In 1276, the Southern Song court, in their rush to flee the capital city of Lin'an to avoid Yuan forces approaching Fuzhou, left Emperor Gong behind to be captured.

[citation needed] At this point of the war, it was obvious that the Song did not have sufficient strength to risk fighting the Yuan in a head-on conflict.

In 1278, Wen Tianxiang, who had fought against the Yuan in Guangdong and Jiangxi, was captured by Wang Weiyi in Haifeng County, eliminating all the Song land forces nearby.

[citation needed] Zhang Shijie ordered about 1,000 ships to be chained together, forming a long string within the bay, and placed Zhao Bing's boat in the center of his fleet.

The ill and weakened Song soldiers were no match for the Yuan troops in close combat, and the chaotic environment made battle command impossible.

Seeing that the battle was lost, Zhang Shijie picked out his finest soldiers and cut about a dozen ships from the formation in an attempted breakout to save the emperor.

There, Prime Minister Lu Xiufu saw no hope of breaking free and, taking the boy emperor with him, jumped into the sea, where both drowned.

Zhang Shijie, having escaped the battle, hoped to have Dowager Yang appoint the next Song emperor, and from there continue to resist the Yuan dynasty.

Kublai Khan and his successors and followers would rule China for 97 years until the rise of the Ming dynasty under the Hongwu Emperor, when the Chinese regained control of their lost territory from the Mongols.

Mosques and other buildings with foreign architecture were almost all destroyed and the Yuan imperial soldiers killed most of the descendants of Pu Shougeng and horrifically mutilated their corpses.

[2][3] Many temples were built in the surrounding area in memory of those who lost their lives in the dying years of the Song dynasty, including Wen Tianxiang, Lu Xiufu and Zhang Shijie.

Today, a museum complex, the Song-Yuan Yamen Sea Warfare Culture Tourist Zone, lies just to the east of the battle site.