The career of Emperor Gong of Song, Zhao Xian, in the Yuan Dynasty and the cause of his death

In 1274, Zhao Xian, who was only four years old, succeeded to the throne of the Southern Song Dynasty by the will of his father Song Duzong, and only two years later, in 1276, the Yuan Dynasty Boyan army was approaching the city, and the Southern Song Dynasty court fell without a fight, Zhao Xian went north with his mother Empress Quan and the edict of Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, and in May of that year, Zhao Xian and his party came to Shangdu and were awarded the kaifu Yi Tongsan Division, the Inspection Grand Si Tu, and the Duke of Yingguo.

However, although Yuan Shizu gave Zhao Xian, the orphan of the Southern Song Dynasty royal family, preferential treatment in terms of officials and etiquette, his suspicion of him was never put down. For example, Empress Quan once asked to return to Jiangnan three times on the grounds of disobedience to the water and soil, but all of them were rejected by Yuan Shizu, and she also issued an edict saying: "Ernan has no far-sighted worries, if ernan is returned, or if she makes a move, that is, she will destroy her home, not so she loves it." In 1282, a madman in Zhongshan, gathering thousands of people, threatened to kidnap Zhao Xian and Wen Tianxiang, who was still in prison, and Yuan Shizu was greatly annoyed by this, on the one hand, he ordered Wen Tianxiang to be executed, on the other hand, he moved Zhao Xian, who was then twelve years old, to live alone in Shangdu, and let Empress Quan go to Zhengzhi Temple to become a nun. In 1284, the local officials of Jiangnan played a song saying that there was a Southern Song Dynasty clan who planned to gather a crowd to rebel, but Yuan Shizu attached great importance to this hypocritical speculation, on the one hand, he ordered that all the sons of the Southern Song Dynasty and famous ministers in Jiangnan be relocated to the north, and on the other hand, in 1288, Zhao Xian went to Tufan (Tibet) to study Buddhism, and since then Zhao Xian has completely lost track of the central political arena of the Yuan Dynasty.

Subsequently, the details of Zhao Xian's life did not leave much record in the historical records, but he spent his time peacefully and quietly in the monasteries of Tibet and Hexi, going through several dynasties such as Yuan Shizu, Yuan Chengzong, Yuan Wuzong, Yuan Renzong, etc., until 1323, Zhao Xian's name suddenly appeared in the Yuan History, and was called upon to love Sinicization for inexplicable reasons, and was called upon to love Sinicization by Yuan Yingzong to "die in Hexi" at the age of fifty-three.

Regarding the cause of death of Emperor Zhao Xian of song, there is no single word left in the main history, although there are many speculations among later historians, but there is no tangible historical evidence to corroborate it, and Wang Yao, a professor at the contemporary Central Institute for Nationalities, has studied Zhao Xian's life for many years, and he thinks that Zhao Xian's death is due to the "poetry and marriage", that is, in the last year of the Yuan Dynasty, before Zhao Xian's friend and court organist Wang Yuanliang returned to the south, Zhao Xian once gave a poem to him: "Sending a message to Lin Hejing, how many plum blossoms bloomed?" The golden pawn should not return." Mr. Wang Yao believed that after this poem remembering his homeland was spread, it was tabooed by Emperor Yuan Yingzong, so he gave him death. However, the meta-historians, including Mr. Ren Chongyue and others, are not satisfied with this interpretation. Perhaps because of the supreme rulers' belief in force and contempt for the influence of Han culture, the Yuan Dynasty rarely had a so-called "literal prison". Many poems and articles that explicitly expose the darkness of society and even point directly to the imperial court have been openly popular, and their authors are not only safe and sound, but even some authors themselves are imperial court officials. What's more, the poem by Zhao Xian, which Mr. Wang Yao listed, was composed more than thirty years before he was given death, and he would never be blamed for it. In addition, after Zhao Xian's death, his family members were not affected in the slightest, and even many years later, when the Red Turban Army swarmed and someone openly looked for Zhao Xian's son, the monk Zhao Wanpu, the then Yuan Shun Emperor only ordered that Zhao Wanpu's family be moved to Hexi Shazhou, and could not bear to kill him.