How did Kublai Khan treat the captured Song imperial family?

When Kublai Khan conquered the Southern Song dynasty in 1279, he departed from the brutal customs often associated with earlier Mongol conquests and the treatment of defeated rulers.12

Upon the fall of the Song capital, Lin'an, in 1276, the reigning empress dowager and the young nominal emperor were taken to the Mongol capital of Dadu. There, Kublai Khan granted them an audience. Contrary to the practices of his predecessors—such as the Juchen treatment of the Song imperial family during the Jingkang Incident, where royals were reduced to servitude—Kublai Khan treated the deposed Song imperial family well.3415

This approach reflected his broader policy of clemency toward the conquered, which he emphasized to his generals to prevent indiscriminate slaughter. While national resistance continued for a time under loyalist princes, Kublai Khan's personal treatment of the captured royals was marked by a level of humanity and magnanimity that distinguished his rule from the more destructive methods of his contemporaries.123