Society of the Song dynasty

The Sakyamuni Buddha, by Song painter Zhang Shengwen, c. 1173–1176 AD. Although Buddhism was in decline and under attack by Neo-Confucian critics in the Song era, it nonetheless remained one of the major religious ideologies in China.

The Song Dynasty (960–1279) was an era of Chinese history during which Chinese society was transformed by political and legal reforms, economic growth, and a philosophical revival of Confucianism. Song China is notable for the development of cities not only for administrative purposes but as centers of trade, industry and maritime commerce. The educated scholars and scholar-officials, sometimes collectively referred to as the gentry, lived in the county and provincial centers among shopkeepers, artisans, and wealthy merchants. Gentry living in small communities were the local elite of their areas; gaining their cooperation and employment was essential for the county or provincial official who was overburdened with official duties. As land holders and drafted government officials, the gentry considered themselves the leading members of society. Scholar-officials of the Song period departed in many ways from the more aristocratic scholar-officials of the Tang Dynasty (618–907), and were more numerous. The ministers of state often disagreed on which policies were most beneficial to the economy, the people, and their own careers. These disagreements often led to political strife within the central court, and the rise of political factions. The quarrels of these factions hindered the central government's ability to administer the empire and uphold political stability.

Although the mercantile class had long existed in China, the merchants of the Song period often rivaled officials and aristocratic land holders in wealth and power in the community, as land holding and government employment were no longer the only means of gaining wealth and prestige. However, landholding and official posts provided more access to wealth, hence a greater ability to educate sons to become candidates for the civil service examinations. Scholar-officials also looked down on mercantile vocations as lowly pursuits that should not be held in higher esteem than production jobs such as farming and craftsmanship. Yet this was contradicted merchants' frequent collusion with officials, and the partakiung by officials themselves in anonymous commercial affairs. The military provided a means for advancement in Song society for those who rose to the level of officer class, yet soldiers were not viewed as highly respected members of society. Although certain domestic and familial duties were expected of women in Song society, they nonetheless enjoyed a wide range of social and legal rights that benefited them in an otherwise patriarchal society.

Daoism and Buddhism were the dominant religions of China in the Song era, although Buddhism came under heavy criticism by staunch Confucian advocates and philosophers. Ironically, the tenets of Buddhism had a deep impact on many of the beliefs and principles of Neo-Confucianism during the Song period. Older beliefs in ancient Chinese mythology, folk religion, and ancestor worship also played a large part in people's daily lives, as they believed that deities and ghosts of the spirit realm frequently interacted with the living realm.

The Song justice system was maintained by policing sheriffs, investigators, official coroners, and exam-drafted officials who acted as magistrates. Song judges were encouraged to make decisions that would promote morality in society based on their practical knowledge as well as the written law. Advancements in early forensic science, a greater emphasis on gathering credible evidence, and careful recording by clerks of autopsy reports and witness testimonies aided authorities in convicting criminals. The Song military reached the size of a million soldiers. However, various corruptions of state and military apparatuses often left Song territory vulnerable to attack by neighboring states to the north. The military was organized into infantry, cavalry, crossbowmen, and naval marines, while the navy and even cavalry adapted to new methods of gunpowder warfare. Although China had a long naval history, the first permanent standing navy of China was established by the Song state in 1132.

Urban life

Urban growth and management

A small section of the Along the River During Qingming Festival, a depiction of Kaifeng City in the 11th or early 12th century, by Zhang Zeduan.

During the Song period, after technological advances and an agricultural revolution, China developed some of the largest cities in the world. The capital city of Kaifeng was the seat of the central government during the Northern Song (960–1127) while the city of Hangzhou was the capital during the Southern Song (1127–1279). Kaifeng had some 500,000 residents in 1021; including those in the nine designated suburbs the population was over a million people. By 1100, the number of registered people within the walls was 1,050,000; the army stationed there boosted the overall populace to some 1.4 million people. Hangzhou had more than 400,000 inhabitants during the late 12th century, primarily due to its trading position at the southern end of the Grand Canal, known as the lower Yangzi's "grain basket." During the 13th century, the city's population soared to approximately 1,000,000 people, while the 1270 census counted 186,330 registered families living in the city. Although not as agriculturally rich as areas like western Sichuan, the region of Fujian also underwent a massive population growth; government records indicate a 1500% increase in the number of registered households from the years 742 to 1208. With a thriving shipbuilding industry and new mining facilities, Fujian became the economic powerhouse of China during the Song period. The great seaport of China, Quanzhou, was located in Fujian, and by 1120 its governor claimed that the city's population had reached some 500,000. The inland Fujianese city of Jiankang was also very large at this time, with a population of about 200,000.

A Northern Song era porcelain bottle.

China's newly commercialized society was evident in the differences between its northern capital and the earlier Tang capital at Chang'an. A center of great wealth, Chang'an's importance as the political center eclipsed its importance as a commercial entrepôt; Yangzhou was the economic hub of China during the Tang period. On the other hand, Kaifeng's role as a commercial center in China was as important as its political role. The Song era marketplaces in Kaifeng were open every hour of the day, whereas a strict curfew was imposed upon the two official marketplaces of Chang'an starting at dusk; this curfew limited its commercial potential. People in the Song era were also more eager to purchase houses located near bustling markets than in earlier periods. Kaifeng's wealthy, multi-story houses and common urban dwellings were situated along the streets of the city, rather than hidden inside walled compounds and gated wards as they had been in the earlier Tang capital.

The municipal government of Hangzhou enacted policies and programs that aided in the maintenance of the city and ensured the well-being of its inhabitants. In order to maintain order in such a large city, four or five guards were quartered in the city at intervals of about 300 yards. Their main duties were to prevent brawls and thievery, patrol the streets at night, and quickly warn the public when fires broke out. The government assigned two thousand soldiers to fourteen fire stations built to combat the spread of fire within the city, and stationed twelve hundred soldiers in fire stations outside the city's ramparts. These stations were placed 500 yards apart, with watchtowers that were permanently manned by one hundred men each. Like earlier cities, the Song capitals featured wide, open avenues to create fire breaks. Yet widespread fires remained a constant threat. When a fire broke out in the year 1137, the government suspended the requirement of rent payments, alms of 108,840 kg (120 tons) of rice were distributed to the poor, and items such as bamboo, planks, and rush-matting were exempt from government taxation. Fires were not the only problem facing the residents of Hangzhou and other crowded cities, though. Far more than in the rural countryside, poverty was widespread and became a major topic of debate at the central court and in local governments. To mitigate its effects, the Song government enacted many initiatives, including the distribution of alms to the poor; the establishment of public clinics, pharmacies, and retirement homes; and the creation of paupers' graveyards.

Jade-dragon belt clasp, Song Dynasty, Shanghai Museum.

In order to ensure an orderly urban life and a properly-functioning empire, the Song court made certain that the countryside was run efficiently. The provinces of the empire were divided into counties known as xian, with about 1,230 of these during the Song period. In order to maintain swift communication from one town or city to another, the Song laid out many miles of roadways and hundreds of bridges throughout rural China. They also maintained an efficient postal service nicknamed the hot-foot relay, which featured thousands of postal officers managed by the central government. Postal clerks kept records of dispatches, and postal stations maintained a staff of cantonal officers who guarded mail delivery routes. After the Song period, the Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368) transformed the postal system into a more militarized organization, with couriers managed under controllers. This system persisted from the 14th century until the 19th century, when the telegraph and modern road-building were introduced to China from the West.

Amusements

A Chinese painting of an outdoor banquet, a Song Dynasty painting and possible remake of a Tang Dynasty original.

A wide variety of social clubs for affluent Chinese became popular during this period. A text of 1235 mentions that in Hangzhou City alone there was the West Lake Poetry Club, the Buddhist Tea Society, the Physical Fitness Club, the Anglers' Club, the Occult Club, the Young Girls' Chorus, the Exotic Foods Club, the Plants and Fruits Club, the Antique Collectors' Club, the Horse-Lovers' Club, and the Refined Music Society. No formal event or festival was complete without banquets, which necessitated catering companies.

The entertainment quarters of Kaifeng, Hangzhou, and other cities featured amusements including snake charmers, sword swallowers, fortunetellers, acrobats, puppeteers, actors, storytellers, tea houses, restaurants, and brokers offering young women who could serve as hired maids, concubines, singing girls, or prostitutes. These entertainment quarters, covered bazaars known as pleasure grounds, were places where strict social morals and formalities could be largely ignored. The pleasure grounds were located within the city, outside the ramparts near the gates, and in the suburbs; each one was regulated by a state-appointed official. Dramatic performances, often accompanied by music, were popular in the markets. The actors were distinguished in rank by type and color of clothing, honing their acting skills at drama schools. Satirical sketches denouncing corrupt government officials were especially popular. Actors on stage always spoke their lines in Classical Chinese, whereas vernacular Chinese that imitated the common spoken language was not introduced into theatrical performances until the subsequent Yuan Dynasty.

There were also many vibrant public festivities held in cities and rural communities. Martial arts were a source of public entertainment; the Chinese held fighting matches on lei tai, a raised platform without rails. With the rise in popularity of distinctive urban and domestic activities during the Song Dynasty, there was a decline in traditional outdoor Chinese pastimes such as hunting, horseback riding, and polo. In terms of domestic leisure, the Chinese enjoyed a host of different activities, including board games such as xiangqi and go. There were lavish garden spaces designated for those wishing to stroll, and people often took their boats out on the lake to entertain guests.

Foreign minorities

Further information: Islam during the Song Dynasty

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Bird's eye view of the Jewish synagogue of Kaifeng, from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia.

Much like the multicultural and metropolitan atmosphere of the earlier Tang capital at Chang'an, the Song capitals at Kaifeng and Hangzhou were home to an array of traveling foreigners and ethnic minorities. There were several trade embassies from Egypt, Yemen, and India that came to Song China in order to bolster trade relations. During the 9th century, the Tang seaport at Guangzhou had a large Islamic population. During the Song Dynasty the importance of the latter seaport declined as the ports of Quanzhou and Fuzhou in Fujian province eclipsed it. This was followed by a decline of Middle Eastern sea merchants in China and an increasing amount of Chinese ship owners engaging in maritime trade. However, Middle Eastern merchants and other foreigners were not entirely absent, and some even gained administrative posts. For example, the Muslim Kuwabara served as the Commissioner of Merchant Shipping for Quanzhou between the years 1250 and 1275, where he wrote a monograph on the Chinese shipping industry and maritime economy. There was also the Arab astronomer Ma Yize (910–1005), who became the chief astronomer of the Song court under Taizu. Muslims represented the largest minority within Song China, although there were many others. There was a community of Kaifeng Jews, who followed the exodus of the Song court to Hangzhou once the Jurchens invaded the north in 1126. Manichaeism from Persia was introduced during the Tang Dynasty; during the Song Dynasty the Manichaean sects were most prominent in Fujian and Zhejiang. Nestorian Christianity in China had for the most part died out after the Tang Dynasty; however, it was revived during the Mongol invasions in the 13th century.

Rural life

Painting of a woman and children surrounding a peddler of goods in the countryside, by Li Song (c. 1190–1225), dated 1210 AD. The youngest of the children, seen pulling at one of the baskets of the peddler's wares, is still too young to be wearing trousers.

In many ways life for peasants in the countryside during the Song Dynasty was similar to those living in previous dynasties. The people spent their days ploughing and planting in the fields, tending to their families, selling crops and goods at local markets, visiting local temples, and arranging ceremonies such as marriages. Cases of banditry occurred constantly in the countryside, which local officials were forced to combat. There were varying types of land ownership and tenure depending on the topography and climate of one's locality. In hilly, peripheral areas far from trade routes, most peasant farmers owned and cultivated their own fields. In frontier regions such as Hunan and Sichuan, owners of wealthy estates gathered serfs to till their lands. The most advanced areas had few estates with serfs tilling the fields; these regions had long fostered wet-rice cultivation, which did not require centralized management of farming. Landlords set up fixed rents for tenant farmers in these regions, while independent small farming families also owned their own lots. The Song government provided tax incentives to farmers who tilled lands along the edges of lakes, marshes, seas, and terraced mountain slopes. Farming was made possible in these difficult terrains due to improvements in damming techniques and using chain pumps to elevate water to higher irrigation planes. Water buffalos were used as draft animals for ploughing and harrowing the fields, while properly aged and mixed compost and manure was constantly spread. The widespread cultivation of rice in China necessitated new trends of labor and agricultural techniques. An effective yield from rice paddies required careful transplanting of rows of rice seedlings, sufficient weeding, maintenance of water levels, and draining of fields for harvest. Planting and weeding often required a dirty day of work, since the farmers had to wade through the muddy water of the rice paddies on bare feet.

Social class

Listening to the Qin, by Huizong, 11th century; playing the musical instrument of the qin was one of the leisurely pursuits of the scholar-official.

One of the fundamental changes in Chinese society from the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty was the transformation of the scholarly elite, which included the scholar-officials and all those who held examination degrees or were candidates of the civil service examinations. The Song scholar-officials and examination candidates were better educated, less aristocratic in their habits, and more numerous than in the Tang period. Following the logic of the Confucian philosophical classics, Song scholar-officials viewed themselves as highly moralistic figures whose responsibility was to keep greedy merchants and power-hungry military men in their place. Even if a degree-holding scholar was never appointed to an official government post, he nonetheless felt himself responsible for upholding morality in society, and became an elite member of his community.

Arguably the most influential factor shaping this new class was the competitive nature of scholarly candidates entering civil service through the imperial examinations. Although not all scholar-officials came from the land-holding class, sons of prominent land-holders had better access to higher education, and thus greater ability to pass examinations for government service. Gaining a scholarly degree by passing prefectural, provincial, or palace exams in the Song period was the most important prerequisite in being considered for appointment, especially to higher posts; this was a departure from the Tang period, when the examination system was enacted on a much smaller scale. A higher degree attained through the three levels of examinations meant a greater chance of obtaining higher offices in government. Not only did this ensure a higher salary, but also greater social prestige, visibly distinguished by dress. This institutionalized distinction of scholar-officials by dress included the type and even color of traditional silken robes, hats, and girdles, demarcating that scholar-official's level of administrative authority. This rigid code of dress was especially enforced during the beginning of the dynasty, although the prestigious clothing color of purple slowly began to diffuse through the ranks of middle- and low-grade officials.

Scholar-officials also distinguished themselves through their intellectual pursuits. While some such as Shen Kuo (1031–1095) and Su Song (1020–1101) dabbled in every known field of science, study, and statecraft, Song elites were generally most interested in the leisurely pursuits of composing and reciting poetry, art collecting, and antiquarianism. Yet even this pursuit could turn into a scholarly one. It was the official, historian, poet, and essayist Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) who compiled an analytical catalogue of ancient rubbings on stone and bronze which pioneered ideas in early epigraphy and archeology. The ideal official and gentry scholars were also expected to employ these intellectual pursuits for the good of the community, such as writing local histories or gazeteers. In the case of Shen Kuo and Su Song, their pursuits in academic fields such as classifying pharmaceuticals and improving calendrical science through work in astronomy fit this ideal.

Apes and horses, a 10th century painting and copy of an 8th century original. Literati painters of the Song period and subsequent dynasties often remade scenes that were painted in earlier dynasties, while adding their own unique style and artistic expression.

The wealthy families living on the estates of these scholar-officials – as well as rich merchants, princes, and nobles – often maintained a massive entourage of employed servants, technical staffs, and personal favorites. They hired personal artisans such as jewellers, sculptors, and embroiderers, while servants cleaned house, shopped for goods, attended to kitchen duties, and prepared furnishings for banquets, weddings, and funerals. Rich families also hosted literary men such as secretaries, copyists, and hired tutors to educate their sons. They were also the patrons of musicians, painters, poets, chess players, and storytellers. This patronage of various courtiers by rich and noble families was in many ways similar to those described during the European Renaissance by Baldassare Castiglione (1478–1529) in his Book of the Courtier.

The historian Jacques Gernet stresses that these servants and favorites hosted by rich families represented the more fortunate members of the lower class. Other laborers and workers such as water-carriers, navvies, peddlers, physiognomists, and soothsayers "lived for the most part from hand to mouth." The entertainment business in the covered bazaars in the marketplace and at the entrances of bridges also provided a lowly means of occupation for storytellers, puppeteers, jugglers, acrobats, tightrope walkers, exhibitors of wild animals, and old soldiers who flaunted their strength by lifting heavy beams, iron weights, and stones for show. These people found the best and most competitive work during annual festivals. In contrast, the rural poor consisted mostly of peasant farmers. However, some in rural areas chose vocations centered chiefly around hunting, fishing, forestry, and state-offered occupations such as mining or working in the salt marshes.

According to their Confucian ethics, elite and cultured scholar-officials viewed themselves as the pinnacle members of society (second only to the imperial family). Rural farmers were seen as the essential pillars that provided food for all of society; they were given more respect than the local or regional merchant, no matter how rich and powerful. The Confucian-taught scholar-official elite who ran China's vast bureaucracy viewed their society's growing interest in commercialism as a sign of moral decay. Nonetheless, Song Chinese urban society was teeming with "wholesalers, shippers, storage keepers, brokers, traveling salesmen, retail shopkeepers...peddlers," and many other lowly commercial-based vocations, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

Despite the scholar-officials' suspicion and disdain for powerful merchants, the latter often colluded with the scholarly elite. The scholar-officials themselves often became involved in mercantile affairs, blurring the lines of who did and did not belong to the merchant class. Even rural farmers engaged in the small-scale production of wine, charcoal, paper, textiles, and other goods. Theoretically it was forbidden for an official to partake in private affairs of gaining capital while serving and receiving a salary from the state. In order to avoid ruining one's reputation as a moral Confucian, scholar-officials had to work through business intermediaries; as early as 955 a written decree revealed the use of intermediary agents for private business transactions with foreign countries. Since the Song government took over several key industries and imposed strict state monopolies, the government itself acted as a large commercial enterprise run by scholar-officials. The state also had to contend with the merchant and artisan guilds; whenever the state requisitioned goods and assessed taxes it dealt with guild heads, who ensured fair prices and fair wages via official intermediaries. Yet joining a guild was an immediate means to neither empowerment nor independence; historian Jacques Gernet states: "[the guilds] were too numerous and too varied to allow their influence to be felt."

A painting of court ladies on horseback, a 12th century remake by Li Gonglin after an 8th century original by Zhang Xuan.

From the scholar-official's view, the artisans and craftsmen were essential workers in society on a tier just below the farming peasants, and different from the merchants and traders who were considered parasitic. It was craftsmen and artisans who fashioned and manufactured all of the goods needed in Song society, such as standard-sized waterwheels and chain pumps made by skilled wheelwrights. Although architects and carpenter builders were not as highly venerated as the scholar-officials, there were some architectural engineers and authors who gained wide acclaim at court and in the public sphere for their achievements. This included the official Li Jie (1065–1110), a scholar who was eventually promoted to high positions in government agencies of building and engineering. His written manual on building codes and procedures was sponsored by Emperor Huizong for these government agencies to employ and was widely printed for the benefit of literate craftsmen and artisans nationwide. The technical written work of the earlier 10th century architect Yu Hao was also given a great amount of praise by the polymath scholar-official Shen Kuo in his Dream Pool Essays of 1088.

Due to previous episodes of court eunuchs amassing power, eunuchs were looked upon with suspicion by scholar-officials and the Confucian literati. Still, their association with inner palace life and their frequent appointments to high levels of military command made them prestigious members of society. Although military officers with successful careers could gain a considerable amount of prestige, the soldier in Song society was looked upon with a bit of disdain by scholar-officials and cultured people. This is best reflected in a Chinese proverb: "Good iron isn't used for nails; good men aren't used as soldiers." This attitude had several roots. Many people who enrolled themselves as soldiers in the armed forces were rural peasants in debt, many of them former workers of the salt trade who could not pay back their loans and had been reduced to flight. However, the prevailing attitude towards military servicemen stemmed largely from the knowledge of historical precedent, as military leaders in the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907–960) period amassed more power than the civil officials, in some respects replacing them and the civilian government altogether. Song emperors expanded the civil service examination system and government school system in order to avoid the earlier scenario of domination by military strongmen over the civil order.

Education and civil service

Scholar in a Meadow, Chinese painting of the 11th century.

The number of applicants for the Imperial examinations far outmatched the actual number of jinshi, or "presented scholars" who were given official appointments in the Song Dynasty. Five times more jinshi were accepted in the Song period than during the Tang, yet the larger number of officials did not lower the prestige of the degree. Rather, it encouraged more to enter and compete in the exams. Roughly 30,000 men took the prefectural exams in the early 11th century, increasing to nearly 80,000 around 1100, and finally to an astonishing 400,000 exam takers by the 13th century. With these odds, the chances of an applicant becoming a government official was 1 in 333.

An atmosphere of intellectual competition existed between aspiring Confucian scholars. Wealthy families were eager to gather stacks of published books for their personal libraries, collecting books that covered the Confucian classics as well as philosophical works, mathematical treatises, pharmaceutical documents, Buddhist sutras, and other literature aimed at the gentry class. The advancement of widespread book manufacturing through woodblock printing and then movable type printing by the 11th century aided in the expansion of the number of educated candidates for the civil service exams. These developments also reduced the overall cost of books so that they became more accessible to those of lesser means.

Song scholar-officials were granted ranks, honors, and career appointments on the basis of merit, the standards of which were codified and more objective than those in the Tang Dynasty. The anonymity of exam candidates guarded against fraud and favoritism by those who could judge papers based upon handwriting and/or signature calligraphy; a bureau of copyists was tasked with the job of recopying all the candidates' papers before grading. After passing the prefectural, provincial, and then palace exam (the most prestigious), scholarly degrees did not immediately ensure an appointment to office, but the more prestigious the degree, the more certain one's career in higher administrative posts would be. The central government held the exclusive right to appoint or remove officials. The case for removal was always carefully examined, since the central government kept a recorded dossier of reports on each official, stored in the capital for later review. Meritocracy and a greater sense of social mobility were also prevalent in the civil service examination system, as the government held a list of all examination graduates, showing that only roughly half of those who passed had a father, or grandfather, or great-grandfather who served as a government official. However, families with members who were officials of the government had the advantage of early education and experience, often appointing their sons to low-level staff positions. The Song era poet Su Shi (1037–1101) wrote a poem called On the Birth of My Son, poking fun at the situation of affluent children having the upper edge over bright children of lower status:

	Families, when a child is born Want it to be intelligent. I, through intelligence Having wrecked my whole life, Only hope the baby will prove Ignorant and stupid. Then he will crown a tranquil life By becoming a Cabinet Minister.
Su Shi

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A Longquan-ware celadon warmer, 12th century.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, the central government established an official school system which eclipsed the role of private academies by the mid 11th century. The historian John W. Chaffe states that by the early 12th century the state school system had 1.5 million acres of land that could provide for some 200,000 student residents living in dormitories. However, by the late 12th century many critics of the examination system and government-run schools initiated a movement to revive private academies. One of the earliest academic institutions established in the Song period was the Yuelu Academy, founded in 976 during the reign of Emperor Taizu of Song. The Chinese scientist and statesman Shen Kuo was once the head chancellor of the Hanlin Academy, established during the Tang Dynasty. The Neo-Confucian Donglin Academy, established in 1111, was founded upon the staunch teaching that adulterant influences of other ideologies such as Buddhism should not influence the teaching of their purely Confucian school. This belief hearkened back to the writings of the Tang Dynasty essayist and poet Han Yu (768–824), who was certainly a critic of Buddhism and its influence upon Confucian values. Although the White Deer Grotto Academy of the Southern Tang (937–976) period had fallen out of use during the early half of the Song period, the Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi (1130–1200) reinvigorated it.

Zhu Xi was one of many critics who argued that government schools did not sufficiently encourage personal cultivation of the self and molded students into officials who cared only for profit and salary. Not all social and political philosophers in the Song period blamed the examination system as the root of the problem (but merely as a method of recruitment and selection), emphasizing instead the gentry's failure to take responsibility in society as the cultural elite. Zhu Xi laid also emphasized the Four Books, a series of Confucian classics that would become the official introduction of education for all Confucian students, yet were initially discarded by his contemporaries. After his death, his commentary on the Four Books found appeal amongst scholar-officials and in 1241 his writings were adopted as mandatory readings for examination candidates with the support of Emperor Lizong.

Political partisanship and reform

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Emperor Shenzong of Song, the political ally of Wang Anshi who endorsed Wang's reform effort in the economy, military, education system, and social order.

During the Song period, the careers of low grade and middle grade officials were largely secure, but in the high ranks of the central administration, "reverses of fortune were to be feared," as Sinologist historian Jacques Gernet put it. Lower grade officials performed the necessary duties of administration such as collecting taxes, overseeing criminal cases, implementing efforts to fight famine and natural calamity, and occasionally supervising market affairs or public works. The incredible growth of China's population far outmatched the total number of officials accepted as administrators in the Song government (about 20,000 in all), so the educated gentry who had not been appointed to an official post were entrusted as supervisors of affairs in rural communities. It was the "upper gentry" of high grade officials in the capital – comprised mostly of those who passed the palace exams – who were in a position to influence and reform society.

The high echelons of the political scene during the Song Dynasty left a notorious legacy of partisanship and strife among factions of state ministers. The Chancellor Fan Zhongyan (989–1052) introduced a series of reforms between 1043 and 1045 that received heated backlash from the conservative element at court. Fan set out to erase corruption from the recruitment system by providing higher salaries for minor officials, in order to persuade them not to become corrupt and take bribes. He also established sponsorship programs that would ensure officials were drafted on their merits, administrative skills, and moral character more than their etiquette and cultured appearance. However, the conservatives at court did not want their career paths and comfortably-set positions jeopardized by new standards, so they rallied to successfully halt the reforms.

Inspired by Fan's motivation, the later Chancellor Wang Anshi (1021–1086) implemented a series of reforms starting in 1069. They included a community-based law enforcement and civil order known as the Baojia system. Wang Anshi attempted to diminish the importance of land-holding and private wealth in favor of mutual-responsibility social groups that shared similar values and could be easily controlled by the government. Just as scholar-officials owed their social prestige to their government degrees, Wang wanted to structure all of society as a mass of dependents loyal to the central government. He used various means, including the prohibition of landlords offering loans to tenants; this role was assumed by the government.

Chancellor Wang Anshi (1021–1086)

Wang established local militias that could aid the official standing army and lessen the constrained state budget expenses for the military. He set up low-cost loans for the benefit of rural farmers, whom he viewed as the backbone of the Song economy. Since the land tax exacted from rural farmers filled the state treasury's coffers, Wang implemented a reform to update the land-survey system so that more accurate assessments could be gathered. Wang removed the mandatory poetry requirement in the civil service exams, on the grounds that many otherwise skilled and knowledgeable Confucian students were being denied entry into the administration. Wang also established government monopolies for tea, salt, and wine production. All of these programs received heavy criticism from conservative ministerial peers, who believed his reforms damaged local family wealth providing the basis for the production of examination candidates, managers, merchants, landlords, and other essential members of society.

To gain support for his reforms, Wang sought out potential allies and formed a coalition that became known as the New Policies Group, which in turn emboldened his known political rivals to band together in opposition to him. After Wang had served as chancellor, the political faction led by the historian and official Sima Guang (1019–1086) took control of the central government, allied with the dowager Empress who acted as regent over the young Emperor Zhezong of Song. Wang's new policies were completely reversed, including popular reforms like the tax substitution for corvée labor service. When Emperor Zhezong came of age and replaced his grandmother as the state power, he favored Wang's policies and once again instituted the reforms. As each political faction gained advantage over the other, ministers of the opposing side were labeled "obstructionist" and were sent out of the capital to govern remote frontier regions of the empire. This form of political exile was not only politically damaging, but could also be physically threatening. Those who fell from favor could be sent to govern areas of the deep south where the deadly disease of malaria was prevalent.

Family and gender

Familial rights and customs

Playing Children, by Song artist Su Hanchen, c. 1150 AD.

The Chinese philosophy of Confucius (551–479 BC) and the hierarchical social order his disciples adhered to had become embedded into mainstream Chinese culture since the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141–87 BC). During the Song Dynasty, the whole of Chinese society was theoretically modelled upon this familial social order of superiors and inferiors. Confucian dogma dictated what was proper moral behavior, and how a superior should regulate rewards or punishments when dealing with an inferior member of society or one's family. This is exemplified in the Tang Dynasty law code, which was largely retained in the Song period. Jacques Gernet writes: "The family relationships supposed to exist in the ideal family were the foundation of the entire moral outlook, and even the law, in its total structure and its scale of penalties, was nothing but a codified expression of them."

Under the Tang law code, severe punishments were outlined for those who disobeyed or disrespected the hierarchical system of elders. Those who assaulted their parents could be put to death, those who assaulted an older sibling could be put to forced labor, and those who assaulted an older cousin could be sentenced to caning. A household servant who killed his master could be sentenced to death, while a master who killed his servant would be arrested and forced into a year of hard labor for the state. Yet this reverence for elders and superiors was grounded in more than just secular Confucian discourse; Chinese beliefs of ancestor worship transformed the identity of one's parents into abstract, otherworldly figures. However, Song society itself was one built upon social relationships governed not by abstract principles, but upon the protection gained by devoting oneself to a superior. Likewise, perpetuating the religious family cult with many descendants was coupled with the notion that producing more children offered the family a layer of protection, reinforcing its power in the community. More children meant better odds of extending a family's power through marriage alliance with other prominent families, as well as better odds of having a child occupying a prestigious administrative post in government. No one was better prepared for society than one who gained plenty of experience in dealing with the members of his extended family, as it was common for upper-class families to have several generations living in the same household. Those who came from noteworthy families were treated with dignity, and a wider family influence meant a better chance for an individual to secure his own fortunes. One did not even have to share the same blood line in order to create and build more social ties. This could be done by accepting any number of artificial blood brothers in a ceremony assuring mutual obligations and shared loyalty.

In Song society, governed by the largely-unaltered Tang era legal code, the act of primogeniture was not practiced in Chinese inheritance of property, and in fact was illegal. When the head of a family died, his offspring equally divided the property. This law was implemented in the Tang Dynasty in order to challenge the powerful aristocratic clans of the northwest, and to prevent the rise of a society domineered by landed nobility. If an official family did not produce another official within a few generations, the future prospects of that family remaining wealthy and influential became uncertain. Thus, the legal issues of familial inheritance had profound effects upon the rest of society.

Women: legality and intellectualism

Official court portrait painting of the empress and wife of Zhenzong. Notice the contrast of heavy ceremonial facial painting with this picture and the women painted in the one below by Emperor Huizong.

Historians note that women during the Tang Dynasty were brazen, assertive, active, and relatively more socially liberated than Song women. Women of the Song period are typically seen as well educated and interested in expressing themselves through poetry, yet more reserved and quiet in a Confucian-oriented society. Evidence of foot binding as a growing trend in the Southern Song period certainly reinforces this notion. However, the greater number of documents due to more widespread printing reveal a much more complex and rich reality about family life and Song women. Through written stories, legal cases, and other documents, many different sources show that Song women held considerable clout in family decision-making. At home, it was common for wives to be jealous and conniving towards concubines that their wealthy husbands brought home. Although men were by far the most prominent figures in the public sphere, women's lives were not solely bound to the domestic sphere. It was common for wealthy women to manage town inns, farmers' daughters to weave mats and sell them on their own behalf, midwives to deliver babies, Buddhist nuns to study religious texts and sutras, and women to keep a close eye on their own financial affairs. In the case of the latter, legal case documents describe childless widows who accused their nephews of stealing their property. There are also numerous mentions of women drawing upon their dowries to help their husband's sisters marry into other prominent families.

The economic prosperity of the Song period prompted many families to provide their daughters with larger dowries in order to attract the wealthiest son-in-laws to provide a stable life of economic security for their daughters. With large amounts of property allotted to a daughter's dowry, her family naturally sought benefits; as a result women's legal claims to property were greatly improved. Daughters and sons had equal opportunity to inherit property. Under the Song law code, if an heirless man left no clear successor to his property and household, it was his widowed wife's right to designate her own heir in a process called liji ("adopting an heir"). If an heir was appointed by the parents' relatives after their deaths, the "appointed" heir did not have the same rights as a biological son to inherit the estate; instead he shared juehu ("extinct household") property with the parents' daughter(s), if any. Remarriage after the death of a spouse was common during the Song period. However, widows under post-Song dynasties did not often remarry, following the ethic of the Confucian philosopher Cheng Yi (1033–1107), who stated that it was better for a widow to die than lose her virtue by remarrying.

Women striking and preparing silk, by Emperor Huizong, early 12th century, a remake of an earlier Tang Dynasty original.

Despite advances in relative social freedoms and legal rights, women were still expected to attend to the duties of the home. Along with child-rearing, women were responsible for spinning yarn, weaving cloth, sewing clothing, and cooking meals. Women who belonged to families that sold silk were especially busy, since their duties included coddling the silkworms, feeding them chopped mulberry tree leaves, and keeping them warm to ensure that they would eventually spin their cocoons. In the family pecking order, the dominant female of the household was the mother-in-law, who was free to hand out orders and privileges to the wives of her sons. Mothers often had strong ties with their grown and married sons, since these men often stayed at home. If a mother-in-law could not find sufficient domestic help from the daughters-in-law, there was a market for women to be bought as maids or servants. There were also many professional courtesans (and concubines brought into the house) who kept men busy in the pursuits of entertainment, relations, and romantic affairs.

Although boys were taught at Confucian academies for the ultimate goal of government service, girls were often taught by their brothers how to read and write. By Song times, more women of the upper and educated classes were able to read due to advances in widespread printing, leaving behind a treasury of letters, poems, and other documents penned by women. Some women were educated enough to teach their sons before they were sent to an official school. For example, the mother of the statesman and scientist Shen Kuo taught him basic education and even military strategy that she had learned from her elder brother. There were many noted intellectual women during the Song Dynasty, including Li Qingzhao (1084–1151), whose father was a friend of Su Shi, and who wrote many poems throughout her often turbulent life (only about 100 of these survive), and became a renowned poet during her lifetime. After the death of her husband, she wrote poems profusely about poring over his paintings, calligraphy, and ancient bronze vessels, as well as poems with deep emotional longing:

	Lovely in my inner chamber. My tender heart, a wisp; My sorrow tangled in a thousand skeins. I'm fond of spring, but spring is gone, And rain urges the petals to fall. I lean on the balustrade; Only loose ends left, and no feeling. Where is he? Withered grasses stretch to the heavens; I can't make out the path that leads him home to me.
Li Qingzhao

Religion

Main article: Religion in China

A Song Dynasty wooden statue of a Bodhisattva

Ancient Chinese Daoism, ancestor worship, and the foreign ideology of Buddhism were the most prominent religious practices in the Song period. Daoism developed largely from the teachings of the Daodejing, attributed to the 6th century BC philosopher Laozi ("Old Master"), considered one of the Three Pure Ones (the prime deities of Daoism). Buddhism in China, introduced by Yuezhi, Persian, and Kushan missionaries in the first and second centuries, gradually became more native in character and was transformed into distinct Chinese Buddhism.

Although many followed the teachings of Buddha, there were also many critics of its religious and philosophical tenets. This included the ardent nativist, scholar, and statesman Ouyang Xiu, who called Buddhism a "curse" upon China, an alien tradition that infiltrated the native beliefs of his country while at its weakest during the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–581). Although conservative proponents of native Confucianism were highly skeptical of the teachings of Buddhism and often sought to distance themselves from it, others used Buddhist teachings to bolster their own Confucian philosophy. The Neo-Confucian philosophers and brothers Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi of the 11th century sought philosophical explanations for the workings of principle (li) and vital energy (qi) in nature, responding to the notions of highly complex metaphysics in popular Buddhist thought. Neo-Confucian scholars also sought to borrow the Mahayana Buddhist ideal of self-sacrifice, welfare, and charity embodied in the bodhisattva. Seeking to replace the Buddhist monastery's once prominent role in societal welfare and charity, supporters of Neo-Confucianism converted this ideal into practical measures of state-sponsored support for the poor under a secular mission of ethical universalism.

File:Qiu Chuji.jpg

Painting of Qiu Chuji (1148–1227), a follower of the Quanzhen School of Daoism who founded the Longmen ("Dragon Gate") branch of Daoism.

Although Buddhism never fully recovered after several major persecutions in China from the fifth through the tenth centuries, Daoism continued to thrive in Song China. In northern China under the Jin Dynasty after 1127, the Daoist philosopher Wang Chongyang (1113–1170) established the Quanzhen School. Wang's seven disciples, known as the Seven Immortals, gained great fame throughout China. They included the prominent Daoist priestess Sun Bu'er (c. 1119–1182), who became a female role model in Daoism. There was also Qiu Chuji (1148–1227), who founded his own Quanzhen Daoist branch known as Longmen ("Dragon Gate").

Chinese folk religion continued as a tradition in China, drawing upon aspects of both ancient Chinese mythology and ancestor worship. Many people believed that spirits and deities of the spirit realm regularly interacted with the realm of the living. This subject was popular in Song literature. Hong Mai (1123–1202), a prominent member of an official family from Jiangxi, wrote a popular book called The Record of the Listener, which had many anecdotes dealing with the spirit realm and people's supposed interactions with it. People in Song China believed that many of their daily misfortunes and blessings were caused by an array of different deities and spirits who interfered with their daily lives. These deities included the nationally accepted deities of Buddhism and Daoism, as well as the local deities and demons from specific geographic locations. If one displeased a long-dead relative, the dissatisfied ancestor would allegedly inflict natural ailments and illnesses. People also believed in mischievous demons and malevolent spirits who had the capability to extort sacrificial offerings meant for ancestors – in essence these were bullies of the spiritual realm. The Chinese believed that spirits and deities had the same emotions and drives as the living did. In some cases the chief deity of a local town or city was believed to act as a municipal official who could receive and dispatch orders on how to punish or reward spirits. Residents of cities offered many sacrifices to their divinities in hopes that their city would be spared from disasters such as fire. However, not only common people felt the need to appease local deities. Magistrates and officials sent from the capital to various places of the empire often had to ensure the locals that his authority was supported by the local deity.

Justice and legality

A bust of the famous magistrate Bao Qingtian (999–1062), renowned for his judgment in court justice during the early Song era.

Further information: Traditional Chinese law

One of the duties of scholar-officials was hearing judicial cases in court. However, the magistrates and prefects of the Song period were expected to know more than just the written laws. They were expected to promote morality in society, to punish the wicked, and carefully recognize in their sentences which party in a court case was truly at fault. It was often the most serious cases that came before the court; most people desired to settle legal quarrels privately, since court preparations were expensive. In ancient China, criminals were guilty until proven innocent, the reverse of modern jurisprudence. The accused were immediately put in filthy jails and nourished only by the efforts of friends and relatives. Even those who made accusations were viewed with suspicion by the judge.

Gernet points out that disputes requiring arrest were mostly avoided or settled privately. Yet historian Patricia Ebrey states that legal cases in the Song period portrayed the courts as being overwhelmed with cases of neighbors and relatives suing each other over property rights. The Song Dynasty author and official Yuan Cai repeatedly warned against this, and like other officials of his time also cautioned his readers about the rise of banditry in Southern Song society and a need to physically protect self and property.

Court cases

Further information: Bao Qingtian

Many Song court cases serve as examples for the promotion of morality in society, which in the West is called the doctrine of equity. Using his knowledge and understanding of townsmen and farmers, one Song Dynasty judge made this ruling in the case of two brawling fishermen, who were labeled as Pan 52 and Li 7 by the court:

Competition in Selling Fish Resulted in Assaults

A proclamation: In the markets of the city the profits from commerce are monopolized by itinerant loiterers, while the little people from the rural villages are not allowed to sell their wares. There is not a single necessity of our clothing or food that is not the product of the fields of these old rustics. The men plow and the women weave. Their toil is extremely wearisome, yet what they gain from it is negligible, while manifold interest returns to these lazy idlers. This sort, in tens and hundreds, come together to form gangs. When the villagers come to sell things in the market place, before the goods have even left their hands, this crowd of idlers arrives and attacks them, assaulting them as a group. These idlers call this "the boxing of the community family." They are not at all afraid to act outrageously. I have myself seen that it is like this...Have they not given thought to the foodstuffs they require and the clothing they wear? Is it produced by these people of the marketplaces? Or is it produced by the rural farmers? When they recognize that these goods are produced by the farming people or the rural villages, how can they look at them in anger? How can they bully and insult them? ...Now, Pan Fifty-two and Li Seven are both fishmongers, but Pan lives in the city and fishmongering is his source of livelihood. Li Seven is a farmer, who does fishmongering between busy times. Pan Fifty-two at the end of the year has his profit, without having had the labor of raising the fish, but simply earning it from the selling of the fish. He hated Li and fought with him at the fish market. His lack of humanity is extreme! Li Seven is a village rustic. How could he fight with the itinerant armed loiterers who hang around the marketplace? Although no injuries resulted from the fight, we still must mete out some slight punishments. Pan Fifty-two is to be beaten fifteen blows with the heavy rod. In addition, Li Seven, although he is a village farmer, was still verbally abusive while the two men were stubbornly arguing. He clearly is not a man of simple and pure character. He must have done something to provoke this dispute. Li Seven is to be given a suspended sentence of a beating of ten blows, to be carried out if hereafter there are further violations.

Early forensic science

The Broken Balustrade, a 12th century painting showing two armed palace guards (on the left) making an arrest.

In the Song Dynasty, sheriffs were employed to investigate and apprehend suspected criminals, determining from the crime scene and evidence found on the body if the cause of death was disease, old age, an accident, or foul play. If murder was considered the cause, an official from the prefecture was sent to investigate and draw up a formal inquest, to be signed by witnesses and used in court. The documents of this inquest also included sketches of human bodies with details of where and what injuries were inflicted.

Song Ci (1186–1249) was a Chinese physician and judge during the Southern Song Dynasty. His famous work Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified was a basis for early forensic science in China. Song's predecessor Shen Kuo offered critical analysis of human anatomy, dispelling the old Chinese belief that the human throat had three valves instead of two. A Chinese autopsy in the early 12th century confirmed Shen's hypothesis of two throat valves: the esophagus and larynx. However, dissection and examination of human bodies for solving criminal cases was of interest to Song Ci. His work was compiled on the basis of other Chinese works dealing with justice and forensics. His book provided a list of types of death (strangulation, drowning, poison, blows, etc.) and a means of physical examination in order to distinguish between murder, suicide, or accident. Besides instructions on proper ways to examine corpses, Song Ci also prodived instructions on providing first aid for victims close to death from hanging, drowning, sunstroke, freezing to death, and undernourishment. For the specific case of drowning, Song Ci advised using the first aid technique of artificial respiration. He wrote of examinations of victims' bodies performed in the open amongst official clerks and attendants, a coroner's assistant (or midwife in the case of women), actual accused suspect of the crime and relatives of the deceased, with the results of the autopsy called out loud to the group and noted in the inquest report. Song Ci wrote:

In all doubtful and difficult inquests, as well as when influential families are involved in the dispute, [the deputed official] must select reliable and experienced coroner’s assistants and Recorders of good character who are circumspect and self-possessed to accompany him...Call a brief halt and wait for the involved parties to arrive. Otherwise, there will be requests for private favors. Supposing an examination is held to get the facts, the clerks will sometimes accept bribes to alter the reports of the affair. If the officials and clerks suffer for their crimes, that is a minor matter. But, if the facts are altered, the judicial abuse may cost someone his life. Factual accuracy is supremely important.

Song Ci also shared his opinion that having the accused suspect of the murder present at the autopsy of his victim, in close proximity to the grieving relatives of the deceased, was a very powerful psychological tool for the authorities to gain confessions. Although interests in human anatomy had a long tradition in the Western world, a forensic book such as Song Ci's did not appear in Western works until Roderic de Castro's book in the 17th century. There have been several modern books published about Song Ci's writing and translations of it into English. This includes W.A. Harland's Records of Washing away of Injuries (1855), Herbert Giles' The Hsi Yuan Lu, or Instructions to Coroners (1924), and Dr. Brian E. McKnight's The Washing Away of Wrongs: Forensic Medicine in Thirteenth-Century China (1981).

Military

Main articles: Military history of China and Naval history of China

Growth of the army and navy

The "Four Generals of Zhongxing" with their four attendants, painted by Liu Songnian (1174–1224); the famous Song Dynasty general Yue Fei is featured as the second person from the left.

During the Song Dynasty, for those without formal education, the quickest way to power and the upper echelons of society was to join the military. If a man had a successful career in the military and could boast of victorious battles, he had a sure path to success in politics. Exam-drafted scholar-officials came mostly from prominent families and could rely on their clan status to advance their careers and place in society. Many Song military officers did not have this advantage, and owed their status in society to the advantage that military power granted them. Many court eunuchs such as Tong Guan (1054–1126) were eager to enlist as officers in the central army since this was a means to elevate their position.

In the year 960 the Song military had 378,000 enlisted soldiers. Around the turn of the 11th century its size had grown to 900,000 soldiers, increasing to 1,000,000 by the year 1022, and well over 1,250,000 by 1041. The overall expenses of upholding a military of this size consumed three-quarters of the state's entire annual revenue. To lessen the expense, in 1069 the Chancellor Wang Anshi created the institution of local militias as supporting units. In 1073, Wang Anshi created a new bureau of the central government called the Directorate of Weapons, which supervised the manufacture of armaments and ensured quality control.

Northern Song

Southern Song

Despite the size of the army and these beneficial reforms, the high ranks of Song military command were heavily corrupt. At the beginning of the 12th century, Song generals collected funds based on the number of troops they recorded; instead of using the funds to benefit troops, they used this money to bolster their own salaries. Troops of the standing army, meanwhile, were given very small salaries while assigned tasks of menial labor. The scholar-officials running the government often paid little attention to the plight of soldiers and even to the demands of officers, since they were seen as being on a lower tier in society. The corruption of the high command and ineffectiveness of military strength was soon revealed once the Song made a joint effort with the Jurchen people to conquer the Khitan Liao Dynasty. After the successful rebellion of the Jurchens against their Khitan masters, the Jurchen observed the weakness of the Song army and broke their pact, then attacked Song as well. By 1127, the capital at Kaifeng was captured and northern China overrun, while the remnants of the Song court fled south to Hangzhou and established the Southern Song. This was a crucial blow to the Song military elites, as they had been closely tied to the political structure until 1127; afterwards they became alienated from the emperor and the Song court. Although they had lost northern China to the new Jurchen Jin Dynasty (1115–1234), this loss prompted the Song to make drastic and lasting military reforms. Emperor Gaozong of Song (r. 1127–1162), desperate to refill the decimated ranks of the central army, drafted men from all over the country. This had been done before, but not on the same scale. Only the most skilled became imperial guardsmen, while under Gaozong entire central army units were composed of soldiers from every region and background. The Southern Song eventually recovered their strength and commanded the loyalty of vaunted commanders such as Yue Fei (1103–1142), who successfully defended the border at the Huai River. The Jurchens and Song eventually signed a peace treaty in 1141.

In 1131, the Chinese writer Zhang Yi noted the importance of employing a navy to fight the Jin, writing that China had to regard the sea and the river as her Great Wall, and use warships as its greatest watchtowers. Although the use of navies in China had been done since the ancient Spring and Autumn Period (722–481 BC), in the year 1132 the Southern Song established China's first permanent standing navy. The Jurchen launched an invasion against the Southern Song along the length of the Yangtze River, which resulted in two crucial Song victories at the Battle of Caishi and Battle of Tangdao in 1161. The Jin navy was effectively defeated by the Song's standing navy, which employed trebuchets on their ships' top deckhouses which launched gunpowder bombs.

Organization and equipment

A Song Dynasty naval river ship with a Xuanfeng traction-trebuchet catapult on its top deck, taken from an illustration of the Wujing Zongyao (1044 AD).

Further information: Chinese armour

In the Song Dynasty, infantry units were organized 50 men to a platoon, two platoons to a company, and those into batallions of 500 men each. During the Northern Song Dynasty, half of the entire army of 1 million was stationed in and around Kaifeng. The remaining troops were posted in scattered forces along borders and near large municipalities, and in peacetime were used as means to maintain local security. Although the Song military was rife with corruption and largely ignored by civil officials, it did provide some valuable strengths to the empire. During the Song era, military drills and training were studied as a science, while elite soldiers were allocated different responsibilities based on examinations of their skills in weaponry and athletic ability. In their training, soldiers and officers were prepared for battle by following signal standards for troop movement, advancing when a flag or banner was raised, halting when the blaring sound of bells and drums rang out.

Song crossbowmen comprised their own separate units apart from the infantry, and according to the Chinese Wujing Zongyao military manuscript of 1044, the crossbow used in mass was the most effective weapon used against northern nomadic cavalry charges. Elite crossbowmen were also valued as long-range snipers; such was the case when the Liao Dynasty general Xiao Talin was picked off by a Song crossbow at the Battle of Shanzhou in 1004. Crossbows were mass produced in state armories with designs improving as time went on, such as the use of a mulberry wood and brass crossbow in 1068 that could pierce a tree at 140 paces. Song cavalry used an array of different weapons, including halberds, swords, bows, and fire lances that discharged a gunpowder blast of flame and shrapnel. In preparation for war, government armories manufactured weapons in enormous quantities, with tens of millions of arrowheads crafted each year, along with armor components by the tens of thousands. There were sixteen known varieties of catapults in the Song period, designed to fit many different proportions and requiring work crews in sizes ranging from dozens to several hundred men.

A faded and worn Song painting of the 12th century showing cavalrymen in the rear with horses wearing armor.

Unlike many other Chinese dynasties throughout history, the Song Dynasty did not model its military infrastructure and organization on the precedent of northern nomadic armies, such as the earlier Xianbei and later Mongols. Only twice in the Song era were non-Chinese people employed in Song cavalry units: in the beginning of the dynasty with the campaigns of Emperor Taizu, and later 13th century Mongol defectors who came over to fight for the Song. With the Khitan and Tangut kingdoms possessing much of the pasture and grazing lands in the north, the Song Dynasty military had a shortage of horses for cavalry. Still, the Song established considerably large navies: in the 10th century, in the war to reunite China, and then a standing navy in the 12th century. Many of the warships in the Song Dynasty's navy were paddle-wheel driven crafts and some Song naval ships could carry up to 1,000 soldiers. It was also during the Song period that naval ships were first armed with gunpowder weapons. The use of enormous pontoon bridges in the Song era on at least one occasion was essential to victory. The Song built a large floating bridge across the Yangtze River in 974; while troops were under attack, the pontoon bridge was used as a means of transport for troops and supplies to the other bank during the early Song conquest of the Southern Tang state.

See also

• Han Shizhong
• Qin Hui
• Shao Yong
• Wei Pu
• Wen Tianxiang

References

• Benn, Charles. (2002). China's Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517665-0.
• Bernhardt, Kathryn. "The Inheritance Right of Daughters: the Song Anomaly?" Modern China (July 1995): 269–309.
• Castiglione, Baldassare (1528). The Book of the Courtier. Translated by Leonard Eckstein Opdycke (2003). Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc. ISBN 0-486-42702-1
• Ebrey, Walthall, Palais, (2006). East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-618-13384-4.
• Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (1999). The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-66991-X (paperback).
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• Fairbank, John King and Merle Goldman (1992). China: A New History; Second Enlarged Edition (2006). Cambridge: MA; London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-01828-1
• Gernet, Jacques (1962). Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250–1276. Translated by H.M. Wright. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0720-0
• Graff, David Andrew and Robin Higham (2002). A Military History of China. Boulder: Westview Press.
• Guo, Qinghua. "Yingzao Fashi: Twelfth-Century Chinese Building Manual," Architectural History: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (Volume 41 1998): 1–13.
• Hall, Kenneth (1985). Maritime trade and state development in early Southeast Asia. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-0959-9.
• Lorge, Peter (2005). War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China, 900–1795: 1st Edition. New York: Routledge.
• McKnight, Brian E. (1992). Law and Order in Sung China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Morton, Scott and Charlton Lewis (2005). China: Its History and Culture: Fourth Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
• Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 1, Introductory Orientations. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
• Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 2, Mechanical Engineering. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
• Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 3, Civil Engineering and Nautics. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
• Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 7, Military Technology; the Gunpowder Epic. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
• Peers, C.J. (2006). Soldiers of the Dragon: Chinese Armies 1500 BC-AD 1840. Oxford: Osprey Publishing.
• Rossabi, Morris (1988). Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-05913-1.
• Shen, Fuwei (1996). Cultural flow between China and the outside world. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. ISBN 7-119-00431-X.
• Sivin, Nathan (1995). Science in Ancient China: Researches and Reflections. Brookfield, Vermont: VARIORUM, Ashgate Publishing.
• Sung, Tz’u, translated by Brian E. McKnight (1981). The Washing Away of Wrongs: Forensic Medicine in Thirteenth-Century China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0892648007
• Walton, Linda (1999). Academies and Society in Southern Sung China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
• Wright, Arthur F. (1959). Buddhism in Chinese History. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Further reading

• Davis, Edward L. Society and the Supernatural in Song China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001. ISBN 9780824823986
• Hendrischke, Barbara. 1996. "Ordering the World: Approaches to State and Society in Song Dynasty China/The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Song Period". Journal of Contemporary Asia. 26, no. 1: 127.
• Shiba, Yoshinobu, and Mark Elvin. Commerce and Society in Sung China. Michigan abstracts of Chinese and Japanese works on Chinese history, no. 2. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1970. ISBN 089264902X
• Zhang, B. 2007. "Huang Kuan-chung: Clan and Society in the Song Dynasty". Li Shi Yan Jiu. no. 2: 170-179.

External links

• Culture in the Song Period
• Song Dynasty Culture
• Chinese Siege Warfare: Mechanical Artillery & Siege Weapons of Antiquity
• Song Dynasty at bcps.org
• Song Dynasty at MSN encarta