What was China like prior to the Mongol invasion?

Before the Mongol empire was founded the Mongols were apart of the tribes that lived in northern china along with many others like the Huns, Turks,  Jurchen and many others. China's borders through out the years were widened and shrunk from many conquests but through the battles china was a religious country that celebrated many special occasions that is still around to this day like Chinese new year and their most famous religious artefact is the Chengling Pagoda that is located in Zhengding.








The rules of china before the Mongols were the jins who ruled from 115-1234 AD. The Jin Dynasty were allied with the Sung Dynasty from southern china and joined to became most of what china is still today. The Jin were are largely focus military nations, with many enemies and rebellions to deal with they adopted cannons from their sung allies and had good horsemen but weren't enough to rival the Mongol horsemen. However their navel strength was fair to say appalling even thought they had the technology and well trained troops to have a strong navy. While the rulers of Jin faced much warfare, millions of its people were specialized into economic crafts such as farming, fishing, and hunting. Animal husbandry became the dominant industry. With the marriages of Jin and Han peoples, commerce and agricultural production were greatly developed.  It is also at this era that extensive advancement in terms of drama and literature was initiated.  With internal uprisings and warfare, the people of Jin seem not affected by the trouble.  It was mainly due to the influence of Hans’s people on possessing positive attitude in life.


When the Mongols invaded they took from the Jin many things like; cannon, silk, paper, fireworks, various foods and religion. The Jin also showed the Mongols civilization and how to run an empire, even their capital city Karakorum was built with Chinese architect. So In conclusion the Mongols actually benefited a lot from the ways of the Jin.


http://totallyhistory.com/jin-dynasty-1115-1234/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_China