All this was dramatically changed by the
rebellion in 1102 of the king of the Jurchen people, inhabiting what is now the
northern part of northeast China, against the Liao. In 1115 the Jurchen king proclaimed himself the first emperor of the Jin (Gold) dynasty.
Jin power
expanded rapidly in the face of the weakening Liao. ... In a planned
joint campaign in 1122, the Song armies were not able to advance
against the weakened Liao even enough to retake the Liao southern
capital, and they had to stand idly by while the Jin took it. The Jin
refused to honor fully the territorial division agreed on in 1120,
since the Song had contributed so little to the defeat of Liao. The Jin
went on to finish off the remnants of Liao, picked a quarrel with the
Song, and in 1125 mounted a great two-pronged attack on the north China
plain. [Emperor] Huizong abdicated in a vain attempt at appeasement.
The capital fell at the end of 1126; in 1127 the Jin armies withdrew to
their home bases, taking with them the abdicated Huizong and his
successor. (MOF, 168-170)
When
the Jin took the Song capital in 1126 and withdrew to the north with
two hostage emperors, the best prospect for maintaining a Song
succession and rallying loyal forces seemed to be Prince Kang, who was inexperienced,
inclined to make peace, only twenty years old, and trapped behind enemy
lines. Yue Fei was among those who met the prince and tried to organize
forces to defend him. In 1127 the prince managed to withdraw to the
southeast, where he was proclaimed emperor; he is usually referred to
by the posthumous title Gaozong.
Eventually he established his capital at Hangzhou, the lovely city that
owed so much to Su Dongpo’s periods of enlightened and energetic
administration; it remained the Southern Song capital until the Mongol
conquest of the 1270s and became one of the greatest cities of the
world of that time. (MOF, 171-172)
Yue Fei was born in 1103 to a family that apparently
was literate but farmed the land and had only the most modest heritage
of official rank. ... [He] is said to have been an excellent and diligent student, sometimes reading and writing all night. ... But he also was
very much interested in military pursuits. ... It was as if this obscure
young provincial already was casting himself as the realizer of all the
Song moralists’ exhortations to selfless
public service and at the same time as the reintegrator of the civil
and military virtues, of wen and wu, that had drifted so far apart in the eleventh century. (MOF, 171)
Yue
Fei was just
the kind of northern military man on whom Gaozong’s court was so
uneasily dependent. In one incident, Yue rode straight into a bandit
camp, made a rousing speech condemning the Jin as rebels and recruited
the whole bandit force into his army. Soon he was dismissed from
Gaozong’s entourage after impetuously urging an immediate counterattack
on the Jin. After the Jin withdrawal he returned to the area of
Kaifeng,
the Northern Song capital, and remained with the forces trying to hold
it. But these forces often fought with each other and were so
independent that there was little to distinguish them from the
“bandits” they fought. Then in 1129 Yue’s warrior band was among those
that fell back to try to hold the line at the Yangzi as the Jin advanced. The Jin got a beachhead on the south
bank, and the Song forces started to disintegrate. But Yue, dripping
with blood from the battle, rallied his troops with a fiery speech
reminding them of their obligation to repay with loyalty the dynasty’s
benevolence to them, of their chance to gain undying fame if they stood
fast, and of his own orders to behead anyone who fled. He was able to
stabilize the situation around Jiankang (modern Nanjing). Recommended
by the senior commander Zhang Jun, he began to receive modest honors
and promotions from Gaozong. Although he was ready to participate in
the pacification of the south and to give advice on how to do it, he
made it clear that as soon as possible he wanted the Song forces to go
on the offensive against the Jin and the Chinese puppet regimes it had
set up in the north. (MOF, 172-173)
Loyal Soldier or Potential Threat?
With [his victories against the Dongting Lake rebels] late in
1135 Yue’s power and prestige reached new heights. He received new
honors and titles and was granted wide powers to make official
appointments in the area under his control. ... Circumstances looked
reasonably favorable for Yue to accomplish something in his great cause
and for the Song to regain its mountains and rivers. ... but then he
made what may have been a crucial mistake. Gaozong’s older brother, who
had been briefly enthroned in 1126 and then taken away by the Jin,
still was alive in captivity, and if the Jin decided to set him up as a
puppet, he might provide a dangerous alternative focus of power. ...
Yue brought [up the question of naming an heir] in audience with
Gaozong. He emerged ashen-faced, evidently realizing that he had gone
too far. Gaozong professed to admire Yue’s frankness, but it seems that
from this time on he was wary of any measure that would give still more
power to this impetuous soldier who did not know his place. (MOF, 175-176)
Why did Gaozong change his attitude towards Yue Fei after this event?
What potential threats could Yue have posed to the regime?
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Qin Gui & the Advocates of Peace
Until about 1137 Gaozong and his court at least had to appear
to heed this advice [to send troops north to attack the Jin], since they needed the aid of Yue and other
northern generals. Advocates of peace with the Jin were not denied
office, but their views [were] not acted on. One of the most
conspicuous of them was one Qin Gui,
who had been taken away to the north with the captive emperors but at
the end of 1130 had found his way south, probably with Jin connivance,
and immediately had been given high office. (MOF, 173)
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[T]he Jin were finding it hard to keep control of the
north
China plain. They faced guerrilla resistance in several areas. The
puppet regime that ruled Henan (the area around the old Northern Song
capital, on the Yellow River) was barely holding on. In 1137 the Jin
abolished it and made serious overtures to
Gaozong’s court for peace negotiations. ... Control of Henan would be
handed back
to the Song. The coffins of Huizong and a dowager empress who had died in
captivity would be returned for proper mourning and burial. But the conditions
would be humiliating: the Song would have to acknowledge the ceremonial
superiority of the Jin and send substantial gifts of silk and silver every
year. Gaozong insisted that he was ready to bear these humiliations for filial
piety’s sake, that is, so that the imperial coffins could be brought back. And
of course peace would lessen his dependence on the generals. A humiliating
peace, in which the Southern Song emperors were not even called emperors and
their regime was simply called Jiangnan, south of the river, not Song, was
concluded early in 1139. (MOF, 176-177)
What were the advantages of suing for peace?
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Yue Fei’s Last Chance
But then circumstances gave him a last amazing chance for success. In 1140 the Jin broke the new treaty and invaded Song
territory along several fronts, avoiding the sector where Yue’s army was
stationed. ... Gaozong and his ministers, among whom Qin Gui now was the most influential, were wary of the consequences of advances in the north but approved Yue’s plans for a campaign. With Yue and his son personally leading cavalry charges, the Jin
forces were defeated in battle after battle and the Song occupied several of
the great cities of Henan, approaching [the] old capital of Kaifeng. ...
But if
Yue’s forces advanced … they would be in a dangerously exposed position, where a
defeat might open the way for the Jin to advance again and threaten the Yangzi
valley. A victory might leave Gaozong’s court at the mercy of this impetuous
general with his alarming views on the question of imperial succession [or, as noted on p. 166 of A Brief History of China, a “rapprochment with the north might lead to the return of the hostage emperors and the end of his own hold on power”]. Yue was
ordered to withdraw from his conquests on the north China plain. He said, “My ten years
of effort are destroyed in a single day! It is not that I have not been able to
fulfill my responsibilities, but that the powerful official Qin Gui truly has
deceived His Majesty!” But he was a loyal minister, and he did withdraw. (MOF,
177-178)
| This weakness of culturally approved
forms of military success certainly was a major source of the nonmobilizing
character of the Chinese state. (MOF, 180) |
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The Denouement
Qin was determined to get rid of Yue; some
writers assert that the Jin were demanding his execution. After much
investigation an officer was found who claimed that the best of Yue’s
generals had been plotting to use Yue’s armies to force his release
from the capital. It was easy enough to claim that Yue had been in on
the plot and to imprison him. But Yue admitted to nothing. When first
questioned, he tore off his shirt to reveal the four characters on his
back. The judicial authorities would not convict him. According to one
story, Qin’s wife said to him, “Well, old man, are you so weak-willed
after all? It’s easy to catch a tiger, but hard to get rid of him!” Qin
finally sent orders to the prison officials, and just before Chinese
New Year Yue was murdered in prison, either by poison or by strangling.
His son was executed, the family’s property was confiscated, and many
records of his career were destroyed.
In 1141, Qin Gui also managed to secure a
peace treaty with the Jin, ceding more territory and promising
ceremonial subordination and larger annual presents. ... Beginning in
1161, after a new Jin invasion, Yue’s honors were [posthumously]
restored and there were new plans and abortive efforts to reconquer the
north. Legends of Yue’s heroism continued to grow. In some places,
especially near Hangzhou, temples were erected to his memory.
Outside these temples were statues of a
kneeling Qin Gui; those who came to pay their respects to Yue were
expected to spit on Qin as they passed. For some Yue became a warrior
spirit who could be worshipped or summoned in trance, although far less
widely venerated than Guan Yu. (MOF, 178-179)
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The Consequences of Losing the North
An enormous number of people fled to the south … in the early
twelfth century. Hundreds of thousands of people, including twenty thousand
high officials, tens of thousands of their office staff, and over four hundred
thousand military and their families moved to the new capital of Hangzhou and its
surrounding towns. ... Even as the total population of China — in both the north and the
south — remained around one hundred million, the number of men studying for the
exams grew dramatically. In some
districts after 1200 as many as three hundred men competed for one slot — a far
higher ratio than had existed earlier. Scholars agree that the increased
interest in the examinations must have raised the literacy rate, with some
estimating that one in ten men, but many fewer women, could read.
Although
more men were taking the examinations, more were also exercising the shadow
privilege, with the result that the number of positions going to those who had
passed the open examinations declined throughout the dynasty. In 1046, 57
percent of the new officials had passed the regular, nonpreferential exams; in
1213 only 27 percent did so, with the bulk of the remaining positions going to
those who had used the shadow privilege. (OE, 257-270)
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The Gentry Class
The Emphasis on Local Society
In the years before the fall of the north, powerful
bureaucratic families had assumed that their sons would pursue careers in
officialdom. But the factional infighting between the classicists and the
historicists forced them to rethink their strategies. When the classicists
banned all the sons of leading historicist families from taking the
examinations, they cut off what had been a certain career course — preparation
for the examinations, sitting for the exams, and taking office. The powerful
historicist families had to devise career paths outside the bureaucracy, and
when the tables were turned and the historicists banned the sons of the
classicists from taking the exams, they too had to shift gears.
These once
prominent families turned away from government service. Instead they lived on
their estates and devoted themselves to local society. They donated money to
religious institutions, to Buddhist or Daoist monasteries, and to popular temples.
They sought to help their communities and incidentally to enhance their local reputations
by building bridges and roads, distributing grain during famine, and making
loans to the needy. They also organized the all-important local militia, which
tried to keep order. (OE, 268-269) |
 The Confucian Revival
The years following the fall of the north saw a change in the
type of person worshiped in [Confucian shrines to worthy men]. The famous
men who had held positions in the central government were joined by less famous
men who had even occasionally been rejected by the state. These were intensely
learned men, but men whose contemporaries misunderstood them. One such figure,
Gao Deng, had joined the thousands of students who urged the emperor to declare
war on the Jurchens who had just taken the north. A meeting with the prime
minister who made peace with the Jurchens led to Gao’s first demotion; his
second demotion came after he wrote an examination question critical of that
minister. He never served again in the government. Zhu Xi (1130-1200) one of
the leading Confucian thinkers of his generation, wrote a text commemorating
Gao’s virtues, and he said: “The whole day long, like a torrent, he spoke of
nothing but being a filial son and loyal minister and of sacrificing one’s life
in favor of righteousness. Those who heard him were in awe; their souls were
moved and their spirits lifted.” Gao was able to live a life of virtue and
learning, both Confucian values, because he had not served the corrupt
government that had failed to win back the north. (OE, 267-268)
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 Starting in
1181, Zhu Xi (1130-1200) taught at the White Deer Academy, where he stressed that the goal
of education was moral self-cultivation, not the pursuit of civil service
examination degrees. The students studied the Confucian classics, especially The Analects, Mencius, and two chapters taken from the Book of Rites [collectively known as the Four Books].
At the time, these texts were already circulating among Buddhist monks
interested in learning more about Confucian teachings, but Zhu Xi
taught that they offered the best models for those wanting to
understand the Way of the ancient sages. Zhu stressed “apprehending the
principle in things” (sometimes translated as “the investigation of
things”), the cornerstone of his Neo-Confucian teachings. If someone
very carefully examined the world around him and the teachings
contained in the classics, he could perceive the pattern, or principle,
underlying all human affairs.
Zhu Xi and
his followers also encouraged members of the community to help one another
without causing the government to intervene, although their plans enjoyed
little success. They founded community granaries, which, unlike Wang Anshi’s
ever-level granaries, were to be run privately by local people, not government
officials. Like Wang Anshi’s Green Sprouts reforms, the private granaries also lost money, and all were defunct by 1308.
The significance of the private academies and community granaries
was that they expressed the growing suspicion of government
institutions among
those who advocated the Confucian revival. Shut out of the examination
system,
these men chose to dedicate themselves to a new ideal. They wanted to
attain
sagehood, not by government service but by devotion to the community.
From the very beginning, Confucius and his followers had been torn
about whether to join government as ministers, and most had not. The
students of Zhu Xi and the other Confucian revivalists looked to
Confucius himself as a model. They claimed to have a direct line of
transmission of the Way from him, and they thought they could best pass
on his teachings outside of the government. (OE, 271-2) |
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