the mongols had spent decades harassing the song empire's borders and were on the verge of conquering the whole of china. emperor duzong however, ignored this problem instead choosing to drink and indulging in sex because when duzong heard that xiangyang was being besieged by mongol troops, duzong asked jia sidao "i hear that xiangyang had been besieged by the yuan troops for several years. is this true?" in which jia said in all seriousness "well, i haven't heard such a thing." duzong replied with "a palace maid told me this."