Song Dynasty
Please see Song (disambiguation) for other possible meanings of this term, including the Liu Song Dynasty.The
Song Dynasty () was a ruling dynasty in
China from
960-
1279. Its founding marked the reunification of China for the first time since the fall of the
Tang Dynasty ("朝) in
907. The intervening years, known as the
Period of Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms ("代十国), were a time of division between north and south and of rapidly changing administrations.
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.
 |
Southern Song in 1142. |
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 ("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 ('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 ("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.
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 recapture
Kaifeng(or Bianjing as it was known during the early Jin), the former capital of the Song dynasty and the then southern 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.
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'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 in an invasion launched by Mongols.
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, 960- 1127
Nan (Southern) Song dynasty, 1127- 1279
*
Chinese sovereign*
Wang Anshi*
Battle of Xiangyang*
Yue Fei*
Wen Tianxiang*
Treaty of Shaoxing*
Bao Qingtian
