Ancient history

The Song dynasty in China


The Song Dynasty begins in 960 CE, and follows several decades of political chaos in China. China was then divided and in full civil war, each of the factions trying to recreate the Empire and take the lead. The Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the Late Zhou Dynasty (one of the Ten Kingdoms of Southern China), Commander Zhao Hongyin, leads an uprising and deposes the previous emperor before assuming the name Emperor Taizu , and to found the Song dynasty. From the beginning of his reign in 960 until his death sixteen years later, he conquered all the other kingdoms except the Northern Han, once again unifying China under one authority. Thus begins the Northern Song dynasty.

The Songs of the North

The capital of the Song dynasty is established in the North East of China, in Kaifeng. From Emperor Taizu, reforms are launched in the administration. Major mapping projects and work on communication routes are undertaken. A precise map of each large city and province has been drawn:these are the first atlases. The main reform, however, is to establish a general competition for the recruitment of imperial officials. This has the effect of drastically reducing the proportion of civil servants recruited thanks to their birth, transforming, more or less, the imperial administration into a meritocratic system. By improving the recruitment of civil servants, the Empire acquired a truly efficient administration. Throughout the dynasty, this policy will continue.

The idea of ​​this contest system was to promote social mobility, and equality between competitors. The success is ultimately rather mixed. If the administrative competition indeed made it possible to select the most suitable, these were often from the elite of the scholars, since they had access to a much better education than the citizen of the average Empire.

On the other hand, if the administration was reformed in depth, this was not the case for the legal system, which remained almost identical to that used by the Tang dynasty, ie based on the principles of Confucian philosophy. The judge was the only one to decide on the guilt of an accused and the appropriate sentence. The position of magistrate was considered an honor, and the judge himself was supposed to be an example for these contemporaries.

In terms of foreign policy, the Song dynasty represented the first central power in China for more than half a century, and therefore had to restore diplomatic relations with its neighbors . The envoys of the Song emperors recreated diplomatic relations with India, the khans of Central Asia, with the kingdoms of Indonesia, and as far as Egypt. While China's relations with the rest of the world were on the whole rather peaceful and centered on trade, relations with its direct neighbors were constantly on the brink of war. On the northern border, the Liao and Xia dynasties occupied part of the territory considered an integral part of China.

While the Song had undertaken major reforms, their military power was reduced, and Liao troops were able to ravage northern China until 1005 with impunity after repelling an attempt at conquest. At the beginning of the 11th century, the Song armies nearly succeeded in conquering the Xia territories, but the internal divisions of the Song general staff finally cost them this campaign. Between 1075 and 1077, the Song went to war with their southern neighbors, the Ly, who ruled present-day Vietnam, over a border dispute. This war was particularly bloody, and above all useless since it ended in a return to the status quo that prevailed before the start of hostilities.

The Song, who had pulled off the feat of reunifying China and taking the lead, while beginning to reform the society that had remained unchanged since the Tang era , however, were unable to effectively defend their borders.

Also, when the Jurchens, an internal minority in the Liao kingdom, rebelled to form the Jin dynasty, the Song brought them significant military support to finally succeed in getting rid of their cumbersome northern neighbor in 1125. The Jurchens, however, saw the shortcomings of the Song armies, and seized the opportunity to expand their territory, launching two successive campaigns against the Song in 1125 and 1127, the second leading to "The Humiliation of Jingkang", where the Jurchens captured the emperor, his heir and the majority of the imperial court. Self-proclaimed Emperor Gaozong led the remnants of the Song dynasty south of the Yangtze, and established the Southern Song dynasty in Lin'an (Hangzhou).

The Songs of the South

Having lost control of northern China, shattered militarily, the Song had to find new ways to sustain their economy, and defend themselves against the relentless Jin attacks on their northern border.

And, for the first time in Chinese history, the Song Emperors sought a solution to the outside their borders. Just five years after Jingkang's humiliation, the first imperial navy was created. Ports of the high seas, lighthouses, warehouses and shipyards...all of this was created with a speed that only a centralized power was capable of. The Imperial Navy supported and protected trade routes with Japan and Korea, the Southeast Asian kingdoms, India and the Arabian Peninsula. Military innovations, such as the use of gunpowder and the first paddle-wheel ships, enabled the Song to defeat the Jin navy, even when fighting 1 to 20, at the battles of Canshi and Tangdao in 1161. The Imperial Navy then numbered 3,000 men. Fifty years later, it numbered some 50,000.

Furthermore, in order to fuel the Empire's defense, the Song confiscated some of the elite lands as funding. This movement caused a drastic increase in tax evasion, with landowning families using their connections in the administration to avoid paying their taxes. The situation at the end of the 11th century was completely new. Gradually, one could distinguish a number of families of large landowners, having also placed part of their sons in the administration. These families formed a new elite.

Furthermore, the contest system created during the Northern Song was restricted to a certain number of dignitaries. Result, given the rapid growth of the population, the number of officials of the imperial administration is no longer sufficient. In the end, the state became less and less involved in local affairs. For example, more and more schools were financed by private funds. Funds coming from the families of owners mentioned above, reinforcing their influence.

At the end of the 12th century, a certain balance was reached. Relations with the Jin were more or less stabilized, and the internal affairs of the Empire remained under control. In the early years of the 13th century, the end of the Song dynasty would make its appearance. Between 1205 and 1209, the main adversaries of the Song, the Jin, were victims of raids carried out by the Mongol armies, led by Genghis Khan. In 1211, they were definitively crushed, and subjected to the Khan, forced to pay a tribute. When they moved their capital from Beijing to Kaifeng, the Mongols saw it as a rebellion, and the Jin were wiped off the map.

At the same time, the Mongols subjugated the Western Xia and Korea. Part of the Mongol forces made sporadic raids on the south bank of the Yangtze, starting in 1259, but in 1265 a decisive victory in Sichuan gave the Mongols the advantage. After the capture of Xiangyang, and the defeat in 1275 of 130,000 Chinese soldiers, the Mongols no longer encountered any obstacle in their conquest. The Yuan dynasty, founded in 1271 by Kublai Khan, finally overcame the last resistance of the Song at the Battle of the Pearl River (in southern China) in 1279. The largest part of the members of the imperial family committed suicide, and the Mongols became the new masters of the Middle Empire.

Arts and culture in Song China

The Song dynasty marks a real revolution in the artistic field. Painting, Literature, Ceramics, Opera,... in all fields, new methods and practices are shaking up the Chinese artistic landscape.

The painting, first of all, sees the appearance of the Shanshui style (literally:mountains and rivers), and the proliferation of landscape paintings. The influence of Taoism, according to which man is only a tiny part of a much larger universe, no doubt partly explains this enthusiasm for landscapes. We find the same type of representations decorating lacquered wooden objects dating from this period, as well as on bronze and jade engravings, sculptures, and even frescoes and bas reliefs. The most classic scene represented, with some variations, high mountains lost in the fog in the background, and rivers and waterfalls flowing up to the foreground.

From the Northern Song dynasty to the Southern Song dynasty, depictions changed, focusing more and more on details, such as a bird on a branch, for example...Several great artists were admitted to the imperial court, the most famous of them being Zhang Zhuedang (1085-1145), who painted the scroll titled Along the River during the Qingming Festival.

When it comes to literature, the Song dynasty saw the birth of the works of famous poets such as Su Shi (1037-1101), Mi Fu (1051-1107), and the first Chinese poetess, Li Qingzhao (1084-1151). The most popular form of Song poetry was the ci form, developed under the Tang. Besides the popularity of poetic art, Song literature also includes impressive historical works, such as the universal history Zizhi Tongjian, completed in 1184, comprising more than 3 million characters in 294 volumes. The "New Book of Tang" (1060) and the "Four Books of Song" (throughout the 10th century) were also important works.

Finally, many scientific writings were published under the Song, whose control over China was based, among other things, on a technological advance, including the "Essays of the Basin of Dreams" by Shen Kuo, a work covering many fields, from art to military strategy, including anthropology and archeology. Among them, many books on agronomy, in particular the “Cha Lu”, on the cultivation of tea, or the “Zhu Zi Cang Fa”, on the management of seeds. Countless atlases and geographical works were also produced, on the orders of successive emperors who saw in them a means of better defending their kingdom.

Theater under the Song had an ambiguous status. It was under the Northern Song, in Kaifeng, that theater first became an industry in China. Four of the theaters installed in the capital had the capacity to accommodate several thousand people. The troupes performing in the streets and markets were too numerous to count, and more than fifty fixed theaters were set up in the city's pleasure quarter. The pieces were always declaimed in classical Chinese, and accompanied by music, sometimes by full orchestras. But at the same time, and although almost as literate as members of the imperial administration, actors were still considered lower members of society, having a status close to that of prostitutes. But this did not affect the popularity of theater groups. Some were so successful that it was said their members could get rich in a single night.

Religion and philosophy

The Song dynasty was the scene of a major change in the history of Chinese philosophies, a change that would have an impact on the whole of Asia. At the beginning of the dynasty, Buddhism was in decline, as it was considered a "foreign" religion, and especially as being very abstract, in contrast to the Confucian classics and Taoism, which addressed practical problems such as administration or family life, and which were "native" philosophies, born of Chinese thinkers.

Confuciasnimo, or rather, Neo-Confucianism was being born. The texts of Confucius had again become essential for the intellectual elite in the search for a solution to govern the Empire, and the latter did not fail, like Ouyang Xiu (1007/-1072) to associate the establishment of Buddhism to the decline of China (he describes Buddhism as a “curse”). Led by Cheng Yi (1033-1107) and Zhu Xi (1130-1200), Neo-Confucianism wanted to purify Confucianism of its mystical aspects, distance it from religion and bring it closer to political philosophy. The success of the movement was dazzling, the commentary of the Four Books of Confucius by Zhu Xi, rejected during his lifetime, became in 1241 one of the mandatory classics to enter the imperial administration. In the decades that followed, Korea and Japan also adopted neo-Confucian principles, both in education and administration.

But Buddhism was not dead. Zen Buddhism also developed during the Song dynasty, with the monk Wuzhun Shifan even being called to the court of Emperor Lizong to share details of the Chan(zen) doctrine there.

Technology and Inventions in the Song Dynasty

The Song dynasty was a real revolution, mainly thanks to the inventions and discoveries that totally revolutionized the era, both in military and civil matters.
First major invention:gunpowder. Or to be exact, the development of a large number of gunpowder weapons, including flamethrowers, mines, grenades, cannons. These inventions allowed the Song to repel multiple invasion attempts for more than three centuries. The Wujing Zongyao treatise was the first in the world to detail the manufacture and uses of gunpowder.

In civil matters, discoveries and inventions are countless. Shen Kuo was the first to develop a compass indicating the North, thus facilitating cartography and navigation. Furthermore, he also establishes a theory on climate change over time, establishing the hypothesis of a "cold" era and a "hot" era. His creations are not limited to this, with among other things the manufacture of water clocks, an astrological telescope which enabled him to locate the pole star. In terms of mathematics, the Song dynasty saw the introduction of zero into Chinese mathematics, opening the door to algebra. The surveyors of the time were mainly employed by the emperors to develop a more efficient mapping system, which took the form of the first Chinese maps with a precise scale (1:900,000).

Another invention of the Song dynasty is the detachable-type press, which roughly corresponds to the press invented, or rather reinvented, by Gutenberg. This invention dates back to the 10th century in China, and played a major role in the dissemination of classical texts, and, coinciding with new methods of administrative recruitment, significantly increased social mobility. The press will continue to be improved during the following dynasties. Finally, in addition to the compass invented by Shen Kuo, a lock system was developed during this dynasty, allowing ships to be brought into dry dock for repair. These two inventions gave a considerable lead to the Chinese Navy.

The invention of the compass, gunpowder and the printing press are often regarded as the three elements having in Europe led to the end of the Middle Ages and opened the door to the Renaissance, but it was in China that these inventions were first made. The Song dynasty was a true revival in Chinese history, both socially and technologically.

It was also the last truly Chinese dynasty before the Ming came to power. But eventually, the aftermath of the fall of the Tang dynasty also led to the downfall of the Song, who to prevent the army from becoming a threat to imperial power, chose to keep it tightly under control, to the point that the army of the Song did not succeed in avoiding conquest by the Mongols. However, the Song dynasty revolutions would leave a legacy that the Ming dynasite would use to overthrow the Mongol yoke and regain power for another three centuries.

Bibliography

- History of China:From the Origins to the Present, by John Fairbank. Text, May 2013.

- The Chinese World:Volume 1, From the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages, by Jacques Gernet. Agora, 2006.

- The Chinese world:Volume 2, The modern era Xe-XIXe siècle, by Jacques Gernet. Agora 2006.