Born Then960–1270
Life during the Song dynasty commercial revolution
Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.
What it meant for ordinary people
Under the Song dynasty China's population passed 100 million. Better rice, canals, printing, paper money and sea trade made it the most commercial economy in the world, with big cities like Kaifeng and Hangzhou. The civil service exams opened office to more families.
How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from our model, estimated from the sources.
Around the same time
- Indian Ocean slave trade 700–1799
- Abbasid prosperity (Islamic Golden Age) 786–1000
- Viking raids 793–1066
- Classic Maya collapse 800–950
- Song dynasty commercial revolution 960–1270
- Chola expansion 985–1070
- Polynesian settlement of Hawaii 1000–1200
- The Crusades 1096–1291
- Thule migration across the Arctic 1200–1300
- Rise of Great Zimbabwe 1200–1450
- Mongol conquest of the Jin 1211–1234
- Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire 1219–1223
- Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' 1237–1242
- Polynesian settlement of New Zealand 1250–1300
- Mongol sack of Baghdad 1258
- Mongol conquest of the Song 1268–1279