During the reign of Emperor Yuan Shun of the Yuan Dynasty, the Yuan court was in a state of turmoil. In fact, the Yuan Shun Emperor was indeed the last emperor of the Yuan Dynasty and the king of the subjugated country.
In the twelfth year of the reign of Emperor Yuanshun (1352 CE), Emperor Yuanshun, faced with a surging anti-Yuan uprising, made the decision to relocate a man named Zhao Wanpu to Shazhou (present-day Dunhuang, Gansu, the former hometown of Western Xia).
Sixteen years later, in 1368, the Ming Dynasty was established and the Yuan Dynasty ended its rule over China.
And the above-mentioned Zhao Wanpu is not someone else, but the son of the Southern Song Emperor Song Gongdi. In the year that Zhao Wanpu was relocated to Shazhou, Zhu Zhongba, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, happened to join the Red Turban Army. If the Southern Song Dynasty does not die and the Song Gong Emperor lineage can continue, then, on the timeline, Zhu Zhongba may become a commoner of Zhao Wanpu.
And this phenomenon can make us perceive this: the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty are not far apart on the timeline, and the "last prince" of the Southern Song Dynasty and the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty can meet together on the timeline. In fact, the time interval between Song and Ming is only about ninety years, but these two dynasties always give people a feeling of extreme distance, why is this?
Personally, I think:
Impression problems
In addition to history buffs and historians, the mainstream public's understanding of most dynasties and historical regimes is based on only a few representative events.
For example, the Shang Dynasty lasted for six hundred years, but when most people mention the Shang Dynasty, they will first think of the Shang Dynasty, a few will think of Wu Ding and The Lady, and as for the Rebellion of the Ninth Dynasty, Pan Geng, and even the Shang Kings such as He Qijia and Xiao Xin, they will not be too impressed; and like the history of the Yuan Dynasty, most people only know Kublai Khan and The Yuan Shun Emperor, and as for the entanglement between Yuan Yingzong, Emperor Taiding, and even the brothers of Yuan Wenzong and Yuan Mingzong, few people understand.
Similarly, when most people mention the Song Dynasty, they often think of Yang Jiajian, Di Qing against The Western Xia, or Yue Fei against jin, and as for the Kaixi Northern Expedition and Duanping into Luo, there are not many people who know. Even the era of Yue Fei's resistance to Jin is more than two hundred years away from the early years of the Ming Dynasty, so many people will feel that the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty are like a world apart.
Environmental change issues
The external environment of the Song Dynasty: During the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a Liao in the north, a Western Xia in the northwest, a Qarakhanid state in the western region, and a Dali state in the southwest. The ethnic groups that coexist with the Han chinese include the Khitans, the Dangxiang, and so on. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the main external problem faced by the Southern Song Dynasty was the Jurchen Jinguo.
In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, whether it was the Great Liao or the Western Xia, it had long ceased to exist, and the Western Regions had become the domain of the Mongols. Many of the nationalities that existed during the Song Dynasty have long ceased to exist by the Ming Dynasty.
Internal aspects of Han society: the scholarship of the Two Song Dynasties was relatively liberal - for example, the rise of the Southern Song Dynasty was a model, and the Two Song Dynasties attached more importance to commercial activities, and even the Song Gaozong encouraged business.
In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang pursued a policy of ignorance, suppressed academic freedom, and was extremely hostile to commercial activities, and even the Ming Dynasty's long-term policy of banning the sea—all of which led to the separation between the Song and Ming dynasties.