August 11 – While conducting a siege against the Song dynasty city known as Fishing Town in the province of Chongqing, China, the MongolGreat Khan, Möngke Khan, dies in the nearby hills. Persian, Chinese, and Mongol records have different accounts of how he died, including succumbing to an arrow wound received by a Chinese archer in the siege, dysentery, and even a cholera epidemic. His death sparks a succession crisis in the Mongol Empire, while his brothers Ariq Böke and Kublai soon convene their own kurultai to elect themselves as the next Khan of Khans, opening the path to a four–year-long Toluid Civil War from 1260 to 1264. In the end, Ariq Böke surrenders to Kublai.[8][9]
While engaged in a war with the Mongols, the Song Chinese official Li Zengbo writes in his Kozhai Zagao, Xugaohou that the city of Qingzhou is manufacturing one to two thousand strong iron-casedgunpowder bomb shells a month, dispatching to Xiangyang and Yingzhou about ten to twenty thousand such bombs at a time.[10]
^Hammel-Kiesow, Rolf (2015). "The Early Hansas". In Harreld, Donald J. (ed.). A Companion to the Hanseatic League. Leiden and Boston: BRILL. p. 56. ISBN9789004284760.
^Griffis, William Elliot (2014). The Mikado's Empire. Cambridge Library Collection. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 613. ISBN9781108080507.
^Crowe, Joseph Archer; Cavalcaselle, Giovanni Battista; Jameson, Anna (2014). Early Italian Painting. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: Parkstone International. p. 118. ISBN9781783103928.
^McKitterick, Rosamond; Abulafia, David; Fouracre, Paul; Reuter, Timothy; Allmand, C. T.; Luscombe, David Edward; Jones, Michael; Riley-Smith, Jonathan (1995). The New Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. V: c. 1198 - c.1300. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 460. ISBN9780521362894.
^Jefferson, Melvin (2006). "The Conservation of Parker MSS 16 and 26 "The Chronica Majora"". In Fellows-Jensen, Gillian; Springborg, Peter (eds.). Care and Conservation of Manuscripts 9: Proceedings of the Ninth International Seminar Held at the University of Copenhagen 14th-15th April 2005. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. p. 69. ISBN9788763505543.