The sudden death of the founder of the Song dynasty left a speculative legend of assassination, though it was probably caused by his heavy drinking. The legend stemmed from the fact that his young son was denied the orderly succession. Instead, the emperor’s younger brother, who had acquired much experience at his side, seized the throne. With reunification accomplished in the south, the new emperor, Taizong (reigned 976–997), turned northward to attack and conquer Bei Han (979), the last remaining Shiguo. He continued to fight the Khitan empire in the north, only to suffer a disastrous defeat in 986. Taizong’s relative shortage of horses and grazing grounds to breed them, in contrast to the strong Khitan cavalries, was not the only reason for the defeat. It also resulted from a deliberate policy of removing generals from their armies, subordinating officers to civilians, concentrating strength in imperial units, and converting most provincial armies into labour battalions.
The Song never achieved a military prowess comparable to that of the Han or the Tang. Despite the occasional bellicosity of its officials, the Song government failed to penetrate Indochina or to break the power of the Xi Xia of Gansu and Shaanxi. As a result, Song China became increasingly isolated, especially from Central Asia, whence much cultural stimulus had come under preceding dynasties. Combined with a natural pride in internal advancements, China’s cultural ethnocentrism deepened.
Consolidation
The Song achieved consolidation under the third emperor, Zhenzong (reigned 997–1022). A threatening Khitan offensive was directly met by the emperor himself, but a few battles assured neither side of victory. The two empires pledged peaceful coexistence in 1004 through an exchange of sworn documents that foreshadowed modern international treaties. The Khitan gave up its claim to a disputed area it had once occupied south of the Great Wall, and the Song agreed to a yearly tribute: 100,000 units (a rough equivalent of troy ounces) of silver and 200,000 rolls of silk. It was a modest price for the Song to pay for securing the frontier.
The emperor thereafter sought to strengthen his absolutist image by claiming a Daoist charisma. Prompted by magicians and ingratiating high officials, he proclaimed that he had received a sacred document directly from heaven. He ordered a grand celebration with elaborate rites, accompanied by reconstructed music of ancient times, and he made a tour to offer sacrifices at Mount Tai, following precedents of the Qin, Han, and Tang dynasties.
After the emperor’s death, friction arose between his widow—the empress dowager, who was acting as regent—and Renzong (reigned 1022–63), Zhenzong’s teenage son by a palace lady of humble rank. Following the death of the empress dowager, Renzong divorced his empress, who had been chosen for him by and had remained in sympathy with the empress dowager. However, the divorce was unjustifiable in Confucian morality and damaged the imperial image.
By that time the bureaucracy was more highly developed and sophisticated than it had been in the early Song. Well-regulated civil service examinations brought new groups of excellent scholar-officials who, though a numerical minority, dominated the higher policy-making levels of government. The sponsorship system, which discouraged favouritism by putting responsibility on the sponsors for the official conduct of their appointees, also ensured deserving promotions and carefully chosen appointments. Many first-rate officials—especially those from the south whose families had no previous bureaucratic background—upheld Confucian ideals. These new officials were critical not only of palace impropriety but also of bureaucratic malpractices, administrative sluggishness, fiscal abuses, and socioeconomic inequities. Respecting absolutism, they focused their attacks on a veteran chief councillor, whom the emperor had trusted for years. Factionalism developed because many established scholar-officials, mostly from the north, with long bureaucratic family backgrounds, stood by their leader, the same chief councillor.
A series of crises seems to prove that the complaints of the idealists were justified. After half a century of complacency, peace and prosperity began to erode. This became apparent in the occurrence of small-scale rebellions near the capital itself, in the disturbing inability of local governors to restore order themselves, and in a dangerous penetration of the northwestern border by Xi Xia, which rejected its vassal status and declared itself an independent kingdom. The Khitan took advantage of the changing military balance by threatening another invasion. The idealistic faction, put into power under these critical circumstances in 1043–44, effectively stopped the Xi Xia on the frontier by reinforcing a chain of defense posts and made it pay due respect to the Song as the superior empire (though the Song no longer claimed suzerainty). Meanwhile, peace with the Khitan was again ensured when the Song increased its yearly tribute to them.
The court also instituted administrative reforms, stressing the need for emphasizing statecraft problems in civil service examinations, eliminating patronage appointments for family members and relatives of high officials, and enforcing strict evaluation of administrative performance. It also advocated reducing compulsory labour, land reclamation and irrigation construction, organizing local militias, and thoroughly revising codes and regulations. Though mild in nature, the reforms hurt vested interests. Shrewd opponents undermined the reformers by misleading the emperor into suspecting that they had received too much power and were disrespectful of him personally. With the crises eased, the emperor found one excuse after another to send most reformers away from court. The more conventionally minded officials were returned to power.
Despite a surface of seeming stability, the administrative machinery once again fell victim to creeping deterioration. Some reformers eventually returned to court, beginning in the 1050s, but their idealism was modified by the political lesson they had learned. Eschewing policy changes and tolerating colleagues of varying opinions, they made appreciable progress by concentrating on the choice of better personnel, proper direction, and careful implementation within the conventional system, but many fundamental problems remained unsolved. Mounting military expenditures did not bring greater effectiveness, and an expanding and more costly bureaucracy could not reverse the trend of declining tax yields. Income no longer covered expenditures. During the brief reign of Yingzong (1063–67), relatively minor disputes and symbolically important issues concerning ceremonial matters embroiled the bureaucracy in mutual and bitter criticism.
Reforms
Shenzong (reigned 1067–85) was a reform emperor. Originally a prince reared outside the palace, familiar with social conditions and devoted to serious studies, he did not come into the line of imperial succession until adoption had put his father on the throne before him. Shenzong responded vigorously (and rather unexpectedly, from the standpoint of many bureaucrats) to the problems troubling the established order, some of which were approaching crisis proportions. Keeping above partisan politics, he made the scholar-poet Wang Anshi his chief councillor and gave him full backing to make sweeping reforms. Known as the New Laws, or New Policies, these reform measures attempted drastic institutional changes. In sum, they sought administrative effectiveness, fiscal surplus, and military strength. Wang’s famous “Ten Thousand Word Memorial” outlined the philosophy of the reforms. Contrary to conventional Confucian views, it upheld assertive governmental roles, but its ideal remained basically Confucian: economic prosperity would provide the social environment essential to moral well-being.