List of emperors of the Song Dynasty

A hanging-scroll portrait painting of Emperor Taizu of Song (r. 960–976), founder of the Song Dynasty, painted by an anonymous Song artist

The Song Dynasty (960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907–960) and preceded the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), which conquered the Song in 1279. Its conventional division into the Northern Song (960–1127) and Southern Song (1127–1279) periods marks the conquest of northern China by the Jin Dynasty (1115–1234) in 1127. It also distinguishes the subsequent shift of the Song's capital city from Bianjing (modern Kaifeng) in the north to Lin'an (modern Hangzhou) in the south.

Below is a complete list of emperors of the Song Dynasty, including their temple names, posthumous names, given names, and era names. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song (r. 960–976) and ended with the death of Zhao Bing, known posthumously as Weiwang (r. 1278–1279). The last emperor of the Northern Song was Emperor Qinzong (r. 1126–1127), while the first emperor of the Southern Song was Emperor Gaozong (r. 1127–1162).

The emperor, or huangdi, was the supreme head of state during the imperial era of China (221 BC – 1912), including the Song. He was a hereditary ruler who shared executive powers with civilian officials appointed to various levels of office according to their performance in bureaucratic examinations. The growing importance of the civilian bureaucracy and national gentry class during Song times led to a much more limited role for the emperor in shaping public policy, although he still maintained his autocratic authority. He had the sole right to establish new laws, although he was expected to respect legal precedents set forth by previous emperors of his dynasty.^[1]

Background

Left image: Portrait of Emperor Taizong (r. 976–977) by an anonymous Song artist
Right image: Portrait of Emperor Shenzong (r. 1067–1085) by an anonymous Song artist

The Song Dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song (r. 960–976) in 960, before the Song completely reunified China proper by conquest—excluding only the Sixteen Prefectures. The Song fought a series of wars with the Liao Dynasty (1125–1279), ruled by ethnic Khitans, over the possession of the Sixteen Prefectures of northern China.^[2] The Liao regime was toppled in 1125 in a joint conquest by Song forces and the ethnic Jurchens led by Emperor Taizong of Jin (r. 1123–1134). However, the Jin quickly turned against the Song and invaded Song's northern territory.^[2] In what is known as the Jingkang Incident,^[3] Jin forces captured the Song's capital Kaifeng in 1127, along with Emperor Huizong of Song (r. 1100–1126), then a retired emperor, and his ruling son Emperor Qinzong of Song (r. 1126–1127).^[4]

Emperor Gaozong of Song (r. 1127–1162), a son of Huizong, fled south and reestablished the Song Dynasty at what is now Nanjing.^[5] He established a temporary capital at Hangzhou in 1129, yet by 1132 he declared it the official capital city of the empire.^[6] The Jin made several failed attempts to conquer the Southern Song, but in 1165 Emperor Xiaozong of Song (r. 1162–1189) and Emperor Shizong of Jin (r. 1161–1189) agreed to a peace treaty that resulted in diplomatic accord between the two countries.^[7] The Song continued to rule southern China until 1279, when the Yuan Dynasty led by Kublai Khan, the Khagan of the Mongols,^[8] invaded and conquered Song. The last ruler was Zhao Bing, known posthumously as Weiwang (r.1278–1279), who was killed during the naval Battle of Yamen in what is now modern Yamen Town of the Xinhui District, Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province.^[9]

Titles and names

From the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC) until the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912), the ruling head of state was known as huangdi, or emperor.^[10] In Chinese historical texts, emperors of the Song Dynasty, along with the Tang and Yuan, are referred to by their temple names.^[11] Before the Tang Dynasty (618–907), emperors were generally referred to in historical texts by their posthumous names.^[11] During the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing dynasties, emperors were exclusively referred to in historical texts by their single era name, whereas emperors of previous dynasties, including Song, usually had multiple era names.^[12] The amount of written characters used in posthumous names grew steadily larger from the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) onwards and thus became tedious when referring to sovereigns.^[11] For example, the posthumous name of Nurhaci (r. 1616–1626), founder of the northern Manchu state which would eventually establish the Qing Dynasty, contained 29 written characters.^[11] By the Tang Dynasty, much shorter temple names were preferred when referring to the emperor, a preference that was carried into the Song Dynasty.^[11] Each emperor also had a tomb name (Ling hao 陵號) and various other honorific titles.^[13]

Head of state

Peter K. Bol writes that Emperor Huizong's political ideology and even his artwork, such as this piece showing women preparing silk, has much in common with official Li Jie's (李誡; 1065–1110) architectural treatise Yingzao Fashi (1103): "high technical standards, a lack of interest in individual variation, a concern with effective functioning, and a coherence of design in which all the parts fit together seamlessly ... It seems to me that these qualities are those that mark the promise of the New Policies and the era's faith that it could transform society into a mutually supporting and constantly self-improving social organism."^[14]

In theory, the emperor's political power was absolute, but during even the ancient Han Dynasty he shared many executive powers with civilian officials and usually based his decisions on the advice and formal consensus of his ministers.^[15] During the Song Dynasty, a national examination system managed by scholar-bureaucrats was used to recruit officials; those who passed the Palace Examination—the highest-level examination in the country—were appointed directly by the emperor to the highest central-government posts.^[16] Just like commoners, these senior officials had to obey his edicts as law or be punished.^[1] However, senior officials not only challenged the emperor over policy disputes, but checked his behavior and actions by convincing him to follow Confucian mores and values upheld by the literati gentry class that supplied officials.^[17]

During the previous Tang Dynasty, the emperor encountered generally little political opposition to his policies. At that time, the competitive civil service examinations did not yet produce a sizable majority of all serving officials as seen during Song,^[18] whereas a hereditary aristocracy was still in place and remained dependent on the court for privilege in holding rank and office.^[19] Yet Song rulers, particularly Emperor Huizong, encountered a great deal of political opposition despite attempts at conforming the whole of society like the sage kings in China's remote past. The inability of Song rulers to monopolize political authority and avoid civil opposition was linked to the expansion of the civilian government's power and the rise of a new class of gentry and scholar-official.^[20]

When the Song Dynasty was founded, the political elites consisted of officials (and their progeny) who had served in the previous administrations of the Five Dynasties era, as well as those who came from prominent families which boasted an aristocratic ancestry and had provided officials for generations.^[21] Since the first Song emperors wished to avoid domination of government by military strongmen such as the jiedushi of the previous era, they limited the power of military officers and focused on building a powerful civilian establishment.^[22] During the 11th century, the massive expansion of the government-run school system and amount of officials appointed through the examination system ensured the rise of a larger, nationwide gentry class which could provide most if not all officials.^[23] By the late 11th century, the elite marriage strategies of many prominent families broke down due to the intense partisan politics involving the so-called New Policies (Xin fa 新法) of Chancellor Wang Anshi (1021–1086). These great families dissolved as a major sociopolitical group and were replaced by officials representing many local gentry lineages throughout the country.^[24]

Peter K. Bol, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, asserts that the supporters of Wang's expansionist, activist central government outlined in his New Policies were convinced that he understood the dao which brought utopia to Western-Zhou (c. 1050 BC – 771 BC) antiquity and were determined to conform society according to his vision. The marginalized emperor—the last remaining aristocrat with any true political power—embraced the fiction that he was like the sage kings of old who brought society into a state of total harmony with court rituals and policy reforms.^[20] Yet after the reign of Huizong, Song rulers and officials alike disregarded the New Policies and focused instead on reforming society through a local, bottom-up approach.^[20] For example, Huizong attempted from 1107–1120 to bar anyone who had not attended a government school from serving in public office. He thus rejected anyone who did not acknowledge his brand of Confucian ideology as orthodoxy.^[25] However, the government-run school system during the Southern Song eventually lost prominence to private academies, which had outnumbered government schools during the early Northern Song.^[26] Even before Huizong's reign, Sima Guang (1019–1086), a prominent chancellor and political rival to Wang Anshi, had little to say about the emperor's role in shaping major reforms and public policy, mentioning that the emperor simply made major appointments when necessary.^[27]

Emperors could choose whether to be active or completely absent in military affairs and politics, and were always free to pursue scholarship, cults, hobbies, or women instead. However, Frederick W. Mote argues in Imperial China: 900–1800 that most Song emperors—who spent much of their childhoods confined and isolated within a luxurious palace—were aloof conformists detached from the world of normal affairs and thus relied on officialdom to administer the government.^[28] While the mainstream view is that the Song court exercised the highest degree of restraint and courtesy towards civil officials, the new protocol of enhanced deferential treatment by officials towards the emperor during conferences and meetings further severed the emperor's close contact with his ministers.^[29]

Emperors

Northern Song, 960–1127

Southern Song, 1127–1279

Notes

Footnotes

References

• Bielenstein, Hans. (1980). The Bureaucracy of Han Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521225108.
• Bo Yang (1977). Timeline of Chinese History (中國歷史年表). Taipei: Sing-Kuang Book Company Ltd.
• Bol, Peter K. "Whither the Emperor? Emperor Huizong, the New Policies, and the Tang-Song Transition," Journal of Song and Yuan Studies, Vol. 31 (2001), pp. 103–134.
• Coblin, W. South "Migration History and Dialect Development in the Lower Yangtze Watershed," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 65, Number 3 (2002), pp. 529–543.
• de Crespigny, Rafe. (2007). A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23–220 AD). Leiden: Koninklijke Brill. ISBN 9004156054.
• Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (1999). The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-66991-X (paperback).
• Ebrey, Patricia; Walthall, Anne; Palais, James. (2006). East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0618133844.
• Gernet, Jacques. (1962). Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250–1276. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0720-0.
• Hartwell, Robert M. "Demographic, Political, and Social Transformations of China, 750–1550," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (Volume 42, Number 2, 1982): 365–442.
• Hennessey, William O. "Classical Sources and Vernacular Resources in "Xuanhe Yishi": The Presence of Priority and the Priority of Presence," Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR), Vol. 6, No. 1/2 (Jul., 1984), pp. 33–52.
• Hucker, Charles O. (1975). China's Imperial Past: An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804708878.
• Hymes, Robert P. (1986). Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-Chou, Chiang-Hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521306310.
• Mostern, Ruth. (2008). "From Battlefields to Counties: War, Border, and State Power in Southern Song Huainan," in Battlefronts Real and Imagined: War, Border, and Identity in the Chinese Middle Period, 227–252. Edited by Don J. Wyatt. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 9781403960849.
• Mote, Frederick W. (1999). Imperial China: 900–1800. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674012127.
• Needham, Joseph. (1972). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 1, Introductory Orientations. London: Syndics of the Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052105799X.
• Rossabi, Morris. (1988). Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-6740-1.
• Tillman, Hoyt C. and Stephen H. West (1995). China Under Jurchen Rule: Essays on Chin Intellectual and Cultural History. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0791422739.
• Wang, Yu-ch'uan. "An Outline of The Central Government of The Former Han Dynasty," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1/2 (Jun., 1949), pp. 134–187.
• Wilkinson, Endymion. (1998). Chinese History: A Manual. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Asia Center of the Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674123378.
• Yuan, Zheng. "Local Government Schools in Sung China: A Reassessment," History of Education Quarterly (Volume 34, Number 2; Summer 1994): 193–213.

External links

• Chinese History - Song Dynasty 宋 (960–1279), emperors and rulers (www.chinaknowledge.de)
• Media related to Song Dynasty at Wikimedia Commons

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