To say that the most accomplished emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty is none other than Song Xiaozong, the "History of Song" praised: "ZhuoRan is the head of the emperors of Nandu." He actively reformed internal affairs, allowing the Southern Song Dynasty to enter a prosperous state of "rule of Qianchun". Militarily, he also took the initiative to promote the Cause of the Northern Expedition and tried to recover the Central Plains. However, for most of the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of Song, he was only a half-puppet emperor, just a puppet of Emperor Gaozong of Song. Constrained by others, Song Xiaozong's grand cause was not carried out, and he eventually withdrew from the stage of history, which made people extremely regretful.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" >, after Taizu, when there is another world</h1>
The Northern Song Dynasty was founded by Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, but Zhao Kuangyin's descendants failed to become emperors of the Northern Song Dynasty. In 976, Zhao Kuangyin's brother Zhao Kuangyi launched a coup d'état and usurped the title of emperor, that is, Song Taizong, and from then on the Song Dynasty was transferred to the descendants of Emperor Taizong. In 977, after Taizu of Song was buried, Si Tianjian Miao Changyi privately said to the internal servant Wang Ji'en: "After Taizu, there should be another world." In 997, Emperor Taizong of Song died, and Wang Ji'en, Li Changling, and others plotted to establish Taizu's grandson, Zhao Dezhao's son Zhao Weiji, as emperor, but was defeated and killed. After these changes, the rumor that "after Taizu, when there is another world" has spread among the people.
In 1126, the Jin army attacked Kaifeng in Tokyo, and Zhao Dezhao's fifth grandson Zhao Zisong raised an army to try to establish himself as emperor. However, Zhao Zhuo preemptively declared himself emperor, and Zhao Zisong also decided to submit to Emperor Gaozong of Song. After Emperor Gaozong of Song had settled down a little, he began to liquidate Zhao Zisong's previous behavior and exile him to Lingnan. Emperor Gaozong of Song was a cowardly and incompetent emperor, and in the face of the invasion of the Jin Dynasty, he could only steal peace and steal peace, and even did not hesitate to pay tribute. In such an environment, the rumor of "after Taizu, when there is another world" is even more widely spread in the folk.
Hereditary diagram of the Song Dynasty
Perhaps this was providence, song Gaozong was frightened by jin soldiers in the process of fleeing south, and lost his fertility. Empress Meng even believed that the capture of Emperor Huiqin and the inability of Emperor Gaozong to have children were all retribution brought about by Emperor Taizong's seizure of the throne. At that time, the entire imperial court, including Song Gaozong himself, also began to believe that "after Taizu, when there is another world" was Providence, so it was decided to establish Taizu as an heir.
In 1129, Emperor Gaozong of Song began to select heirs among the descendants of Taizu, and initially examined the objects of Zhao Boqun and Zhao Bohao, after the two entered the palace, a cat passed by, Zhao Bohao kicked the cat with his foot, and Zhao Boqun arched and did not move, which was actually an interview process. Emperor Gaozong believed that Zhao Bohao had a frivolous personality and that Zhao Boqun was relatively calm, so he initially positioned Zhao Boqun as a training object and changed his name to Zhao Yao.
However, things in the palace are changing rapidly, and Zhao Yao's succession to the throne is still a long and tortuous process. At that time, Zhao Yao was only six years old, so she was raised by her concubine Zhang Jieyu. Soon, Wu Cairen also asked to raise a son in order to compete with him for favors, so Emperor Gaozong chose Zhao Bojiu to enter the palace and gave him the name Zhao Xuan. As a result, the dispute over the establishment of the heirs evolved into a dispute over the harem. Later, Yue Fei, Zhao Ding, and other people of the main war faction repeatedly urged Emperor Gaozong of Song to make Zhao Yao his heir, but none of them agreed. During Qin Ju's reign, he strongly supported Zhao Xuan, and no one in the imperial court dared to discuss this matter. As a result, Zhao Xuan became the object of support for the peace-seeking faction, and Zhao Xuan naturally represented the main battle faction. What seems to be an ordinary issue of establishing an heir actually involves the conflict of interests between the harem and the imperial court, which is very complicated.
In 1155, Qin Ju died, and the ministers again proposed to make Zhao Yao emperor, and Emperor Gaozong of Song began to think seriously about this issue. During the last round of inspections, Emperor Gaozong of Song gave Zhao Xuan and Zhao Xuan ten palace women, and later recalled them for physical examination. As a result of the investigation, Zhao Yao was not close to the female color, so he successfully won the favor of Emperor Gaozong of Song. In 1160, after Yan Liang prepared for a large-scale invasion of the Southern Song Dynasty, Emperor Gaozong of Song was forced to fully activate the main war faction, and Zhao Yao was officially established as a prince, and was also given the name Zhao Wei, and later given the name Zhao Zhao, and the dispute over the heirs ended.
In the thirty-second year of Shaoxing (1162), Emperor Gaozong of Song announced his abdication and became Emperor Taishang, and Zhao Xuan succeeded him as emperor for Emperor Xiaozong of Song.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="57" > II, Zhang Jun's Northern Expedition and Longxing Peace Conference</h1>
Yan Liang mobilized the strength of the whole country to carry out the southern expedition, resulting in instability in the rear. In 1161, Yan Yong declared himself emperor in Liaoyang, and the Jin kingdom had a situation in which two lords were established side by side. At the same time, the Khitan people launched an independence movement, and the old Song people in the north also revolted, and the famous poet Xin Abandoned Disease participated in the Gengjing Uprising at this time, capturing and killing the traitor Zhang Anguo. However, Emperor Gaozong of Song did not choose the Northern Expedition during the period of internal turmoil in Jin, which made the Southern Song Dynasty miss a great opportunity to recover the Central Plains.
After Emperor Xiaozong of Song succeeded to the throne, he tried to recover the Central Plains and began the Northern Expedition. He rejected the peace-seeker faction in the imperial court and reused the main war faction to rehabilitate Yue Fei. In 1163, when the Jin civil unrest was settled, Jin Shizong sent emissaries to the Southern Song Dynasty to restore the Shaoxing Peace Agreement, and demanded that the Southern Song Dynasty return the huaibei land captured during the quarrying war. Emperor Xiaozong of Song then used Zhang Jun, the main warrior faction, to adopt a tough policy towards the Jin Dynasty.
In March of the same year, the Jin State sent a large army to attack Huaibei. In May, Zhang Jun ordered the Song generals Li Xianzhong and Shao Hongyuan to lead an army of 60,000 north to meet the battle. However, the Song army began to have a discordant situation. Li Xianzhong's forces soon occupied Lingbi, Anhui, but Shao Hongyuan's troops besieged Hongyuan for a long time, so Li Xianzhong led his troops to assist, and the defenders immediately surrendered to Li Xianzhong, which aroused Shao Hongyuan's jealousy. After that, the Song army took advantage of the victory to attack Suzhou from the north, and Li Xianzhong once again defeated the Jin army. After this battle, Li Xianzhong's reputation grew and he was appointed as an envoy to Huainan, but Shao Hongyuan only solicited deputy envoys.
Zhang Jun's Northern Expedition
Soon, the Jin general Qi shi Liezhining led 100,000 elite troops to attack Suzhou, And Li Xianzhong took the initiative to meet it, and a fierce battle began. Shao Hongyuan, on the other hand, did not want to send troops to save each other, but sat and watched the tiger fight, and finally simply fled by night. At the critical moment of the battle, Shao Hongyuan spread rumors that 200,000 reinforcements from the Jin Dynasty were about to arrive, which made the Song army panic. In the end, Li Xianzhong had no choice but to retreat south, and Jin Guo also found that the Song army had retreated, and he was also very surprised, thinking that this was a trap and did not dare to pursue. This battle, known as the "Battle of Fu Li", was mainly due to the discord between the generals and commanders, and it also showed that the Song army was still afraid of the Jin soldiers.
After the defeat of the Battle of Fuli and the rise of the peace-seeking faction, Tang Si, a member of the Qin Juniper party, retired in July to become the right minister, and chen Bokang, the left minister, advocated peace. On the Jin side, after the Battle of Fu Li, it also realized that the combat effectiveness of the Southern Song army was recovering and it was difficult to destroy, so it lowered the requirements, saying that the relationship between the monarchs and the vassals between the Song and Jin could be changed to the relationship between uncles and nephews, and a certain amount of age coins could be reduced. However, Emperor Gaozong of Song did not want to give up his land in Huaibei and refused to negotiate peace.
At this time, Emperor Gaozong of Song intervened, and he demanded that Emperor Gaozong of Song accept Jinguo's proposal. At a time when the Southern Song Dynasty monarchs were arguing endlessly, the Jin soldiers had already occupied Huainan, the soldiers were on the Yangtze River, and the general trend had gone. In December of that year, the Southern Song Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty reached an agreement again, known in history as the "Longxing Peace Agreement". The two sides agreed: "The title of the emperor is the country of uncles and nephews, and the number of years is reduced by 100,000, and the land boundary is like the time of Shaoxing." Compared with the Shaoxing Peace Conference, the Longxing Peace Conference raised the status of the Southern Song Dynasty and began to sit on an equal footing with the Jin Dynasty. But overall, this collegiality is still a collegiality that loses power and humiliates the country, representing the weakness and incompetence of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Zhang Jun died with hatred
The winner of the Longxing Peace Agreement was ostensibly Song Xiaozong, but in fact the operator was Song Gaozong. Although Emperor Gaozong of Song abdicated, he often restricted Song Xiaozong at critical times and made Song Xiaozong his own puppet, which is Song Xiaozong's sadness.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="58" > three, the creation of the rule of Qianchun</h1>
Although the Longxing Peace Conference was relatively humiliating, it also ended the confrontation between Song and Jin. For more than forty years after that, the two countries maintained a state of peace, which provided favorable conditions for the economic development and social stability of the Southern Song Dynasty. Song Xiaozong also exerted great efforts at this stage and created the prosperous era of the Southern Song Dynasty - the rule of Qianchun.
Compared with the Northern Song Dynasty, the biggest problem in the Southern Song Dynasty was that the power of the Southern Song Dynasty was too heavy, and the Southern Song Dynasty had qin juniper, Jia Xiangdao and other powerful ministers, which brought great disasters and humiliations to the country. Song Xiaozong learned the lesson of Qin Juniper's dictatorship and strictly prevented the prime minister from developing personal power. He reused the deputy prime minister to participate in the affairs of the governor, which formed a great restraint on the prime minister. In terms of the supervision system, Song Xiaozong strengthened the supervision function of the Taiwan counselors and made it the main organ for supervising the prime minister. Of course, Song Xiaozong himself was also very diligent, which of course was because the powerful ministers did not have the opportunity to control the government.
After the Song Dynasty crossed south, the country lost half of the country and made the finances even more difficult. Song Xiaozong followed the idea of "Xi Ning Changing Law" to rectify governance on a large scale and eliminate institutions. In 1186, Lin'an Province expelled more than 300 young officials, and in 1188, more than 700 officials were dismissed. Emperor Xiaozong of Song also severely limited the number of shades and reduced the number of shades for officials at all levels. Militarily, Emperor Xiaozong of Song reorganized the wells and implemented the system of volunteer soldiers (similar to the current compulsory soldiers), "taking one of the three dings from the people's families, thinking that they are righteous soldiers, giving them bows and crossbows, teaching them to fight in battle, and gathering and teaching them when there is a gap in the farms." This move also restored Wang Anshi's "armor protection law" to a certain extent, which greatly alleviated financial difficulties.
In the economic field, Song Xiaozong mainly promoted recuperation. During his reign, Emperor Xiaozong of Song repeatedly ordered the reduction of taxes. At the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty, the imperial court often levied the current tax season's land gifts in advance, called "pre-urging". For example, the summer tax was levied in August, but the tax authorities required that it must be collected at the end of July, and later even advanced to April and May. In 1177, Emperor Xiaozong of Song ordered that if the household department was short of money, it could first borrow 600,000 yuan from the national treasury, and it was forbidden to collect it from the people in advance, and the offenders would be severely punished. This move finally solved the problem of pre-urging in the Southern Song Dynasty, making "the people's strength less wide, and the public and private sectors convenient."
Song Xiaozong attached great importance to the construction of water conservancy projects, and he proposed that "mian nongsang, do everything possible to the land", water conservancy is not repaired, and the loss of the reason is drought preparedness" . History says that during the period of Song Xiaozong, "the prosperity of water conservancy is there, and those who hear about it for their merits are rewarded, otherwise the punishment must also be carried out, and the valleys of the year are repeatedly ascended, and the fields are added, although there is water and drought, the people have no vegetables." These praises, although exaggerated, can also reflect the economic recovery during the period.
In terms of commerce, Song Xiaozong officially made paper money one of the legal tenders. The Southern Song Dynasty was partial to security, lacking copper coins, and civil trade was inconvenient. In order to solve this problem, the Southern Song Dynasty set up the "Xing zai Hui Zi Wu" in 1160, issuing Hui Zi, which is a paper currency printed on paper made of wood veneer, also known as 楮 coin. In the first year of Longxing, huizi was stamped with the "seal of the official seal of the Shangshuhu Department" so that huizi officially became the national legal tender. Song Xiaozong attached great importance to the preservation of the value of Huizi, and did not indiscriminately issue paper money to make it equal to copper coins, which was undoubtedly conducive to the development of the commodity economy.
Jiaozi (left) and Huizi (right)
Ideologically and academically, Song Xiaozong adopted a policy of eclecticism and controversy among a hundred schools of thought. At that time, there was a dispute between science and new learning, and Song Xiaozong would not deliberately attack one of them. In 1168, Taixue recorded Wei Tuanzhi's attack on "Wang Anshi's father and son, who deceived the Lord with heresies, wandered people's hearts, and tamed and caused chaos", and asked Emperor Xiaozong of Song to abolish the new school. This move violated the policy of a hundred schools of thought, and Wei Wanzhi was demoted out of the capital. In this academic environment of a hundred schools of thought, Su Shuxue, which had been silent for more than thirty years, was also revived. During this period, Song Xue entered a prosperous situation, and there were thinkers such as Zhu Xi, Lu Jiuyuan, Chen Liang, and Ye Shi, as well as poets and lyricists such as Lu You, Fan Chengda, and Yang Wanli.
Goose Lake Meeting
Song Xiaozong created the rule of Qianchun, but he still felt depressed. After the Longxing Peace Conference, Song Xiaozong did not forget to recover the homeland of the Central Plains. In 1172, he said to Yu Yunwen, the chancellor: "The shame of Bing Wu (jing kang's first year) should be shared with the minister." He reused Yu Yunwen, who had won the victory in the battle of quarrying, and formulated a plan to march into Shaanxi and meet Henan. Song Xiaozong said: "If the Western Master leaves and returns late, it is the Qing Dynasty; if the Qing is already moving and the Qing is late, it is the Qing Negative Qing." However, Yu Yunwen died of overwork in 1174 at the age of sixty-five, and Song Xiaozong lost a like-minded minister. Emperor Gaozong of Song did not die until 1187, when Emperor Xiaozong of Song was already old and had no ambition for the Northern Expedition. In 1189, Kim Sejong died and was succeeded by Kim Jangjong. Song Xiaozong did not want to call his descendants a nephew, so he chose to abdicate. In 1194, Song Xiaozong, the lord of a generation of Zhongxing, died of illness, and I think his regrets are consistent with Lu You, Xin Shuyi, and Zhang Jun.