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The Battle of Caishi (Battle of Ts'ai-shih; ) was a major naval engagement of the Jin–Song Wars of China that took place on November 26–27, 1161. Soldiers under the command of Prince Hailing, the Jurchen emperor of the Jin dynasty, tried to cross the Yangtze River to attack Song China. Yu Yunwen, a civil official, commanded the defending Song army. The paddle-wheel warships of the Song fleet, equipped with trebuchets that launched incendiary bombs made of gunpowder and lime, decisively defeated the light ships of the Jin navy. Starting in 1125 the Jin had conquered all Song territories north of the Huai River. In 1142, a peace treaty settled the border between the two states, putting the Jin in control of northern China and the Song in control of the south. Prince Hailing was enthroned in 1150, and was intent on uniting northern and southern China under a single emperor. In 1158, he asserted that the Song had violated the 1142 treaty, a pretext for declaring war on the Song. He began preparations for the war in the following year. He instituted a draft in which all able-bodied men were required to enlist. The draft was unpopular, precipitating revolts that were later suppressed. The Jin army left the capital of Kaifeng on October 15, 1161, and pushed through from the Huai to the Yangtze River without much resistance from the Song. The Song were fortified along the Yangtze front. Hailing planned to cross the river at Caishi, south of modern-day Nanjing. He embarked from the shore of the Yangtze on November 26, and clashed with Song forces led by Yu Yunwen in a naval engagement. Hailing lost the battle and retreated to Yangzhou. Hailing was assassinated in a military camp by his own men shortly after the Caishi battle. A military coup had taken place in the Jin court while Hailing was absent, enthroning Emperor Shizong as the new emperor. A peace treaty signed in 1165 ended the conflict between Song and Jin. Song sources likely inflated the number of Jin soldiers and casualties at Caishi, but the 18,000 figure for the Song army is plausible. Modern studies suggest that the battle was smaller and that both sides were more evenly matched than traditional accounts suggest. Nonetheless, the victory boosted the morale of the Song infantry and halted the southern advance of the Jin army. Emperor Gaozong abdicated nine months after the battle ended. ==Background== The Song (960–1276) was a Chinese dynasty. To their north were the Jurchens, a confederation of semi-agrarian tribes from Manchuria in northeast Asia. While the Song and Jurchen had once been military allies, the Jurchen tribes, unified under the rule of Wanyan Aguda, plotted a revolt in 1114 to end their vassalage under the Khitan-led Liao dynasty. Aguda established the Jin dynasty in 1115 and adopted the title of emperor. The Jin negotiated a joint attack with the Song against the Khitans. They planned the attack for 1121 and then rescheduled to 1122. In 1122, the Jurchens captured the Liao Supreme and Western Capitals. The Song tried yet failed to capture the Liao Southern Capital of Yan (modern Beijing), which fell later that year to the Jin. The military weakness of the Song gave the Jin more diplomatic leverage over the Song. Negotiations between the Song and Jin produced a treaty in 1123, but bilateral relations deteriorated because of territorial disputes over the Sixteen Prefectures. In 1125, the Jurchens invaded the Song. By 1127, Jin had conquered most of northern China and besieged the Song capital of Kaifeng twice. In the second siege of Kaifeng, Emperor Qinzong of the Song was captured. The Jurchens took him and the Song royal family to Manchuria as hostages. Members of the Song court who had evaded capture fled south, where they established a temporary capital, first in the Song southern capital (modern Shangqiu), and then in Hangzhou in 1129. The move of the Song capital south to Hangzhou signals the transition from the Northern Song era to the Southern Song. Qinzong's younger brother, Prince Zhao Gou, was enthroned as Qinzong's successor in the southern capital in 1127; he is known posthumously as Emperor Gaozong. The Jurchen general Wanyan Wuzhu crossed the Yangtze River in 1130 and tried to capture Gaozong, but the emperor escaped. Wuzhu retreated north across the Yangtze, where he fought off a stronger Song fleet commanded by Han Shizhong. The Jin persisted with their advance into the remaining Song territories south of the Yangtze. They faced an insurgency of Song loyalists in the north, the deaths of some important leaders, and military offensives by Song generals like Yue Fei. The Jurchens created the puppet government of Da Qi to serve as a buffer state between Song and Jin, but Qi failed to defeat the Song. The Jin abolished Qi in 1137. As the Jin gave up on conquering the Southern Song, diplomatic talks for a peace treaty resumed. Signed in 1142, the Treaty of Shaoxing established the boundary between the two states along the Huai River, which runs north of the Yangtze. The treaty forbade the Song from purchasing horses from the Jin, but smuggling continued in the border markets. The relations between the two states were mostly peaceful from 1142 to 1161, the year Prince Hailing went to war. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Caishi」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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