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The Song Dynasty crowned a seven-year-old emperor in a city they were already fl
1276 Event

June 14

Last Song Emperor Enthroned in Exile as Mongols Close In

The Song Dynasty crowned a seven-year-old emperor in a city they were already fleeing. Zhao Shi became Emperor Duanzong not in a palace but in exile, Fuzhou serving as a desperate substitute for a court the Mongols had already effectively destroyed. Kublai Khan's forces had taken Hangzhou two years earlier. The ceremony happened anyway — robes, rituals, the whole performance. But Duanzong would be dead within two years, driven further south by sea, sick, and drowning after a shipwreck. The empire outlasted him by months. The coronation wasn't a beginning. It was a funeral in disguise.

June 14, 1276

750 years ago

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