be found both in external and in internal politics. The Juchên 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 Juchên wanted to enjoy this wealth as the
Kitan had done before them. All the Juchên 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 Juchên 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'aifeng, 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 reconciliation
of the various elements of the population and the collaboration of at
least one group of the defeated Chinese.


3 _Start of the Mongol empire_