Being a compilation of seven discrete and relatively brief records, written by a mixture of either obscure or entirely anonymous authors, The Accounts of Jingkang (Jingkang baishi jianzheng), or also Seven Accounts of Jingkang (Jingkang baishi qizhong), chronicles the Jingkang Incident or, as it is oftentimes called, the Humiliation of Jingkang of 1127. Amidst all of the occurrences in the protracted series of early twelfth-century battles known collectively as the Jin-Song Wars, waged as they were between the Jurchen Jin dynasty (1115-1234) and the initial Chinese Song or, subsequently, Northern Song (960-1127) dynasty, the Jingkang Incident constitutes the true denouement. This sordid event encompassed the siege, fall, and sacking of the Song capital city of Kaifeng as well as the capture, abduction, and relegation of the dynasty’s emperor Qinzong (r. 1126) and his abdicated father Huizong (r. 1100-1125). Along with these two sovereigns, the Jurchen forces also took captive and transported north into their territories an extensive imperial entourage of perhaps as many as 15,000 courtiers. Along the arduous way north into the Jurchen homeland of what is now Manchuria, of those who did not perish, untold numbers of these Chinese captives—but especially the former court women—were subjected to enslavement. The following passage is drawn from the sixth of Accounts of Jingkang’s seven records. Its author is unknown but the work itself bears the title Records of the Song Captives (Songfu ji) and reliably corroborates other reports on the event as well as this practice.

Translated from the Chinese by Don J. Wyatt. Jingkang baishi qizhong [Seven Accounts of Jingkang], Nai’an, comp., Congshu jicheng xubian edn. (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1994[?]), 6.11. This translation CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Women Trafficked Northward into Enslavement

The journey of the main prisoners involved collecting and leaving groups all along the way, whether at Yanshan or Zhongjing, Hanzhou or Xianzhou, and the women of the Song imperial house, together with any of the soldiers worth being ransomed, were seized and made slaves. Unwed women were sold into slavery and, without their even knowing it, then discovered themselves to have been married off as slaves. By 1128, those who had been divided up and given away as slaves served in the myriad residences of the various [Jurchen] rulers and men of rank on down to the homes of their higher subordinates. In general, the women taken were age twenty-four and under, with 114 of these women entering the imperial palace.[1]

[1] Beyond Yanshan, the main imperial convoy first made the northeasterly trek to Zhongjing (Central Capital), arriving in the autumn of 1127. From that site, some portion of the captives was splintered off and transferred separately to relatively nearby Xianzhou, to the northeast. Thereafter, the core of the main party was moved farther northward, transported on to Shangjing (the main Jurchen capital; modern-day Harbin), arriving in late summer of 1128. Then, traveling due east, the imperial contingent reached Hanzhou in the autumn of 1128.

Discussion Questions

  1. During wartime, it is arguable that women have always been more susceptible to exploitative practices such as enslavement than have men. Beyond the obvious reason of what is typically their relative defenselessness in comparison to men, why else have women customarily been more frequently enslaved than were their male counterparts? In other words, even in enslaved states, have women not also tended to hold greater value than men have? Why or why not, and is there any irony in your choice?
  2. In the context of traditional warfare, the competition for wives has frequently been a reason for resorting to combat in the first place. From what you can discern about the pretext for the Jin-Song Wars, was the seizure of women as wives a primary or an ancillary motivation for conflict?
  3. To what degree do you suspect that our knowledge of the fates of these Chinese women enslaved by Jurchen invaders directly correlates to the statuses that they had held upon capture? How likely are we to know today what became of these women had they not been predominantly women of high status of the imperial court?

Related Primary Sources

Themes

Captives, Sexual Slavery, Violence, Women