We have already briefly
mentioned the reasons for their rise. After their first successes
against the Kitan (1114), their chieftain at once proclaimed himself
emperor (1115), giving his dynasty the name "Chin" (The Golden). The
Chin quickly continued their victorious progress. In 1125 the Kitan
empire was destroyed. It will be remembered that the Sung were at once
attacked, although they had recently been allied with the Chin against
the Kitan. In 1126 the Sung capital was taken. The Chin invasions were
pushed farther south, and in 1130 the Yangtze was crossed. But the Chin
did not hold the whole of these conquests. Their empire was not yet
consolidated. Their partial withdrawal closed the first phase of the
Chin empire.

2 _United front of all Chinese_

But a few years after this maximum expansion, a withdrawal began which
went on much more quickly than usual in such cases. The reasons were to
be found both in external and in internal politics. The Juchen had
gained great agrarian regions in a rapid march of conquest. Once more
great cities with a huge urban population and immense wealth had fallen
to alien conquerors. Now the Juchen wanted to enjoy this wealth as the
Kitan had done before them. All the Juchen people counted as citizens of
the highest class; they were free from taxation and only liable to
military service. They were entitled to take possession of as much
cultivable land as they wanted; this they did, and they took not only
the "state domains" actually granted to them but also peasant
properties, so that Chinese free peasants had nothing left but the worst
fields, unless they became tenants on Juchen estates. A united front was
therefore formed between all Chinese, both peasants and landowning
gentry, against the Chin, such as it had not been possible to form
against the Kitan. This made an important contribution later to the
rapid collapse of the Chin empire.

The Chin who had thus come into possession of the cultivable land and
at the same time of the wealth of the towns, began a sort of competition
with each other for the best winnings, especially after the government
had returned to the old Sung capital, Pien-liang (now K'ai-feng, in
eastern Honan). Serious crises developed in their own ranks. In 1149 the
ruler was assassinated by his chancellor (a member of the imperial
family), who in turn was murdered in 1161. The Chin thus failed to
attain what had been secured by all earlier conquerors, a re