The Dawson Ledger
Event

Battle of Yamen (1279 CE)

Final naval defeat of the Southern Song loyalists; end of the dynasty.

Event Details

  • Date: 19 March 1279
  • Type: naval-battle
  • Civilizations: sinitic-east-asia, steppe-central-eurasian

Description

Final naval defeat of the Southern Song loyalists; end of the dynasty.

Quantitative facts and their sourcing

  • Date 19 March 1279.
  • Wikipedia (stub): Song side ~200,000 people (mostly non-combatants), 1,000+ ships (mostly transports), ~20,000 soldiers and 50+ warships; at least 100,000 died by fighting or drowning. Low-confidence, ancient-chronicle-derived.
  • PRIMARY-SOURCE figures: Song shi 47 (read, zh.wikisource revid 2642866): Zhang Shijie broke out with ten-odd ships; Lu Xiufei carried the boy emperor Zhao Bing into the sea, many palace women and officials followed in death; "after seven days, more than 100,000 floating corpses came out of the sea" (浮屍出於海十餘萬人); the Dowager Yang and Zhang Shijie also drowned. Yuan-compiled history; claim, not measurement.

Confidence

low. Numbers marked "Wikipedia-compiled (stub)" come from a secondary aggregator and must be upgraded to page-level scholarly citations before any Official use.

Citations

  • songshi-47-wikisource-zh [PRIMARY-READ] Toqto'a (chief compiler) (1345). Toqto'a et al., Song shi juan 47 (annals of the last Song emperors), Chinese text on zh.wikisource revid 2642866; read. Wikisource (zh). https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%AE%8B%E5%8F%B2/%E5%8D%B7047. Read 2026-10-12.
  • smith2003-song-yuan-ming [formal] Paul Jakov Smith, Richard von Glahn (eds.) (2003). The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History. Harvard University Asia Center. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL18373583W. Verified 2026-10-11 (Open Library record found; edition exists, page-level not checked).
  • wp-battle-of-yamen [STUB (secondary aggregator)] Wikipedia contributors (2026). Battle of Yamen (Wikipedia; secondary aggregator, stub-grade). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yamen. Verified 2026-10-11 (resolves).

Review status

SOFT draft. Not Official. Needs editor review of CAD tags (estimated) and page-level citation upgrade.

About this entry

A draft entry preserved from civilization.study. Evidence grade: low. 2 of 3 listed sources are fully documented; the rest are names only. Method and sources

Conflict card

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naval battle · 19 March 1279

Battle of Yamen (1279 CE)

Final naval defeat of the Southern Song loyalists; end of the dynasty.

Evidence: Primary text read Draft estimate

What the record says

  • Note Date 19 March 1279.
  • Unverified (Wikipedia-compiled) Wikipedia (stub): Song side ~200,000 people (mostly non-combatants), 1,000+ ships (mostly transports), ~20,000 soldiers and 50+ warships; at least 100,000 died by fighting or drowning. Low-confidence, ancient-chronicle-derived.
  • Primary text PRIMARY-SOURCE figures: Song shi 47 (read, zh.wikisource revid 2642866): Zhang Shijie broke out with ten-odd ships; Lu Xiufei carried the boy emperor Zhao Bing into the sea, many palace women and officials followed in death; "after seven days, more than 100,000 floating corpses came out of the sea" (浮屍出於海十餘萬人); the Dowager Yang and Zhang Shijie also drowned. Yuan-compiled history; claim, not measurement.

Confidence. low.

Where it sits

Sources and evidence

No page-level citation is claimed for any source. Figures marked unverified come from a Wikipedia aggregator and are not for Official use.

Link to this conflict

Art: Patterns of Civilization chronicle art, made with AI: illustrations, not historical evidence. Entries are drafts preserved from civilization.study. Method and sources.