Biography
Family background and early years
Zhao Gou was born on June 13, 1107, the twenty-first day of the fifth month in the first year of Daguan, in the imperial palace of the Eastern Capital. His father, Emperor Huizong of Song, Zhao Ji, was the eighth emperor of the Northern Song. He was renowned for painting and calligraphy but was politically incompetent, placing trust in Cai Jing, Tong Guan, Wang Fu, and other corrupt officials as government increasingly deteriorated. Zhao Gou's mother, Lady Wei, came from a humble background. She entered the palace with the rank of Lady of Pingchang Commandery, was promoted to *jieyu* after giving birth to Zhao Gou, and later to *xiurong*; she bore no more children. Because of his mother's low status, Zhao Gou attracted little attention among Huizong's many sons.
Zhao Gou was intelligent and studious from childhood. Historical accounts describe him as "bright and perceptive by nature, broadly learned with a strong memory, reciting more than a thousand words of text each day." He was accomplished in calligraphy, music, chess, painting, and other arts, and was especially known for calligraphy. He first modeled his hand on Huang Tingjian and later developed his own style; works such as the *Imperial Handwritten Edict Bestowed on Yue Fei* are attributed to him. He also practiced martial arts and was able to draw a bow rated at one shi and five dou, stronger than the one-shi-three-dou standard for advanced students at the military academy. This was unusual for a prince raised within the palace and later contributed to the Jin doubting his identity during his time in their camp.
In the twelfth month of 1121, the third year of Xuanhe, Zhao Gou was advanced to Prince Kang. In 1122 he underwent the capping ceremony and moved to a residence outside the palace. By then the Northern Song and Jin had concluded the Alliance Conducted at Sea to destroy the Liao jointly. The Liao fell in 1125, but Jin armies immediately advanced south against the Song in two columns, placing the Northern Song in grave danger.
Mission to the Jin camp and organization of relief forces
In the first month of 1126, the first year of Jingkang, the eastern Jin army under Wanyan Zongwang, also known as Wo Libu, crossed the Yellow River and reached the walls of Kaifeng Prefecture in the Eastern Capital. Emperor Huizong panicked, hastily abdicated in favor of Crown Prince Zhao Huan, Emperor Qinzong of Song, and fled south. After taking the throne, Qinzong, supported by pro-war officials such as Li Gang, defended the Eastern Capital. Unable to take the city, the Jin proposed peace terms requiring the Song to cede Taiyuan, Zhongshan, and Hejian and send a prince and a grand councilor to the Jin camp as hostages. Qinzong summoned the princes and asked who would go. Zhao Gou stepped forward out of turn and volunteered.
Zhao Gou entered the Jin camp as a princely hostage. His companion, Vice Grand Councilor Zhang Bangchang, was so frightened that he "wept in fear," while Zhao Gou remained calm and told him, "This is a matter for men; Your Excellency should not behave like this." In the Jin camp Zhao Gou shot arrows together with members of the Jin imperial clan and reportedly struck the target with three consecutive shots. Seeing his skill in horsemanship and archery and his unusual composure, the Jin suspected that he was not truly a palace-raised prince but a military-family youth sent in disguise, and demanded another hostage. Prince Su, Zhao Shu, was therefore sent to replace him, allowing Zhao Gou to return to Song territory. The episode not only spared him from later captivity in the north but also gave him a reputation for exceptional martial ability.
In the eighth month of 1126, the Jin invaded south again on the grounds that the Song had not carried out the territorial cessions. Qinzong demoted Li Gang in an attempt to placate the Jin and in the tenth month again sent Zhao Gou to the Jin camp to seek peace. When Zhao Gou reached Cizhou, Prefect Zong Ze strongly urged him not to proceed, saying, "Prince Su went and never returned. Now enemy cavalry is already pressing in; Your Highness's going will bring no benefit." The people of Cizhou also gathered around the Cui Fujun Temple, crying out in remonstrance, and even killed deputy envoy Wang Yun, who had strongly urged continuing north. Zhao Gou therefore turned back to Xiangzhou. Wang Boyan, the prefect of Xiangzhou, led troops to meet him by the Yellow River and thereafter became one of Zhao Gou's trusted followers.
In the intercalary eleventh month, the Jin broke into the Eastern Capital and took control of Huizong, Qinzong, and the court. Qinzong sent a secret wax-sealed edict to Xiangzhou appointing Zhao Gou Grand Marshal of the Armies of Hebei and ordering him to mobilize all available Hebei troops for the capital's defense. On the first day of the twelfth month, Zhao Gou opened the Grand Marshal's headquarters at Xiangzhou and recruited troops, quickly gathering more than ten thousand men. Under the influence of peace advocates Wang Boyan, Huang Qianshan, and others, however, he did not actively advance to relieve Kaifeng. Instead he moved east to Daming Prefecture and then withdrew into Shandong. Zong Ze proposed marching directly to Chanyuan to cut the Jin line of retreat and relieve the capital, but Zhao Gou rejected the proposal and instead ordered Zong Ze to garrison Chanyuan, thereby pushing him out of the central decision-making circle.
Accession and the southward flight
In the third month of 1127, the second year of Jingkang, the Jin carried Huizong, Qinzong, and members of the imperial family north as prisoners. Zhao Gou's mother Lady Wei, his wife Xing Bingyi, and his daughters were among the captives. The Jin installed Zhang Bangchang as emperor and established the puppet Chu regime. Among close members of the Song imperial clan who had not been taken north, only Zhao Gou and Lady Meng, the deposed empress of Emperor Zhezong, remained. After the Jin withdrew, Zhang Bangchang located Lady Meng, honored her as Empress Yuanyou, and sent messengers to find Zhao Gou with the intention of supporting his accession. Huizong, while being taken north, also sent a secret instruction to Zhao Gou saying that he should "immediately assume the rightful position and come save your parents."
On June 12, 1127, the first day of the fifth month in the second year of Jingkang, Zhao Gou ascended the throne at Yingtian Prefecture in the Southern Capital, present-day Shangqiu in Henan. He adopted the era name Jianyan and became Emperor Gaozong of Song, thereby establishing the Southern Song. He honored his captive mother Lady Wei from afar as Empress Xuanhe and repeatedly sent envoys to the Jin seeking peace and asking that she be allowed to return south.
The establishment of the Southern Song did not halt Jin attacks. In the tenth month of 1127, the first year of Jianyan, Zhao Gou moved south to Yangzhou. In the second month of 1129, the third year of Jianyan, several hundred Jin cavalry approached Tianchang Army northwest of Yangzhou. When Zhao Gou received the report, he fled in haste, crossed the Yangtze to Jingkou, passed through Zhenjiang and Pingjiang Prefecture, present-day Suzhou, and finally reached Hangzhou. The escape was so abrupt that even grand councilors and other senior officials were not informed.
In the third month of 1129, dissatisfaction among Imperial Guard commanders over personnel appointments led to the Miao–Liu Rebellion. Zhao Gou was forced to abdicate in favor of his three-year-old son Zhao Fu. In the fourth month, as loyalist forces under Han Shizhong, Liu Guangshi, and others advanced, the revolt was suppressed and Zhao Gou was restored. He continued moving through the Jiangnan region and at one point even remained at sea to evade pursuing Jin forces. Only after the Jin withdrew north in 1130, the fourth year of Jianyan, could he stay temporarily in Yuezhou, present-day Shaoxing, before later moving the court to Lin'an, present-day Hangzhou. In 1138, the eighth year of Shaoxing, Lin'an was formally established as the capital and called the imperial residence, marking the completion of the Jianyan southward migration.
Treaty of Shaoxing and the execution of Yue Fei
In 1137, the seventh year of Shaoxing, news reached the Southern Song that Emperor Huizong had died at Wuguocheng. Zhao Gou wept loudly and told his officials: "Empress Xuanhe is advanced in years. I think of her and cannot rest in peace. I humble myself and seek peace precisely for this reason." He thus explicitly presented the recovery of his mother as a major motive for seeking peace with the Jin.
In 1138, the eighth year of Shaoxing, diplomatic efforts by Song envoy Wang Lun led the Jin temporarily to return Henan and Shaanxi to the Southern Song, but Empress Dowager Wei had still not returned. In 1140, the tenth year of Shaoxing, the Jin broke the agreement and reoccupied Shaanxi and Henan. Jin commander Wanyan Zongbi, also known as Wuzhu, was first defeated by Liu Qi's Eight-Character Army and then twice defeated by Yue Fei's Yue Family Army at Yancheng and Yingchang. Yet just as Yue Fei's army was approaching an opportunity to recover Kaifeng, Zhao Gou, urged by Qin Gui, sent twelve gold plaques ordering Yue to return, causing the northern campaign to collapse.
In the fourth month of 1141, the eleventh year of Shaoxing, Zhao Gou removed Yue Fei, Han Shizhong, Liu Qi, Yang Yizhong, Zhang Jun, and other leading commanders from military command. In the tenth month the Southern Song sent Wei Liangchen to the Jin to propose peace. In the eleventh month, Jin envoys Xiao Yi and Xing Juzhan arrived with peace terms. At this time Empress Dowager Wei arranged for a letter to reach Zhao Gou. Zhao Gou was delighted and said, "Sending a hundred envoys is not as useful as a single letter." He also stated explicitly: "I possess the realm, yet cannot care for my parent. Huizong can no longer be reached. Now, in making this sworn agreement, it must be stated plainly that my Empress Dowager is to be returned to me. I am not ashamed of peace. Otherwise, I do not fear using arms!"
On New Year's Eve of the twelfth month, January 27, 1142, Zhao Gou had Yue Fei, Yue Fei's son Yue Yun, and his subordinate Zhang Xian executed in Lin'an on the charge commonly summarized as "perhaps there is" or "possibly guilty." The Treaty of Shaoxing was then concluded. The Southern Song accepted vassal status and tribute obligations to the Jin, recognized the Huai River–Dashan Pass line as the border, and ceded Tangzhou, Dengzhou, and most of Shangzhou and Qinzhou. In the eighth month of 1142, the twelfth year of Shaoxing, Empress Dowager Wei finally returned south to Lin'an, while Huizong's coffin was returned at the same time.
Abdication and later years
In 1161, the thirty-first year of Shaoxing, the Jin ruler Wanyan Liang repudiated the Treaty of Shaoxing and led a major invasion south. At the Battle of Caishi, Song forces defeated a larger Jin force and repelled the invasion. In the sixth month of 1162, the thirty-second year of Shaoxing, Zhao Gou cited weariness with government and abdicated in favor of his adopted son Zhao Shen, Emperor Xiaozong of Song. He styled himself Retired Emperor, and the officials bestowed on him the honorific "Guangyao Shousheng Retired Emperor." After abdication, Zhao Gou lived at Deshou Palace and enjoyed a comfortable old age while continuing to exercise some influence over government. He died there on November 9, 1187, the yihai day of the tenth month in the fourteenth year of Chunxi, at the age of eighty-one. His temple name was Gaozong, and he was buried at Yongsi Mausoleum.
Title, Birthday and Palace Education
The Song hui yao ji gao (Assembled Drafts of the Song Administrative Statutes), section Li 49, records the sequence of Zhao Gou's titles and the date of his birth: he was born in the fifth month of the first year of Daguan inside the palace at Dongjing, was first enfeoffed as Duke of Shu, then promoted to Commandery Prince of Guangping, and only in the twelfth month of the third year of Xuanhe was he raised to Prince of Kang. After the court established itself in the south, his birthday was made the Tianshen Festival, on which every prefecture and county held vegetarian offerings and the emperor feasted his ministers; together with the Tianning Festival of Huizong and the Qianlong Festival of Qinzong it formed the three great imperial festivals of the Song house.
His mother, née Wei, entered the palace as a palace woman, was promoted to commandery lady of Pingchang, and after bearing the emperor rose in turn to jieyu and xiurong; she bore no further children, so her rank remained modest throughout Huizong's reign. Carried north with Huizong and Qinzong in the Jingkang catastrophe, she was remotely honoured in the south as Empress Xuanhe and returned only after the Shaoxing peace. Zhao Gou was the ninth son of Huizong; because his mother's position was low, palace protocol toward him was thin, and it is recorded that as a boy he disliked play, studied the classics and history daily, practised calligraphy and ink painting, and also trained in archery and horsemanship, so that among the princes he was distinguished for his accomplishments.
The Grand Marshal's Office and the Move to Dongping
The Song shi, chapter 24, records that in the intercalary eleventh month of the first year of Jingkang, as the siege of Dongjing tightened, Qinzong sent a man down the city wall with a wax-sealed edict that appointed Zhao Gou Grand Marshal of the Hebei armies, with Chen Hengbo as Marshal and Zong Ze and Wang Boyan as Vice Marshals, ordering him to muster all the troops of Hebei to defend the capital. On the first day of the twelfth month Zhao Gou opened the Grand Marshal's Office at Xiangzhou and raised troops widely, assembling ten thousand men within ten days, formed into five armies under Chen Cui as overall commander. Zong Ze arrived first with two thousand men; Liang Yangzu followed with three thousand, and Zhang Jun, Miao Fu, Yang Yizhong and Tian Shizhong all served under his banner. Wang Boyan advised moving the army to Dongping, and Zhao Gou followed him, crossing the Yellow River from Damingfu eastward and then moving on to Jizhou.
When the Jin learned that the Grand Marshal's Office had been established, they sent Zhang Cheng with an edict to summon him; Zong Ze ordered brave men to shoot at Zhang Cheng, who fled in confusion. Thereafter the government troops and the various armed bands of Hebei who came over were said to number a million, but Zhao Gou remained cautious and would not advance directly on the capital, so the plan to relieve it was never carried out. Zong Ze once asked to march straight to Chanyuan to cut off the Jin retreat; Zhao Gou refused, and instead ordered Zong Ze forward to Chanyuan with the claim that the emperor was with the army, after which Zong Ze no longer took part in the deliberations of the office. In the third month the Jin set up Zhang Bangchang as emperor under the style Chu; when Huang Shanqian reported it, Zhao Gou wept aloud. Wanyan Zongwang withdrew his army, Huizong and the imperial clan were taken north, and the prefectures of Hebei surrendered at the news, while the host raised by the Grand Marshal's Office gradually dispersed.
The Imperial Robe, the Autograph Letter, and the Empress Dowager's Summons
Chapter 4 of Li Xinchuan's Jianyan yilai xinian yaolu records that after the Jin withdrew north, Cao Xun, a palace usher, escaped from the Jin camp in Hebei and reached Jizhou, where he presented Huizong's imperial robe and an autograph letter whose gist was: "You may at once assume the throne, and come to save your father and mother." Huizong, at Yanjing, had also dreamed that four suns rose together, had written the character "ling" on his neckcloth, and, holding a letter sent by Consort Wei, ordered Cao Xun to travel by side roads to the Prince of Kang. On the dingmao day of the fourth month of the second year of Jingkang, Xie Kejia brought the "Talisman of the Song Mandate" to Jizhou; Zhao Gou wept and received it kneeling, and ordered Wang Boyan to take charge of it. On the gengwu day Empress Dowager Yuanyou, née Meng, took the throne behind the curtain in regency, and Zhang Bangchang retired as grand chancellor to Zishan Hall; on the jiaxu day the Empress Dowager issued a proclamation to the empire recounting the perils of the state and the absence of a sovereign and declaring that a worthy prince of the near line should be chosen to settle the succession. On the dingchou day the civil and military officials three times submitted memorials urging him to ascend; Zhao Gou answered that he would wait until he entered the capital and personally visited the ancestral temple, and that if the imperial carriage did not return he would pacify the people and provisionally attend to state affairs. On the guiwei day he reached Yingtianfu, the Southern Capital; on the jiashen day Zhang Bangchang came from Bianjing to Yingtian to await punishment, and Zhao Gou comforted him and did not inquire into his usurpation. In the same month he honoured née Meng as Empress Dowager Yuanyou and served her as a mother, and great matters of court were mostly reported to her before action.
Accession at Yingtian and the Jianyan Era
On the first day of the fifth month of the first year of Jianyan, Zhao Gou ascended the throne in the main hall of the government office of Yingtianfu, the Southern Capital, and changed the era name to Jianyan, which was the beginning of the Southern Song. That day he mounted the altar, received the Mandate at the hour of the tiger, and after the reading of the patent wept facing south, so that none of the ministers could keep from tears. That same day he appointed Huang Shanqian as vice minister of the Secretariat and Wang Boyan as associate commissioner of the Bureau of Military Affairs, and all the old men of the Grand Marshal's Office were advanced. On the following day he honoured the Jingkang emperor as Emperor Xiaoci Yuansheng and the Empress Dowager Yuanyou as Empress Dowager Yuanyou; Wang Boyan's Zhongxing rili records her as Empress Dowager Longyou, and later official compilations mostly followed that form. He also ordered Huang Shanqian to hold concurrently the post of commissioner of the Imperial Camp and Wang Boyan that of deputy commissioner. Because the state was in peril, he issued an edict inviting officials and commoners alike to point out defects in government, and another announcing his accession to Heaven, Earth, the ancestral temple and the altars of soil and grain. In the seventh month he issued an edict saying that he would follow the ancient practice of a royal progress and take up position in the vicinity of the capital, intending to choose ground from which to avoid the Jin edge; already the court harboured a veiled intention of moving south. The Jin sent envoys to the frontier at this time, hoping to use negotiations to blunt their advance, and the emperor and his two chief ministers schemed to use the name of exchanging envoys to slow the enemy; the repeated memorials of Zong Ze asking for a return to the capital were all held back and never issued.
The Miao-Fu Mutiny and the Restoration
In the third month of the third year of Jianyan, Miao Fu, commander of the escort, and Liu Zhengyan, deputy commander of the right army of the Imperial Camp, mutinied on the grounds of unequal rewards and the employment of palace eunuchs. On the fifth day they ambushed and killed Wang Yuan, commander of the Imperial Camp Office, and members of the household of the eunuch Kang Lü outside the travelling palace, then brought their troops to the north gate of the palace and killed all they met who were beardless, more than a hundred men. Zhao Gou mounted the gate tower and faced them; Miao Fu reproached him to his face for trusting eunuchs and failing to reward military merit, and demanded the execution of Kang Lü, Lan Gui and Zeng Ze together with the abdication of the emperor in favour of the crown prince and the regency of the Empress Dowager Longyou behind the curtain. Zhao Gou had no choice but to surrender Kang Lü and was forced to abdicate, taking up residence in Xianzhong Temple with the honorific "Emperor Ruisheng Renxiao"; his son Zhao Fu, then three years old, was set up as emperor, with the Empress Dowager Longyou as regent. Two months later the armies of Han Shizhong, Liu Guangshi and Zhang Jun rose one after another to relieve the throne; Lü Yihao led the loyal troops into the city, the mutineers were heavily defeated, and Miao Fu and Liu Zhengyan fled to Hangzhou with two thousand men. Zhao Gou was restored, grasped Han Shizhong's hand and wept, and directed that the whole faction of rebels be destroyed. In the rewards that followed, Lü Yihao became right chancellor and commissioner of the Imperial Camp, Liu Guangshi was advanced to grand commandant, Han Shizhong was made military commissioner of Wushengjun, and Zhang Jun of Zhenxijun. On the twentieth day of the fourth month Zhao Gou left Hangzhou northward, and on the eighth day of the fifth month reached Jiangningfu, renamed the next day Jiankangfu as the temporary capital. That month Liu Zhengyan and Miao Fu were captured at Pucheng and Jianyang and sent to Jiankang, where they were executed in the seventh month. After this mutiny Zhao Gou relied the more on the generals while somewhat curbing the power of the palace eunuchs.
The Dismissal of Qin Gui and the Shifting Balance of War and Peace
In the eighth month of the second year of Shaoxing, Qin Gui was dismissed from the post of academician of the Hall of the Observation of Letters and made superintendent of the Taiping Temple of Jiangzhou. Earlier Huang Guinian had impeached him for advocating peace at the cost of the state, and Qi Chongli, when received in audience, produced the two policies Qin Gui had earlier offered, namely that southerners should return to the south and northerners to the north. Hearing this, Zhao Gou said, "I am a northerner; where am I to return?" and ordered a patent of censure setting out his offences, which was proclaimed at home and abroad. Qin Gui had been chancellor only one year when dismissed, and then lived in retirement for several years. In the eleventh month of the third year of Shaoxing the Jin envoys Li Yongshou and Wang Yi came, proposing the return of the northern population and a border on the Yangzi; this was the first time the Jin sent envoys to the Southern Song, and opinion at court was divided, so Zhao Gou ordered the chief ministers and the censors to deliberate together on the form of reception. Later the Jin appointed Xiao Zhe as commissioner for the pacification of Jiangnan, styling the Southern Song "Jiangnan" in its edict and using the word "summons", intending that Zhao Gou should become a vassal emperor in place of Liu Yu. Although Zhao Gou declared that he had received the two-hundred-year heritage of his ancestors and would never accept such a patent of enfeoffment, he still insisted on peace and demoted the bellicose Zhao Ding as a sign of his intent. In the eighth year of Shaoxing the Jin restored to the Southern Song the territory of Henan and Shaanxi, yet the return of Huizong's coffin and the Empress Dowager Wei was still not achieved. In the ninth year of Shaoxing the Jin fell into internal strife and Wanyan Zongbi took command; the following year he tore up the agreement and retook Shaanxi and Henan, and the peace was broken.
The Shaoxing Peace and the Tribute of a Vassal
The Jin shi, chapter 77, records that in the second month of the second year of Huangtong the Song ruler sent He Zhu to present the oath tablet, whose full text ran in substance: "Your servant Gou states that the boundary is now to be drawn along the middle course of the Huai River, and that the prefectures of Tang and Deng to the west are ceded to the superior state," and further that the annual tribute of silver and silk should be two hundred and fifty thousand taels and bolts, beginning with the year renxu. This was the written form of the Shaoxing peace. In the eleventh month of the eleventh year of Shaoxing the Jin envoys Xiao Yi and Xing Juzhan brought the terms to the Southern Song, and Zhao Gou made the return of the Empress Dowager Wei the first article of the oath, saying plainly: "I possess the empire but cannot support my mother; Huizong is beyond reach. Now that the oath is to be sworn, let it be stated explicitly that my mother is to be returned to me; I am not ashamed to make peace. Otherwise I would not shrink from war." On the last night of that year Yue Fei was killed at Lin'an and the peace was concluded immediately. In the eighth month of the twelfth year of Shaoxing the Empress Dowager Wei returned south to Lin'an and Huizong's coffin came back at the same time; Zhao Gou received them by the roadside, and mother and son met while rulers and ministers alike wept. With the peace concluded there was no great war between Song and Jin for twenty years and the people of north and south had rest, yet the tribute and the forms of vassalage were never altered throughout Zhao Gou's lifetime.
News and Foreboding in the Last Shaoxing Years
The Song shi, chapter 172, records an edict of the third month of the twenty-sixth year of Shaoxing: "I hold that to lay down arms and give the people rest is the great virtue of a sovereign," adding that the late chancellor Qin Gui had merely been able to assist him, and warning his ministers that anyone who dared to speak recklessly would be punished with the full severity of the law; Shen Gai proposed that a special edict be issued to make this intent widely known, and it was proclaimed at home and abroad. In the fourth month of the twenty-ninth year of Shaoxing Huang Zhong returned from congratulating the Jin ruler on his birthday and reported that the Jin ruler Wanyan Liang was rebuilding Bianjing with designs on the south; Zhao Gou started and said, "I fear it is a detached palace." Shen Gai and Tang Situi rebuked Huang Zhong for reckless speech. In the ninth month of the same year Wang Lun and Cao Xun returned to court and reported that the neighbouring state was respectful and friendly and meant nothing else; Zhao Gou said, "Since the return of Wang Lun and the others I have thought about it in the middle of the night and tremble with cold," while Tang Situi said it was all due to the emperor's awe-inspiring virtue; yet Wanyan Liang had already fixed his plan to invade the river. In the thirty-first year of Shaoxing Wanyan Liang led a great army south, Yu Yunwen won the battle of Caishi and broke the Jin army, and Wanyan Liang was killed in a mutiny among his own troops. On the eve of his abdication Zhao Gou abolished three commissions as recruiting commissioners and entrusted military affairs largely to the chief ministers and the generals.
Abdication to the Deyang Palace and the Life of a Retired Emperor
The first chapter of the second collection of Li Xinchuan's Jianyan yilai chaoye zaji records that in his later years Zhao Gou grew ever more weary of affairs, and that Zhu Kangbo secretly supported the great deliberation and drafted the autograph edict establishing a crown prince. On the jiazi day of the fifth month of the thirty-second year of Shaoxing an edict was issued from within appointing the prince as crown prince and changing his name to Ye; Zhou Bida observed that the character "Ye" had the same sound as the name of Emperor Zhaozong of Tang, and so the name Shen was bestowed instead. The Song shi, chapter 33, records that on the yihai day of the sixth month of the thirty-second year of Shaoxing an autograph tablet was issued from within saying that the crown prince should at once ascend the throne, that the emperor would style himself Retired Emperor and withdraw to the Deyang Palace. On the following day Zhao Gou announced his decision in person, appeared in the Zichen Hall, and the new emperor was led by attendants to the side of the imperial couch where he stood rather than sat, and was supported and pressed seven or eight times before he would sit at all, saying with a troubled countenance that the command of his lord and father came from a sole decision, but that he feared he could not bear so great a position. The Retired Emperor then departed for the Deyang Palace while the new emperor, in robe and shoes, walked out of the gate of the Xiangxi Hall and, in the rain, held the carriage and walked beside it, not stopping even at the palace gate; the Retired Emperor waved him back repeatedly and, turning, said, "I have entrusted it to the right man; I have no regrets." A general amnesty followed, the accession was announced to Heaven, Earth, the ancestral temple and the altars, and the new emperor began holding court in the rear hall; an edict invited officials and commoners to point out defects in government, and the honorific Guangyao Shousheng Retired Emperor was conferred. Zhao Gou lived in the Deyang Palace for twenty-five years and died on the yihai day of the tenth month of the fourteenth year of Chunxi at the age of eighty-one, buried at the Yongsi Mausoleum. The Deyang Palace was for a time the most splendid of residences, with ponds, terraces and halls. Zhou Bida's Wenzhong ji, chapter 174, in a Duanwu verse, records that the Retired Emperor once walked to Chuanfa Temple and saw a tower which he named Juyuan, and had Su Shi's poems written large on a screen; he also had a great pool dug in the palace, fed by bamboo pipes carrying water from West Lake over several li, and piled stones into a mountain in imitation of Feilai Peak, so that the provision made for him was such as few retired emperors in any age enjoyed.
The Two Missions to the Jin Camp in the Jingkang Siege
In the first month of the first year of Jingkang the eastern army of the Jin under Wanyan Zongwang crossed the Yellow River and came up to the walls of Dongjing; Huizong hastily abdicated in favour of the crown prince Zhao Huan and fled south to Zhenjiang with his confidants. Qinzong made Li Gang commander of the personal expedition and had him direct the defence from the wall, while Zhong Shidao and Yao Pingzhong successively brought relieving troops into the capital, so that Dongjing held for a time. Unable to take the city, the Jin proposed peace, demanding the cession of the three garrison towns of Taiyuan, Zhongshan and Hejian and the sending of a prince and a chancellor into their camp as hostages. Qinzong assembled the princes in the hall and asked who would go; Zhao Gou stepped forward out of turn and volunteered, and went with the junior chancellor Zhang Bangchang. Zhang Bangchang wept with fear while Zhao Gou remained composed, telling him that this was a man's business and that a chancellor should not behave so. In the Jin camp Zhao Gou shot arrows in company with members of the Jin imperial clan and hit the target three times in succession; the Jin, seeing his skill in archery and horsemanship and his composure, suspected that he was a general's son passed off as a prince and asked for another hostage, so that Prince Su, Zhao Shu, was sent in and Zhao Gou was able to return. The Jin withdrew once the three garrison towns had been promised, but the Song court delayed the cession, and in the eighth month the Jin came south again on the pretext of breach of faith, Zongwang and Zonghan advancing by two routes; Taiyuan fell in the ninth month and the situation of the Northern Song had become irrecoverable.
In the tenth month Qinzong again sent Zhao Gou to negotiate, with Wang Yun as his deputy. Reaching Cizhou, the prefect Zong Ze strongly dissuaded him, saying that Prince Su had gone and never returned, that the enemy horse was already near, and that there was no profit in the prince's going. The people of Cizhou gathered before the temple of Lord Cui and cried out to hold him back and to keep the Prince of Kang to bind the hearts of the people, going so far as to kill Wang Yun, who insisted on going north. Zhao Gou then turned back to Xiangzhou, where Wang Boyan, the prefect, came with troops to meet him on the bank of the Yellow River, and from this time Zhao Gou was bound to Wang Boyan and treated him as his confidant. In the intercalary eleventh month of that year the Jin broke into Dongjing and Qinzong went in person to their camp to sue for peace and was detained, so that Huizong and Qinzong, the empresses and consorts, the imperial clan and the officials were all in the hands of the Jin. In the second month of the second year of Jingkang the Jin deposed the two emperors as commoners; in the third month they set up Zhang Bangchang as emperor under the style Chu; in the fourth month they took Huizong and Qinzong and more than three thousand members of the imperial clan north. Zhao Gou's mother née Wei, his wife Xing Bingyi and his daughters were among the captives, and of the near line of the imperial clan the only one not carried off besides Zhao Gou himself was the deposed empress of Zhezong, née Meng.
The Crossing South and the Months at Sea
In the autumn of the third year of Jianyan the Jin advanced south in several columns; Wanyan Zongbi crossed the river, took Jiankangfu in the eleventh month and then Hangzhou. Zhao Gou fled from Hangzhou to Yuezhou and then to Mingzhou, the chief ministers and the whole administration following in confusion and many being lost on the way. In the first month of the fourth year of Jianyan the Jin took Mingzhou, and Zhao Gou thereupon boarded a ship and put to sea, sheltering in the region of Taizhou and Wenzhou; the travelling court drifted on the sea for several months, and when the Jin pursued with a river fleet they were held off by the Song naval forces. At that season the south was hot and damp and the Jin were unaccustomed to the climate, and with Han Shizhong, commanding eight thousand men, blocking Wanyan Zongbi's hundred thousand at Jiaoshan and Huangtiandang near Zhenjiang for more than forty days, while Yue Fei and Zhang Jun took the opportunity to recover Jiankang, the Jin withdrew north that year. Zhao Gou returned from the sea to Yuezhou, which in the first year of Shaoxing was raised to be Shaoxingfu; in the second year of Shaoxing he returned to Lin'anfu, and in the eighth year he formally made Lin'an the capital, styling it the travelling residence; the pattern of the crossing south was thus fixed. After the crossing the Huai region and Jiang-Zhe became the source of the court's revenue, and although Lin'an was nominally only a travelling residence, its palaces, offices, schools and markets were rebuilt in order.
The Menace of the Puppet Qi and the Plot of Assassination
Since Zhang Bangchang could not last, in the ninth month of the fourth year of Jianyan the Jin set up Liu Yu as emperor of the great Qi at Daming, moving him to Bianjing in the second year of Shaoxing and giving him the territory of Henan and Shaanxi as a buffer on the Chinese side. Liu Yu's son Liu Lin and others repeatedly led troops south, mounting great invasions of the Huai in the third and sixth years of Shaoxing, which were held off by Han Shizhong, Liu Guangshi and Zhang Jun. Historical sources record that the puppet Qi once plotted the assassination of Zhao Gou: Liu Lin, hearing that Zhao Gou was passionately fond of Huang Tingjian's calligraphy, sent Wang Kaidao to imitate Huang's script deliberately and infiltrate the Song territory, and ordered Kuai Ting to seize an opportunity to assassinate him, though the plot never succeeded. In the seventh year of Shaoxing the Jin, finding Liu Yu useless, deposed him as Prince of Shu and the puppet Qi came to an end, easing the pressure on the eastern front. In the same year, however, Liu Guangshi was stripped of his command and his subordinate Li Qiong crossed the Huai with his troops to surrender to the Qi, shaking the Huai region for a time, and Zhao Gou dealt severely with the affair, from which came the later design to reclaim the military power of the great generals.
Illness in Later Years and the Choice of an Heir
Zhao Gou was much afflicted by illness in his later years. Historical sources record that while Wang Boyan and Huang Shanqian were in power, the sudden arrival of Zhang Jun's report of mutiny so startled and alarmed him that he contracted a withering ailment, and that after the early death of the prince Zhao Fu the palace saw no further births. Zhao Fu had been set up in the third month of the third year of Jianyan during the mutiny, with the era name Mingzhao, and after the mutiny was put down he was still made crown prince, but died soon afterwards at the age of three. Zhao Gou was thus left without a son of his own, and in the second year of Shaoxing he selected Zhao Bocong, a descendant of Taizu, to be raised in the palace; in the fifth year of Shaoxing he was enfeoffed as Commandery Prince of Pu'an; in the thirtieth year he was made an imperial son and given the name Wei and the title Prince of Jian; in the thirty-second year he was made crown prince and took the name Shen, becoming the later Emperor Xiaozong. Zhao Gou, himself bearing the temple name Gaozong and descended from the Taizong line, thus saw the imperial succession return to the descendants of Taizu, the matter of greatest consequence for the ancestral temple in his later years. In the sixth month of the thirty-second year of Shaoxing Zhao Gou abdicated on the ground of weariness, withdrew to the Deyang Palace and was Retired Emperor for twenty-five years; he died there in the tenth month of the fourteenth year of Chunxi at the age of eighty-one, with the temple name Gaozong, and was buried at the Yongsi Mausoleum.
The Changing Chief Ministers in the Jianyan Years
In the fifth month of the first year of Jianyan, at the beginning of his reign, Zhao Gou made Li Gang vice director of the Secretariat and concurrently vice minister of the Secretariat and summoned him to the travelling court, relying on him as chancellor. Li Gang arrived and presented ten articles, asking that the capital be moved back to Bianjing, that the peace negotiations be abandoned, that armaments be reorganised and the city walls repaired, which ran directly counter to the views of Huang Shanqian and Wang Boyan. In the eighth month of that year Li Gang was dismissed as academician of the Hall of the Observation of Letters and superintendent of the Dongxiao Temple, so swift an advance and retreat that officials and people alike were astonished. The student Chen Dong and the commoner Ouyang Che submitted memorials setting out the offences of Huang Shanqian and Wang Boyan and asking that Li Gang be retained and the capital restored, and were put to death, so that opinion among the scholars grew more angry still. Thereafter Huang Shanqian and Wang Boyan were in power and devoted themselves to moving south to avoid the enemy, so that reports from the prefectures grew daily more urgent while the response of the central court grew daily more slack; in the second month of the third year of Jianyan, after the rout at Yangzhou, the two men were dismissed in turn. Lü Yihao, Zhu Shengfei and others then held office one after another, the chief ministers changing like pieces on a board while no settled policy was reached at court. After the era name was changed to Shaoxing, Lü Yihao and Qin Gui were chancellors together but could not tolerate each other, and Qin Gui was dismissed in the eighth month of the second year of Shaoxing. After the fourth year of Shaoxing, Zhao Ding and Zhang Jun became chancellors in turn and the party in favour of war gained a little ground; in the eighth year of Shaoxing Zhao Ding was dismissed and Qin Gui was chancellor alone, and for the next seventeen years the authority of the chief ministers was wholly gathered into the hands of Qin Gui, so that the politics of Zhao Gou's court were settled upon the policy of peace.
War and Defence, and the Northern Expeditions of the Shaoxing Years
In the tenth month of the fourth year of Shaoxing the Jin and the puppet Qi advanced together, and Han Shizhong heavily defeated them at Dazhen near Yangzhou; Zhao Gou personally issued an autograph commendation, one of the few victories since the founding of the Southern Song. In the sixth year of Shaoxing Zhang Jun, as right chancellor, inspected the armies on the Huai and ordered the generals to advance by separate routes; Yue Fei recovered the territory of Shang and Guo, and the defence of the Huai was somewhat strengthened, though the armies withdrew before long for want of provisions. In the fifth month of the tenth year of Shaoxing the Jin broke the agreement and retook Henan and Shaanxi; Liu Qi with the Eight-Character Army heavily defeated Wanyan Zongbi at Shunchang, and Yue Fei's army won repeated victories at Yancheng and Yingchang, driving toward Kaifeng, while the elders of the central plain brought cattle and wine to welcome them. Zhao Gou and Qin Gui, however, did not wish a great campaign, and in a single day sent twelve gold-lettered tablets ordering Yue Fei to withdraw; the prefectures north of the Yangzi were then abandoned again and the northern expedition was cut short. In the spring of the eleventh year of Shaoxing the Song won another victory at Zhegao but suffered a reverse at Haozhou, and the two armies accordingly laid down their arms, the peace being concluded. For the next twenty years Zhao Gou made the defence of the river his business, adding garrisons and repairing fortifications between the Huai and the Yangzi, and the armies of Yue Fei and Han Shizhong were reorganised into the imperial-front armies, the pattern of Southern Song defence being broadly fixed along these lines.
The Reception of the Coffin and the Ancestral Temple
In the eighth month of the twelfth year of Shaoxing the Jin returned Huizong's coffin and the Empress Dowager Wei as agreed; Zhao Gou sent envoys to receive them beyond the frontier, and when the coffin reached Lin'an he mourned and put on the mourning garments, the coffin being provisionally interred at Kuaiji, which was the beginning of the six mausoleums of the Southern Song. In the same year Xing Bingyi was posthumously created Empress Xianjie, and her tablet was placed in the ancestral temple, Zhao Gou attending the sacrifice in person and unable to restrain his tears. Since the crossing south the ancestral temple and tombs of the Zhao house had all lain in the north, and Zhao Gou ordered an ancestral temple built at Lin'an with the seasonal offerings as of old; he also built the Jingling Palace to receive the portraits of the successive reigns, going there in person on the first and fifteenth of the month and at the festivals. For the imperial clansmen in the south he established the Southern and Western Courts of the Imperial Clan to govern them, those scattered in Quanzhou and Fuzhou being given stipends, so that although the court was displaced, the rites of the ancestral temple were not once neglected. All these matters touched the foundations of the state, and Zhao Gou gave them considerable attention, so that although the Southern Song held only a corner of the realm, its ritual system remained largely complete and preserved the old regulations of the Northern Song.
Internal Government, Revenue, the Land Survey and the Paper Currency
After the crossing south the land of the Huai and the Jing-Xiang regions had repeatedly suffered fire and sword and much of it lay waste. Zhao Gou repeatedly ordered the gathering of refugees and the remission of taxes, instructing the prefectures to give out waste land and lend seed grain, and he carried out military and official farming so that soldiers and people cultivated side by side on the frontier, while the taxes of Jiangnan were several times reduced. After the twelfth year of Shaoxing, the offices concerned, finding the registers of land lost and the taxes unequal, asked to carry out a survey of boundaries, measuring the fields and making new registers of holdings, in order to set the boundaries right and equalise the taxes; this was carried out in the circuits of the southeast one after another and the people found it in many ways convenient. In the thirtieth year of Shaoxing, following the method of the Sichuan paper notes, Zhao Gou ordered the Ministry of Revenue to establish the Office of Paper Currency at the travelling court and to issue notes of one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, five hundred and one thousand cash to circulate alongside copper coin and facilitate the movement of goods in the southeast; this was the beginning of Southern Song paper money, and the later guanzi, Sichuan notes and Huai notes all derived from it.
Internal Disorder and Its Suppression in the Jianyan Years
Between the Jianyan and Shaoxing periods the Southern Song faced the pressure of the Jin and the puppet Qi from without and the disorder of scattered soldiers and bandits within. In the Jianyan years, once the troops of Hebei and Jingdong had dissolved, Zhang Yu, Li Cheng, Cao Cheng, Ma You, Liu Zhong, Shao Qing and Qi Fang each held tens of thousands of men and raided back and forth between the Huai and the Yangzi, the Jing-Hu and Jiangxi, leaving prefectures and counties in ruins. In the first year of Shaoxing Zhang Jun and Yue Fei attacked Li Cheng at Hongzhou and Jiangzhou, defeated him in successive battles, and he fled north to surrender to Liu Yu. The Qianzhou region of Jiangxi and Fan Ruwei in Fujian also rose in turn, and in the second year of Shaoxing Han Shizhong sailed from Taizhou to Fuzhou and put down the revolt in a single battle. In Lake Dongting Yang Yao gathered hundreds of thousands and held a fortified base on the water against the government armies; in the fifth year of Shaoxing Yue Fei was sent against him, first offering terms and then attacking, broke his water fort and Yang Yao drowned himself, his fleet passing wholly into Yue Fei's army, and the disorder of Hunan was settled. Throughout these years the court was resisting a strong enemy abroad and putting down bandits at home, its forces and revenue alike exhausted, and it was thanks to the generals that Jiangnan was gradually pacified.
The Defence of Sichuan and Shaanxi and the Passes into Shu
In the fourth year of Jianyan Zhao Gou made Zhang Jun commissioner for the pacification of Sichuan and Shaanxi, commanding the armies there so as to strike at the Jin rear. In the ninth month of that year Zhang Jun joined the forces of the five routes and fought the Jin at Fuping, was heavily defeated, and withdrew to hold the passes into Shu, most of the region of the passes being lost. In the tenth month of the first year of Shaoxing Wu Jie, holding Heshangyuan, defeated a far larger Jin force and broke it, and the Jin commanders fled in confusion; in the fourth year of Shaoxing Wu Jie and Wu Lin won another great victory at Xianrenguan, and from that time the Jin did not dare to spy out Shu. With Sichuan and Shaanxi secured the connection between the southeast and the southwest was kept unbroken, and the revenue, horses, tea and salt of Shu could be sent to the travelling court, so that the Southern Song had, as it were, two arms. Zhao Gou treated the commanders of Sichuan and Shaanxi with marked favour; the brothers Wu Jie and Wu Lin both received the staff of command, and their troops guarded the passes into Shu from generation to generation, standing with the generals of the southeast as the pillars of the state.
Rites and Books After the Crossing South
At the beginning of the crossing south, the sacrificial vessels, instruments and ceremonial regalia had mostly been lost in the north. Zhao Gou ordered the offices concerned to gather them in time, and the rites of the suburban sacrifice, the Bright Hall and the ancestral temple were gradually restored, the altars and temples being built one after another, the ritual officials examining the old regulations and the ceremonial texts and movements of music being newly compiled. He also ordered searches for the maps, registers, veritable records and administrative compilations of the Northern Song and had the scholars of the palace libraries copy and preserve them, so that after the crossing the collections of the Secretariat became once more considerable and the official histories of the successive reigns with the records of the various offices were saved from complete loss. He ordered the recompilation of the Veritable Records of the reigns of Shenzong and Zhezong under Fan Chong as diarist of the History Office, and later had the histories of the succeeding reigns continued, and the flourishing of historical writing in the Southern Song began here.
The Honorifics of a Retired Emperor and Xiaozong's Devotion
Once the abdication of the sixth month of the thirty-second year of Shaoxing had been accomplished, the ministers asked to confer on the Retired Emperor the honorific Guangyao Shousheng Retired Emperor, which was later accumulated into the full form Guangyao Shousheng Xiantian Tidao Xingren Chengde Jingwu Weiwen Shaoye Xingtong Mingmo Shenglie Retired Emperor, his merits while on the throne being set out at length in the patent, an elaboration of ritual rarely seen among retired emperors of earlier ages. After his accession Emperor Xiaozong went four times a month to the Deyang Palace to inquire after his health, personally attending to every matter of his daily life, food and drink, medicine and clothing, never once relaxing in twenty-six years; at every birthday of the Retired Emperor and at every seasonal festival he would lay out great banquets and music and make generous grants to the ministers to delight him. The ponds, gardens, flowers, calligraphy, paintings and vessels of the Deyang Palace were presented by Xiaozong at the proper times, and whatever the Retired Emperor wished was at once provided. Zhao Gou in turn constantly instructed Xiaozong in the way of governing, and the harmony between father and son was unbroken, so that the scholar-officials of the Southern Song regarded it as a great matter; it was for this that Xiaozong's temple name was Xiao, "the filial". On the yihai day of the tenth month of the fourteenth year of Chunxi Zhao Gou died in the Deyang Palace at the age of eighty-one; Xiaozong, hearing the news, mourned bitterly and wished to observe the three years of mourning, ordering the offices concerned to examine the ancient regulations, and though his ministers repeatedly asked that days be taken for months he wore the mourning garments according to the rites, so that in his conduct toward the Retired Emperor from first to last he could not have done more.
The Rites After Death, the Mausoleum and the Temple
When Zhao Gou died his testamentary edict ordered that the rites of burial be kept simple and the people not troubled. The offices concerned submitted the posthumous name Shouming Zhongxing Quangong Zhide Shensheng Wenwu Zhaoren Xianxiao Emperor, with the temple name Gaozong, and he was buried at the Yongsi Mausoleum at Kuaiji, not far from Huizong's Yongyou Mausoleum, and the system of the six mausoleums of the Southern Song was thereby established. His tablet was placed in the ancestral temple and the sacrifices of joint offering were performed at the proper times, the emperors from Xiaozong onward making offerings in season, so that although the court held only a corner of the realm the order of the ancestral temple was never confused. Historians have compared Zhao Gou's work of restoration with that of Shao Kang of Xia, King Xuan of Zhou, Guangwu of Han and Emperor Yuan of Jin, and those who speak of the founding of the Southern Song must begin with Gaozong; such has been the judgement of later ages, and though praise and blame have differed, the succession of the dynasty was in fact settled by his hand.
Relations Between Song and Jin After the Peace
Once the peace was settled the two states sent envoys each year to congratulate one another on the New Year and on birthdays, the Southern Song acknowledging vassalage to the Jin and paying annual tribute, while the line of the Huai River and Dasanguan became the boundary between north and south. Zhao Gou gave careful attention to the forms of intercourse between the two states, and the reception of envoys, the size of gifts and the pomp of ceremony all had their regulations, his aim being to end war and give the people rest. After the twenty-fifth year of Shaoxing the Jin repeatedly gave notice of rebuilding Bianjing and building a river fleet, and though Zhao Gou lay awake at midnight he never once lightly began hostilities in his lifetime.