Song Dynasty
Encyclopedia : S : SO : SON : Song Dynasty
- Please see Song (disambiguation) for other possible meanings of this term, including the Liu Song Dynasty.
During the Song Dynasty, there were many threats from the northern borders by the Khitans (契丹) from the Liao Dynasty (遼朝), Tanguts from the Western Xia (西夏) Dynasty, and the Jurchens (女真)from the Jin dynasty (金朝). The Sòng dynasty itself can be divided into two distinct periods: the Northern Sòng and Southern Sòng. The Northern Sòng (北宋, 960-1127) signifies the time when the Sòng capital was in the northern city of Kaifeng (開封) and the dynasty controlled most of inner China. The Southern Sòng (南宋, 1127-1279) refers to the time after the Song lost control of northern China to the Jurchen Jin dynasty. The Song court retreated south of the Yangtze River (揚子江 or 長江) and made their capital at Hangzhou (杭州).
The Jin Dynasty was soon conquered by the Mongols in 1234, who subsequently took control of northern China and maintained uneasy relations with the Southern Sòng court (A hasty peace treaty was settled, when Kublai Khan received the news of Möngee's death, the ruler of the Mongols. He went back in a bid to seize the throne from other competitors, leaving Sòng intact for a little longer). The Mongol Yuán dynasty (元朝), proclaimed in 1271, finally conquered the Sòng dynasty in 1279 and once more unified China, this time as part of a vast Mongol empire. The Mongol empire was later known as the Yuan dynasty.
Arts, culture and economy
The founders of the Sòng Dynasty (宋朝), Zhao Kuangyin (趙匡胤) also known as Taizu (太祖), built an effective centralized bureaucracy staffed with civilian scholar-officials. Regional military governors and their supporters were replaced by centrally appointed officials. This system of civilian rule led to a greater concentration of power in the emperor and his palace bureaucracy than had been achieved in the previous dynasties.The Sòng Dynasty is notable for the development of cities not only for administrative purposes but also as centers of trade, industry, and maritime commerce. The landed scholar-officials, sometimes collectively referred to as the gentry, lived in the provincial centers alongside the shopkeepers, artisans, and merchants. A new group of wealthy commoners - the mercantile class - arose as printing and education spread, private trade grew, and a market economy began to link the coastal provinces and the interior. Landholding and government employment were no longer the only means of gaining wealth and prestige. The development of paper money and a unified tax system meant the development of a true nationwide market system.
Accompanying this was the beginnings of what one might term the Chinese industrial revolution. For example the historian Robert Hartwell has estimated that per capita iron output rose sixfold between 806 and 1078 (AD), such that, by 1078 China was producing 125,000 tons of iron per year, a per capita consumption of roughly 1.5 kg of iron per year (compared to 0.5 kg in europe). This iron was used to mass produce ploughs, hammers, needles, pins, cymbals among other routine items for an indigenous mass market and for trade with the outside world, which also expanded greatly at this point. Concurrently the Chinese invented or developed gunpowder, the cannon, the flamethrower (as did the Byzantines with Greek fire), and printing technology which increased literacy with the mass production of printed materials. This meant that parents could encourage sons to learn to read and write and therefore be able to take the civil service exams (科舉) and become part of the learned growing bureaucracy. As a result of these innovations (and the concurrent agricultural revolution) China boasted some of the largest cities of the world at this time. For example it has been estimated that Hangzhou (杭州) had roughly 500,000 inhabitants at this point: far larger than any European city - in western Europe by 1200, only Paris and Venice had a population of over 100,000, though Constantinople had 300,000.
Second to the most common estimates, the GDP per capita income with purchasing power parity under the Sòng Dynasty was estimated to be over $600 in 1990 international dollars. Western Europe had a per capita income of roughly $550 by 1000 AD, significantly smaller. Western Europe started to become slightly wealthier in per capita income than a slowly declining China after 1300 AD. By the 16th century, Europe's per capita income was vastly superior.
Culturally, the Sòng refined many of the developments of the previous centuries. Included in these refinements were not only the Tang (唐朝) ideal of the universal man, who combined the qualities of scholar, poet, painter, and statesman, but also historical writings, painting, calligraphy (書法), and hard-glazed porcelain. Song intellectuals sought answers to all philosophical and political questions in the Confucian (儒学) Classics. This renewed interest in the Confucian ideals and society of ancient times coincided with the decline of Buddhism (佛教), which the Chinese regarded as foreign and offering few practical guidelines for the solution of political and other mundane problems.
The Sòng Neo-Confucian (理学) philosophers, finding a certain purity in the originality of the ancient classical texts, wrote commentaries on them. The most influential of these philosophers was Zhu Xi (朱熹, 1130-1200), whose synthesis of Confucian thought and Buddhist, Taoist (道教), and other ideas became the official imperial ideology from late Song times to the late 19th century. As incorporated into the examination system (科舉), Zhu Xi's philosophy evolved into a rigid official creed, which stressed the one-sided obligations of obedience and compliance of subject to ruler, child to father, wife to husband, and younger brother to elder brother. The effect was to inhibit the societal development of premodern China, resulting both in many generations of political, social, and spiritual stability and in a slowness of cultural and institutional change up to the 19th century. Neo-Confucian doctrines also came to play the dominant role in the intellectual life of Korea, Vietnam, and Japan.
Southern Sòng's resistance against the Jin
Before the arrival of the Jurchens the Song Dynasty for centuries would engage in a standoff with the Western Xia and the Khitan Liao Dynasty in a triangle. This balance was disrupted when the Song Dynasty developed a military alliance with the Jurchens in annihilating the Liao Dynasty. This balance of power disrupted, the Jurchens then turned on the Song Dynasty, resulting in the fall of the Northern Song and the establishment of the Southern Song.
A new triangular arrangement was formed, between the Song, Jin and Western Xia. The Southern Song deployed several military commanders, among them Yue Fei and Han Shizhong. Yue Fei in particular had been preparing to sack the capital of the Jin Dynasty after a streak of uninterrupted military victories. The possible defeat of the Jurchens however threatened the power of the new emperor of the Southern Song, Gaozong and his premier Qin Hui. The reason was that Qinzong, the last emperor of the Northern Song was living in Jin-imposed exile in Manchuria and had a good chance of being recalled to the throne should the Jin Dynasty be destroyed. Emperor Gaozong signed the Treaty of Shaoxing, which conceded most of the territory regained. Yue Fei in particular was executed under the terms of the treaty.
Mongol invasion
Following the death of Gaozong and the emergence of the Mongols, the Song Dynasty formed a military alliance with the Mongols in the hope of finally defeating the Jin Dynasty. Several tens of thousands of carts of grain were sent to the Mongol army during the siege. Following the destruction of the Jurchens, the Southern Song generals broke the alliance, proceeding to recapture the three historical capitals of Kaifeng, Luoyang and Chang'an.
However the cities, ravaged by years of warfare, lacked economic capacity and yielded little defensibility. The Mongols eventually gained the upper hand, and in 1276 the Southern Sòng court fled to Guangdong (廣東) by boat. Emperor Gong of Song China (恭帝) was left behind. Any hope of resistance was centred on two young princes, Emperor Gong's brothers. The older boy, Zhao Shi (趙昰), who was nine years old, was declared emperor (端宗); and in 1277, the imperial court sought refuge in Silvermine Bay (銀礦灣 or Mui Wo, 梅窩) on Lantau Island (大嶼山) and later in what is today Kowloon City, Hong Kong (see also Sung Wong Toi).
The older brother became ill and died, and was succeeded by the younger, Zhao Bing (趙昺), aged seven. On March 19, 1279 the Song army was defeated in its last battle, the Battle of Yamen (崖山海戰), fought against the Mongols in the Pearl River Delta (珠江三角洲); subsequently a high official is said to have taken the boy emperor in his arms and jumped from a clifftop into the sea, drowning both of them (See: Sung Wong Toi). Hau Wong, an official from this court, is still revered as a god in Hong Kong.
Despite the fact the Southern Song was conquered, they had fought the longest against the Mongols out of any other nations and despite its relative close geological location, remained one of the last places the Mongols successfully invaded. It is also in their invasion of Southern Song, that the Mongols suffered some of the most humilating defeats, notably the death of Mongke Khan in action, the first and only Khan ever to be killed.
Sòng dynasty emperors
Convention: "Sòng" + temple name or posthumous name except last emperor who was revered as Song Di Bing (Sòng Dì Bǐng 宋帝昺).Bei (Northern) Sòng dynasty,
| Temple Names (Miao Hao 廟號 Miào Hào) |
Posthumous Names (Shi Hao 諡號) |
Born Names | Period of Reigns |
Era Names (Nian Hao 年號) and their according range of years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taizu (太祖 Tàizǔ) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Kuangyin (趙匡胤 Zhào Kuāngyìn) | 960-976 | |
| Taizong (太宗 Tàizōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Kuangyi (趙匡義 Zhào Kuāngyì) or Zhao Guangyi (趙光義 Zhào Guāngyì) | 976-997 | |
| Zhenzong (真宗 Zhēnzōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Heng (趙恆 Zhào Héng) | 997-1022 | |
| Renzong (仁宗 Rénzōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Zhen (趙禎 Zhào Zhēn) | 1022-1063 | |
| Yingzong (英宗 Yīngzōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Shu (趙曙 Zhào Shù) | 1063-1067 | |
| Shenzong (神宗 Shénzōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Xu (趙頊 Zhào Xū) | 1067-1085 | |
| Zhezong (哲宗 Zhézōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Xu (趙煦 Zhào Xǔ) | 1085-1100 | *Yuanfu (元符 Yuánfú) 1098-1100 |
| Huizong (徽宗 Huīzōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Ji (趙佶 Zhào Jí) | 1100-1125 | |
| Qinzong (欽宗 Qīnzōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Huan (趙桓 Zhào Huán) | 1126-1127 |
Nan (Southern) Song dynasty,
| Temple Names (Miao Hao 廟號 Miào Hào) |
Posthumous Names (Shi Hao 諡號) |
Born Names | Period of Reigns |
Era Names (Nian Hao 年號) and their according range of years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gaozong (高宗 Gāozōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Gou (趙構 Zhào Gòu) | 1127-1162 | |
| Xiaozong (孝宗 Xiàozōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Shen (趙昚 Zhào Shèn) | 1162-1189 | |
| Guangzong (光宗 Guāngzōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Dun (趙惇 Zhào Dūn) | 1189-1194 | |
| Ningzong (寧宗 Níngzōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Kuo (趙擴 Zháo Kuó) | 1194-1224 | |
| Lizong (理宗 Lǐzōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Yun (趙昀 Zhào Yún) | 1224-1264 | |
| Duzong (度宗 Dùzōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Qi (趙祺 Zhào Qí) | 1264-1274 | |
| Emperor Gonggong (恭宗 Gōngzōng) | Gong Di (恭帝 Gōngdì) | Zhao Xian (趙顯 Zhào Xiǎn) | 1275 | |
| Duan Zong (端宗 Duān Zōng) | too tedious; thus, not used when referring to this sovereign | Zhao Shi (趙昰 Zhào Shì) | 1276-1278 | |
| did not exist | Di (帝 Dì) or Wei Wang (衛王 Wèiwáng) | Zhao Bing (趙昺 Zhào Bǐng) | 1278-1279 |
See also
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.