960, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era. Early-ripening, drought-resistant Champa rice allowed two or even three harvests a year, the population roughly doubled to 90 to 100 million, and the Grand Canal fed capitals such as Kaifeng and Hangzhou with over a million residents each. By the 12th century the Song economy is estimated at three times Europe’s. Up to 400,000 candidates sat the civil service examinations, shifting power from military aristocrats to scholar officials, while daughters gained property rights and educated mothers tutored future officials such as the polymath Shen Kuo.

Shen Kuo recorded Bi Sheng’s movable clay type and magnetic declination, Song Ci wrote a pioneering forensic manual, the Wujing Zongyao of 1044 gave early gunpowder formulas, and the state issued jiaozi paper money. Taizu, who had seized power in a coup, kept generals weak, and in the Jingkang incident of 1127 the Jurchen Jin took Kaifeng and captured Emperor Huizong. The court fled south to Hangzhou and founded a standing navy in 1132. Möngke Khan died besieging a fortress at Chongqing in 1259, Kublai Khan built a navy, blockaded the Yangtze and took Hangzhou in 1276, and the dynasty ended at Yamen in 1279.

• Song welfare included state retirement homes, public clinics and paupers’ graveyards.
• Jiaozi notes used mulberry bark paper with silk fibers and multicolor printing, and counterfeiters faced execution.
• Treadmill-powered paddle-wheel warships carried traction trebuchets that hurled gunpowder bombs.
• In 1161 at Tangdao and Caishi, 3,000 Song men on 120 ships beat a Jin force of 70,000 on 600 ships.
• At Yamen the prime minister leapt into the sea holding the seven-year-old last emperor.