Genghis destroys Zhongdu (Beijing). Several years of sparring with the Jin dynasty in northern China yield an outright attack in 1214. Genghis surrounds their capital, Zhongdu (located where Beijing now stands). The Jin emperor, Xuanzong, beseeches Genghis to withdraw, a plea sweetened with gold, silver, horses, slaves, and a princess (who became one of Genghis’s many wives). Genghis agrees, and the Mongols depart; the Jin court promptly flees southward to Kaifeng. The retreat enrages Genghis, who sees it as a ploy for regrouping before a counterattack. He storms back to Zhongdu in 1215, starving the city into submission and looting without pity.   © 1997 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.