With the continuous popularity of TV dramas such as "Qing Ping Le" and "Great Song Palace Words" with the Song Dynasty as the historical background, everyone has also developed a strong interest in the social outlook of the Two Song Dynasties. The Song Dynasty was socially and socially prosperous, and both science and technology and ideology and culture developed greatly. The many literary works that we are familiar with today, such as "Chibi Fu Before and After", "Yueyang LouJi", "Drunken Pavilion", etc., as well as a large number of Song poems and Song poems, illustrate the vigorous social culture of the two Song Dynasties.
But at the same time, the Song Dynasty was also a dynasty full of humiliation. Because the Song Dynasty adopted the policy of emphasizing literature over military force, the Song Dynasty was simply unable to deal with the invasion of foreign troops. The Northern Song Dynasty was destroyed by the Jin Dynasty, and the members of the royal family were reduced to slavery; the Southern Song Dynasty was destroyed by the Yuan Dynasty, and Lu Xiufu was martyred in the sea with the young Song Shao Emperor Zhao Fu.
Therefore, in the eyes of today's people, although the Song Dynasty has achieved great development and prosperity in terms of economy and culture, it is really weak in terms of foreign relations.
Tao Jinsheng, a well-known historian and doctor of history at Indiana University, put forward a very subversive concept in the book "History of Diplomacy in the Song Dynasty": the diplomacy of the Song Dynasty was not as weak as we think, but maintained equal diplomatic relations with Liao, Jin, and Mongolia; and the diplomacy of the Song Dynasty had many new innovations while inheriting the diplomatic system since the fifth dynasty of the Tang Dynasty.
When the Song Dynasty was first established, it faced an extremely complicated situation. On the one hand, the Central Plains are fragmented; on the other hand, some nomadic peoples have risen and established their own regimes.
In such a pluralistic historical environment, if the Song Dynasty wanted to truly gain a foothold, it needed to actively develop foreign exchanges. Through proper diplomatic means combined with certain military actions, it was possible to help the Song Dynasty to eliminate the threat and aggression of strong enemies.
In the past, when we talked about the foreign policy of the Two Song Dynasties, we only made two simple distinctions between the main and the main war, and the author of this book, Tao Jinsheng, based on detailed information, put forward a clear and novel point of view in the book: The foreign policy of the Song Dynasty was actually an interactive application of the three strategies of peace, war, and defense, full of flexibility and flexibility. It was precisely this kind of foreign policy that enabled the Song Dynasty to maintain peace with the powerful foreign yi for a long time. It was precisely with such a diplomatic strategy that the Song Dynasty achieved stable social development and promoted the prosperity and development of culture and art, science and technology, and social economy.
When we evaluate whether a dynasty's foreign policy is humiliating or glorious, we need to consider the historical context in which that dynasty lived. Obviously, the foreign policy of the Song Dynasty was influenced by the foreign policy of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. From this point of view, the diplomatic behavior of the Song Dynasty cannot be simply and rigidly classified as "humiliation", but rather a roundabout strategy adopted after judging the strength of the enemy and us under complicated historical conditions.
In the view of the rulers of the Song Dynasty, such a policy was feasible if economic reciprocal strategies such as gold and trade exchanges were used to avoid war and make peace in the world. In the view of Tao Jinsheng, the author of this book, the Song Dynasty did not have the tragic situation of "humiliating and seeking peace", and seeking peace from the outside was to avoid war, social stability, and economic development, and to seek true stability with a low attitude, which was not a loss-making transaction for the Song Dynasty. The "Liaoyuan Model" reached by the Song and Liao Dynasties brought about 120 years of peace and greatly promoted the development of all fields of society. The two diplomatic mistakes of the Song Dynasty (Lianjin annihilation of Liao and Lianmeng extinguishing Jin) directly led to the fall of the Northern Song and Southern Song Dynasties.
We can magnify our brains and imagine that if the Song Dynasty had not had the diplomacy of those two failed attempts, it might have been able to avoid the fate of collapse to some extent. Although history does not assume, when we look at a certain period of history from more perspectives, we can learn experiences and lessons from different levels.
Tao Jinsheng, who has long devoted himself to the study of the History of the Song dynasty and the History of China, Frontier History, and Social History, restores the diplomatic strategy of the Song Dynasty from another perspective by combing through the complex historical environment faced by the Song Dynasty. For you and me living in this era of peace, we should look at the present from history in order to avoid making mistakes.
Whether it is for a dynasty or for an individual, it is the last word to be able to create a stable environment for oneself and then seek continuous development. Looking at the long river of Chinese history, although the Song Dynasty was not the longest period of existence, the Song Dynasty achieved great development in various fields such as social economy, science and technology, and culture and art. Just think, if the Song Dynasty did not adopt the diplomatic strategy of interacting with the three strategies of peace, war, and defense, but instead used war to level the world, then perhaps its existence would be more short-lived. Tao Jinsheng's "Diplomatic History of the Song Dynasty" not only briefly sorts out the diplomatic history of the Song Dynasty, but also helps us observe the vicissitudes of the current era from an ingenious perspective.