The Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty

The Song dynasty lasted over 300 years, from 960 to 1279. Their history is divided into two periods of Northern and Southern Song. The Song period was one of China's most peaceful and prosperous era. However the Song government was corrupt and weak.

The Song Dynasty, or Sung Dynasty was a period in which the Chinese government was very weak. In the beginning General Chao K'uang-yin, also known as Sung T'ai Tsu, was forced to become emperor in order to unify China. Sung

T'ai Tsu created a national army under his direct control. He, and only he had control of the military. Once he had passed away his less competent successors were unable to keep the military under control, the military increasingly lost prestige. The weakening of China's military, coincided with the rise of strong nomadic nations on the boarders.

During the same time of the military's loss of prestige, the civil service rose in dignity. This was an examination system that had been restored in Sui and T'ang and was further elaborated and regularized. Selection examinations were help every three years at the district, provincial, and metropolitan levels.

Only 200 out of thousands of applicants were granted the jinshi degree.

This was the highest degree and appointed on government posts. From this time on, civil servants became China's most envied elite, replacing the hereditary nobles and landlords.

The Song dynasty only extended over to the parts of earlier Chinese empires. The Khitans controlled the northeastern territories and the His Hsia controlled the northwestern territories. The Song emperors were unable to recover these lands so they were forced to make peace with the Khitans and the

Hsi Hsia. They gave massive amounts of payments to the barbarians, under these peace terms, it depleted the state treasury and cause heavy payments on taxpaying peasants.

About 100 years after the Songs first started ruling over China, their government started to go through a major decline. Officials that held important government positions were corrupt. Wealthy merchants that became rich from foreign trade found ways to avoid paying taxes. The peasants began to rebel when the heavy taxes were placed on them.

The Song Dynasty had a lot of problems, in 1069 Emperor Shen Tsung appointed Wang An-shi as chief minister. Wang was a scholar who studied earlier

Chinese governments. Wang noticed the corrupt government and made huge reform in the government. His reforms were based on the text of 'Rites of Chou'. Wang tried to get honest, intelligent officials by improving the university system.

He made civil examinations more practical and reformed the merit system to reduce corruption among government officials.