Song Dynasty

宋朝 (Sòng Cháo)

960-1279 CECapital: Kaifeng (Bianjing; Northern Song, 960-1127), Lin'an (Hangzhou; Southern Song, 1138-1276)

Founded by Zhao Kuangyin, Emperor Taizu (宋太祖 Sòng Tàizǔ)

The Song dynasty (960-1279 CE) was the Chinese imperial dynasty founded by the general Zhao Kuangyin that reunified China after the Five Dynasties and governed through examination-selected scholar-officials. Divided into the Northern Song at Kaifeng (960-1127) and, after the Jurchen conquest of the north, the Southern Song at Hangzhou (1127-1279), it saw a commercial revolution, the world's first paper money, printing, gunpowder weapons and the compass at sea, and the rise of Neo-Confucianism, before falling to the Mongols in 1279.

Overview & Significance

The Song created the China that later ages took for granted: a civilian state run by examination graduates, a commercial economy with paper money, a literate urban public served by printed books, and an intellectual culture centred on Neo-Confucianism. The examination system as reformed under the Song remained the basis of recruitment until 1905, and Zhu Xi's commentaries defined its curriculum for six centuries. Song landscape painting, ceramics and ci poetry are among the most admired achievements of Chinese art. In technology the period is unmatched before the modern era: printing with movable type, the mariner's compass, gunpowder weapons, mechanical clocks, coke-smelted iron and large ocean-going junks all appeared or matured under the Song, and the historian Joseph Needham identified it as the peak of Chinese science. The shift of population and wealth to the Yangzi delta and the southern coast, and the growth of maritime trade through Quanzhou and Guangzhou, set the economic geography of China for the following dynasties. The Song's relative military weakness and its payments to northern neighbours also became a lasting object of debate about the balance between civil and military power.

Key Emperors

Emperor Taizu (Zhao Kuangyin)

Reign: 960-976 CE

Proclaimed emperor by his troops at Chenqiao in 960 and took the throne from the child ruler of the Later Zhou
Persuaded his generals to retire in exchange for wealth ('dissolving military power over a cup of wine'), ending the era of warlords
Placed the army under civilian control and rotated commanders to prevent regional power bases
Conquered Jingnan, Chu, Later Shu, Southern Han and Southern Tang between 963 and 975

Emperor Renzong (Zhao Zhen)

Reign: 1022-1063 CE

His long reign is regarded as the height of Northern Song civil culture, with Ouyang Xiu, Sima Guang and Su Shi in office
Concluded the treaty of 1044 with the Tangut Western Xia after an inconclusive war
Fan Zhongyan's Qingli reforms of 1043-1045 attempted to overhaul recruitment and local government
Bi Sheng invented movable-type printing during his reign (c. 1041-1048), as recorded by Shen Kuo

Emperor Shenzong (Zhao Xu)

Reign: 1067-1085 CE

Backed Wang Anshi's New Policies from 1069: state loans to farmers, hired-service tax, state trade bureaus and militia
The reforms split the bureaucracy into reformist and conservative factions for the rest of the Northern Song
Launched campaigns against the Western Xia that ended in defeat at Yongle in 1082
Sima Guang completed the Zizhi Tongjian, a chronological history of China from 403 BCE to 959 CE, in 1084

Emperor Huizong (Zhao Ji)

Reign: 1100-1126 CE

Painter, calligrapher and collector who created the 'slender gold' script and expanded the imperial painting academy
Patronised Daoism and built the Genyue imperial garden with rocks shipped from Lake Tai
Allied with the Jurchen against the Liao in 1120, which exposed the Song to the new Jin state
Abdicated in 1126 and was carried into captivity with his son Qinzong when Kaifeng fell in 1127

Emperor Gaozong (Zhao Gou)

Reign: 1127-1162 CE

Escaped the fall of Kaifeng and re-established the dynasty south of the Yangzi, settling at Lin'an in 1138
Accepted the Treaty of Shaoxing (1141) with the Jin, fixing the border on the Huai River and paying annual tribute
Ordered the execution of the general Yue Fei in 1142 on the advice of chancellor Qin Hui
Rebuilt the state's finances on maritime trade and the tax base of the south

Timeline

Zhao Kuangyin proclaimed emperor by his army at Chenqiao and founds the Song

960 CE

End of the Five Dynasties in the north

Impact: The new dynasty subordinated the military to civil officials to prevent further coups

Conquest of the Northern Han completes the reunification of China proper

979 CE

The Ten Kingdoms of the south and the last northern rival were absorbed

Impact: The Sixteen Prefectures around Beijing remained in Liao hands, a lasting grievance

Treaty of Chanyuan with the Khitan Liao

1005 CE

The Song agreed to pay 100,000 taels of silver and 200,000 bolts of silk a year in exchange for peace

Impact: Over a century of peace on the northern border and the model for later treaties with the Xia and Jin

Government takes over issue of jiaozi paper money in Sichuan

1023 CE

First state-issued paper currency in the world

Impact: Paper money spread throughout the empire and was inherited by the Jin, Yuan and Ming

Wujing Zongyao military encyclopaedia records gunpowder formulas

1044 CE

Earliest surviving written recipes for gunpowder

Impact: Gunpowder weapons were used against the Jin and Mongols and spread to the Islamic world and Europe in the thirteenth century

Wang Anshi's New Policies under Emperor Shenzong

1069-1085 CE

Ambitious state intervention in credit, trade, taxation and defence

Impact: Factional conflict between reformers and conservatives weakened the late Northern Song court

Song-Jin alliance destroys the Liao

1120-1125 CE

The Song recovered a few prefectures but revealed its military weakness to the Jurchen

Impact: The Jin turned on the Song within a year of the Liao collapse

Jingkang Incident: Jin forces sack Kaifeng and carry off Emperors Huizong and Qinzong

1127 CE

End of the Northern Song

Impact: Zhao Gou re-established the dynasty in the south as Emperor Gaozong; the court settled at Lin'an in 1138

Treaty of Shaoxing with the Jin; execution of Yue Fei

1141-1142 CE

Fixed the Huai River border and made the Song a tributary of the Jin

Impact: Yue Fei became a symbol of loyalty and resistance in later Chinese culture

Battle of Caishi: the Song navy defeats the Jin emperor Wanyan Liang on the Yangzi

1161 CE

Gunpowder bombs and paddle-wheel ships repelled a Jin invasion

Impact: Secured the Southern Song for another century and led to the peace of 1165

Mongol and Song forces destroy the Jin at Caizhou

1234 CE

Removed the buffer between the Song and the Mongol Empire

Impact: A Song attempt to reoccupy Kaifeng and Luoyang the same year began the Mongol-Song war

Siege of Xiangyang

1268-1273 CE

The key Han River fortress fell after five years when the Mongols deployed counterweight trebuchets built by Persian engineers

Impact: Opened the Yangzi valley to Kublai Khan's armies under Bayan

Empress Dowager Xie surrenders Lin'an and the child emperor Gong to Bayan

1276 CE

The Song court ceased to function as a government

Impact: Loyalists led by Wen Tianxiang, Lu Xiufu and Zhang Shijie fled south with two young princes

Battle of Yamen: the last Song fleet is destroyed and Lu Xiufu jumps into the sea with the child emperor Bing

19 March 1279

End of the Song dynasty

Impact: All of China was ruled by a non-Chinese dynasty, the Yuan, for the first time

Achievements

political

Civil service examinations became the principal route to office, producing a scholar-official class that governed China until 1905
Civil officials controlled the military, ending the warlordism of the late Tang and Five Dynasties
Reform debates under Fan Zhongyan and Wang Anshi produced the first systematic state economic policy in Chinese history
A professional bureaucracy with regular salaries, reviews and rotation replaced aristocratic privilege
Diplomacy of parity with the Liao, Western Xia and Jin, including treaties, annual payments and formal embassies

cultural

Neo-Confucianism of Zhou Dunyi, the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi (1130-1200) reinterpreted the classics and became state orthodoxy under later dynasties
Landscape painting reached maturity with Fan Kuan, Guo Xi and the academy painters; ci lyric poetry flourished with Su Shi and Li Qingzhao
Sima Guang's Zizhi Tongjian and Ouyang Xiu's New Histories set new standards of historical scholarship
Printing made books cheap; private academies (shuyuan) and public schools spread literacy
Ceramics of the five great kilns (Ru, Guan, Ge, Ding, Jun) and Jingdezhen porcelain

technological

Bi Sheng's movable type (c. 1041-1048) and widespread woodblock printing of classics, histories and medical works
Gunpowder weapons: fire lances, bombs and rockets described in the Wujing Zongyao military manual of 1044
The magnetic compass used for navigation, recorded by Zhu Yu in 1119
Su Song's astronomical clock tower at Kaifeng (1092) with an escapement and chain drive
Shen Kuo's Dream Pool Essays (c. 1088) described the compass, movable type, geology and astronomy
Coke-fired iron production reached an estimated 125,000 tons a year by 1078

military

Standing army of over a million men by the mid-eleventh century, the largest in the world
A permanent navy created in 1132; paddle-wheel warships and gunpowder weapons won the Battle of Caishi on the Yangzi in 1161
Fortified cities such as Xiangyang held out for years against Mongol siege
Yue Fei's campaigns of 1134-1140 recovered territory from the Jin before the peace of 1141

economic

World's first government-issued paper money, the jiaozi, in Sichuan in 1023, followed by nationwide huizi notes in the Southern Song
Champa early-ripening rice introduced in 1012 allowed two harvests a year in the south
Population passed 100 million around 1100; Kaifeng and Hangzhou each had roughly a million inhabitants
Maritime trade with Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean through Quanzhou, Guangzhou and Mingzhou, taxed by maritime trade superintendencies
Copper coin output peaked at about six billion coins in 1085

philosophical

Neo-Confucianism combined Confucian ethics with cosmology drawn from Daoism and Buddhism
Zhu Xi's commentary on the Four Books became the examination curriculum from 1313
Chan Buddhism produced the koan collections Blue Cliff Record (1125) and Gateless Gate (1228)
The 'Learning of the Way' (Daoxue) was briefly banned as false learning in 1196-1202 before its triumph

Artifacts & Archaeological Evidence

Along the River During the Qingming Festival (清明上河图)

Handscroll by Zhang Zeduan, over five metres long, showing the streets, shops, boats and bridge of Kaifeng in the early twelfth century; Palace Museum, Beijing

Significance: The most detailed visual record of a pre-modern Chinese city and of Song urban commerce

Ru ware (汝窑)

Blue-green glazed stoneware made for the Northern Song court around 1086-1125; fewer than a hundred pieces survive

Significance: Regarded as the rarest and most refined of Chinese ceramics

Wujing Zongyao (武经总要)

Military compendium of 1044 compiled by Zeng Gongliang and Ding Du with the earliest written gunpowder formulas and illustrations of fire weapons

Significance: Primary source for the origin of gunpowder weaponry

Suzhou astronomical chart (苏州石刻天文图)

Star map of 1,434 stars carved on stone in 1247 from observations made around 1193, with an explanatory text on Song cosmology

Significance: One of the oldest surviving star charts in the world

Travelers among Mountains and Streams (溪山行旅图)

Monumental hanging scroll by Fan Kuan, c. 1000, over two metres tall; National Palace Museum, Taipei

Significance: The defining work of Northern Song monumental landscape painting

Fall of the Dynasty

The Southern Song survived the Jin for a century but could not survive the Mongols. After the joint destruction of the Jin in 1234, the Song attempted to retake Kaifeng and Luoyang, giving the Mongols a pretext for war. Möngke Khan's invasion of 1258-1259 stalled at his death, and Kublai Khan, occupied with civil war and the founding of the Yuan, resumed the offensive only in 1268. The five-year siege of Xiangyang and Fancheng on the Han River decided the war: their fall in 1273 gave the Mongols the route into the Yangzi valley, and the Mongol general Bayan then descended the river with a fleet built by Chinese shipwrights. The chancellor Jia Sidao, blamed for concealing the danger, was dismissed and killed in 1275 after the defeat at Dingjiazhou. Lin'an surrendered without a fight in 1276. Loyalist ministers carried two child princes down the coast to Fujian and Guangdong, where the last Song fleet was annihilated at Yamen on 19 March 1279.