It is said that "Song Qinzong was the scapegoat of his father (Song Huizong) and a shadow figure of his father." I disagree. Although Song Huizong was not a famous monarch, he was by no means a mediocre king. Although Song Huizong was corrupt in the late Song Dynasty,

It was powerful, and the failure of launching the war against Liao prematurely exposed the tail of the Northern Song Dynasty's foreign power. However, Song Huizong has not yet lost the authority to refresh the political situation. After all, his 25 years of political experience cannot be replaced by others. For example, he dismissed Cai Jing from the prime minister many times.

This is the best proof. The biggest mistake he made in his life was to listen to the advice of Li Gang, Wu Min and others and give up the throne to his son. In the hope that the Jin soldiers could retreat, this actually opened a huge political crisis.

It's a joke. You bet your power and throne on the fate of the country. It's a pity that you lost the bet. The Jin soldiers want to invade you, and they will retreat because your emperor abdicates. This is a sign of political imprudence. This is actually also extremely irresponsible.

Because the person who replaced him on the throne of emperor was his eldest son, Zhao Huan, who had no ability and political courage to govern the country. You can think about it, a prince who has been trembling for a long time and worried that his position will be taken away cannot have the courage to do so.

Talented and ambitious. (I also have another article "On Princes in Chinese History" that you can refer to). Let's see if a monarch is indecisive, surrounded by a group of villains (Geng Nanzhong, Li Bangyan, etc.) or incompetent.

People (Wu Min, etc.), how could this country sit for so long? Sure enough, after Zhao Huan secured the throne, he put aside the most important border defense matters and pointed the finger at his father. Isolating his father.

In fact, Huizong was opposed to the cession of the three counties, and he was quite dissatisfied with the imperial court for not pursuing the Jin soldiers when they retreated (detailed records are found in the Compilation of the Northern League of the Three Dynasties). Later, seeing that the imperial court was in danger, he took the initiative to ask Qinzong of the Song Dynasty to go to Luoyang to recruit troops in person.

He was also rejected by his son. It should be seen that although Song Huizong lived a life of debauchery and immorality, his political wisdom and experience were still richer than that of his son. However, he had no choice but to lose power and could no longer make a difference. Even his actions were strictly monitored, making it difficult to

He had freedom, but ended up with the tragic ending of dying in a foreign land. In fact, I think it was not that Song Qinzong became the scapegoat for his father, Song Huizong, but that Song Qinzong dragged his father to death.

Here, let me say one more thing. Li Gang was a loyal minister, but his personal ability was limited. He was directly promoted from a Taichangqing to the position of power. His ability and knowledge were indeed average. Persuading Song Huizong to abdicate was really a bad move in an attempt to exchange for peace.

.This is a real way of thinking among literati, and it is also very naive. Rather than letting Song Qinzong ascend the throne, it would be better for Song Huizong to be in power. We cannot deduce that Song Huizong is also very fond of the Jin Kingdom just because Song Huizong fled Tokyo after abdicating the throne.

Weak. Also, Li Gang's move to welcome Song Huizong back to Tokyo was also a bad move, which directly led to the entire Song Dynasty royal family gathering in Tokyo, which directly led to the royal family being wiped out in one fell swoop. As long as Song Huizong does not return to Tokyo, many of his sons will not go back, including him.

Zhao Hao, the third son of Song Dynasty. Even if Song Qinzong was captured, whoever would be better than Zhao Gou would be the emperor. Just imagine, how could a person who had been a hostage not have a huge fear of Jin Bing, how could he rely on him to regain the old country?

Rivers and mountains.

More than 3,000 remaining members of the royal family, including Emperor Huizong, Empress Zheng, King Yun, princesses, concubines, consorts, and captains, carried beddings and inspected Fan Qiong's house on the four walls of Kaifeng Prefecture Xu Bingzhe and Tokyo City.

Under escort, they left the city through Nanxun Gate. Xu Bingzhe and Fan Qiong, who worked extremely hard to help the Jin army, ordered all royal members to be tied together with their sleeves in groups of two or three in order to prevent members of the royal family from escaping.

And they urged him to proceed with great ferocity. As soon as Huizong and Qinzong entered the Jin camp, they were stripped of their dragon robes.

The list is:

the supreme emperor

The Supreme Queen

King Yun, Princess Zhu and their third son Liu Zongji

King Su, Princess Ren and their second son Er Zongji

King Jing, Princess Tian and Er Zongji

King Ji, Princess Cao

Princess Xing of Kang Dynasty

King Qi, Princess Cao

King Shen, Princess Yan

King Xu, Princess Wang

King Yi, King He, King Xin

Prince of Ankang, Prince of Jian'an

Duke Jia, Duke Ying, Duke Chang, Duke Wen, Duke Yi, Duke Xiang, Duke Han

Roufu Diji, Jiade Diji, Ande Diji, Chongde Diji, Maode Diji, Chengde Diji, Shunde Diji, Xiande Diji

The concubines include:

Concubine Wang, Concubine Qiao, Concubine Wei Xian, Wang Wanrong

Yan Wanrong, Ren Wanrong, Wang Jieyu, Xiao Wang Jieyu

Cui Meiren

Seven unmarried imperial concubines:

Huafu, Huifu, Lingfu, Chunfu, Ningfu, Yongfu, Roufu

Five young princes:

The King of Yan, the King of Yue, the King of Wu, the King of Heyi County, and the King of Yongning County.

Then, a large number of royal women were sent to the golden camp one after another:

There were eighty-three concubines, twenty-four princesses, and twenty-two emperors, each of whom received a guaranteed gold of one thousand gold coins. The emperor's concubine doubled the gold, for a total of one hundred and thirty-four thousand gold coins.

There are ninety-eight concubines, twenty-eight royal concubines, fifty-two concubines, seventy-eight concubines, and one hundred and ninety-five close concubines. Each person has five hundred gold ingots and twenty gold.

Twenty-five thousand five hundred tablets.

There are one thousand, two hundred and forty-one clan girls, two hundred gold ingots for each person, and two hundred and forty-eight thousand, two hundred gold ingots.

There were 479 palace maids, 604 court ladies, and 2,091 clan wives. They were granted 500 silver coins and received 1,587,000 silver coins.

There are 2,007 clan wives and 1,314 singing girls. Each person is allowed 200 ingots of silver and gets 664,200 ingots of silver.

There are three thousand three hundred and nineteen noble relatives, officials and civilian women, each of whom is allowed one hundred silver coins, and gets three hundred and thirty-one thousand nine hundred silver coins.

As a result, there were more than 11,000 women from the Song Dynasty who were sent to the Jin camp, which amounted to more than 600,000 taels of gold and more than 2.58 million taels of silver. However, even if the Song Dynasty had paid to Jin

According to the agreement, the Song Dynasty still owed more than 340,000 taels of gold and more than 870,000 taels of silver.

After these women were sent to the Jin camp, Han Libu also issued an order specifically for the women of the Song royal family. He asked the doctors in the Jin army and the captive Song people to examine all the young royal women. Any pregnant women

, they all used medicine to abort their babies. As a result, many concubines who were already pregnant with dragons and royal family members were forced to give birth.

Due to the cold weather and hunger, a large number of detainees died in the Jin camp. Many royal concubines, emperor concubines, princess concubines, clan concubines, clan wives, and a large number of wives and daughters of ministers were taken into the Jin camp one after another.

A large number of people were insulted by the generals and soldiers of the Jin army. The first person to be insulted was Cai Jing's daughter-in-law Maode Diji. On the night she was sent to the Jin camp, she was drunk by Han Li without wine and forcibly raped. Later, Xing, the wife of King Lian Kang,

Concubine Zhu, the wife of King Yun, and some imperial concubines were also raped. Many martyrs did not want to lose their integrity and committed suicide. For a time, the entire Jinying became a den of obscenity. On February 20, Princess Xin, because she did not want to

Humiliated, he resolutely committed suicide in Qingcheng Village. On February 24, the 17-year-old Yifu Emperor Ji died of illness. On February 25, the 16-year-old Renfu Emperor Ji died in Liujia Temple.

On February 28, the 16-year-old Emperor Xianfu died in Liujia Temple. These emperors were all daughters of Huizong and sisters of Qinzong.

The descendants of Emperor Taizong of the Song Dynasty were almost wiped out by the Jin people. In the end, the only royal family that "slipped through the net" were Emperor Gaozong and Emperor Zhezong's queen [Empress Dowager Meng].

Later, in the Southern Song Dynasty, after Emperor Gaozong abdicated, the throne was passed to this branch of the descendants of Emperor Taizu.

On the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty

New Linghu Chong

Zigong, a student of Confucius, once asked his teacher: "What is the most important condition to maintain a country?" Confucius said: "Sufficient food, sufficient soldiers, and the trust of the people." Zigong asked again: "Suppose there are restrictions due to some reasons

"If you have to do one less thing among the three, which one should go first?" Confucius said: "Go to the army." Zigong asked again: In case of this situation, the country is very poor and distressed, and the military funds

If it cannot be maintained after being withdrawn, which one should be eliminated first in terms of sufficient food and trust. Confucius said categorically: "If you eliminate food, there will be death since ancient times, and the people will not be established without faith."

The tragedy of an emperor, the tragedy of a dynasty

[North] Song Qinzong Zhao Heng [1100-1161 AD] was the eldest son of Song Huizong Zhao Ji. He was established as the crown prince at the age of fifteen. In 1125, Huizong abdicated and Zhao Heng succeeded to the throne. After Qinzong succeeded to the throne, Cai Jing was demoted and executed.

Tong Guan and others appointed Li Gang, Zhong Shidao and others as prime ministers. But in the end it was difficult to reverse the situation that had been decadent for many years. As a result, his father, son, wife, daughter, princes and concubines were all captured by the Jin soldiers, and he also died of illness in a foreign country.

When he was the prince, Qinzong had no interest in sensuality. As soon as he came to power, he corrected politics, purified the court, punished evil and evil, and appointed talents. When the crisis was extremely critical, he personally went into battle and shared the joys and sorrows with the soldiers.

Clothing and food [The Jin people’s Nianhan army came to the city. It was raining and snowing all day. The emperor put on his armor and climbed up the city wall. He distributed the food for the emperor to the soldiers and ate the food of the soldiers instead. Everyone was moved.

They were so excited that they cried bitterly. The Jin people came to attack Tongjin Gate. Hundreds of soldiers were hung from the city wall with ropes to resist them, and burned five enemy gun mounts and two goose carts. - Source "History of the Song Dynasty"].

It can be said that he did all the wisest actions a monarch could do in the feudal era. In the end, he was unable to save the fate of the Northern Song Dynasty, which resulted in both father and son falling into the hands of his enemies, and the country becoming desolate. This cannot be said to be a failure.

A tragedy.

The Song Dynasty was the era when China's feudal society reached its climax. All social systems, ideas and culture, etc., tended to mature in the Song Dynasty and formed a relatively complete system. However, it is a pity that compared with the Han and Tang dynasties before the Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty was very important in culture.

Although we can be proud of our achievements in institutions and other aspects, we can't help but feel ashamed and short of breath in terms of territory. The Song people have never completed their territorial territory. From the beginning of the founding of the country, the Song people have had no shortage of border troubles. It is true that during the Han and Tang Dynasties

It is inevitable that there will be border conflicts, but they are often the result of the Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty.

But the people of the Song Dynasty were not so proud. They were often in a coma, unable to withstand foreign invasions. They fought wars with Liao, Xixia, Jin, Mongolia, etc., sued for peace, and signed humiliating alliances under the city. In the end, they

On the road to national subjugation.

So what exactly led to the failure of the Song people in their foreign exchanges and struggles? On the surface, it was because the Song Dynasty was learning from the lessons of the vassal system in the late Tang Dynasty, which resulted in the warlords' separatist situation. It abolished the standing army and the professional army,

The result of replacing the Baojia system with a militia nature. But the fundamental reason lies in the entire national system, cultural and ideological structure of the Northern Song Dynasty.

In terms of the size of the country at that time, regardless of its vast territory, large population, material wealth, and economic development, the Northern Song Dynasty was much stronger than other countries, whether Liao, Xixia or Jin. However, the Song Dynasty was in the war between these countries.

Defeat after defeat must make us think deeply about the many reasons that determine the outcome of wars, especially wars between countries, as well as the complex combination of these reasons and the energy generated by this combination.

was both a tragedy for an emperor and a tragedy for a dynasty. As for the reasons for the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty, various schools [historians, politicians, philosophers] have said many things [I will not describe them one by one here].

There is a certain truth. But I personally believe that the fatal reason for the demise of the Song Dynasty was the dishonesty of the Northern Song Dynasty, both externally and internally. That is to say, it broke trust with the people internally [most importantly, it broke trust with the people], and it broke trust with its allies externally.

Once he has broken his trust in the world [lost the most basic and important aspect of establishing a country], then any other efforts are obviously in vain.

There is currently very little relevant historical information about the lack of integrity in the Northern Song Dynasty. Perhaps history has ignored this [this is a very important point], but we can still understand some of the circumstances of the matter through some relevant information. The following are some

The data comes from "History of the Jin Dynasty. Biography of Zong Han".

Zong Han's real name was Zhan Meihe, but he was mistakenly called Nianhan in Chinese. He was the eldest son of Prime Minister Sa Gai. When he was seventeen, everyone in the army already admired his bravery. When it came time to discuss the crusade against Liao, Zong Han's opinion was correct.
To be continued...