Taizu, personal name Zhao Kuangyin, of the Chinese emperor (reigned 960–976), military leader, and statesman who founded the Song dynasty (960–1279). He began the reunification of China, a project largely completed by his younger brother and successor, the Taizong emperor.
Background
Zhao Kuangyin, the first Song emperor, was born on 21 March 927, at Luoyang. The Zhao clan came from Youzhou, in the vicinity of modern Beijing, the home base of An Lushan, under whom his great-great-grandfather, Zhao Tiao, had served as a general. Zhao Kuangyin's great-grandfather and grandfather were both officials under the independent warlords of the region.
Zhao Kuangyin's father was a low-ranking military officer under a warlord of Uyghur lineage, and he subsequently served two successor Turkic dynasties, the Later Tang (923-36) and the Later Jin (936-46).
Career
Seeking his own fortune, Zhao Kuangyin joined the army of the charismatic military leader Guo Wei and then became a low-level Imperial Guard in the Later Zhou dynasty (951-60) founded by Guo. He befriended the heir apparent, Chai Rong, who would soon succeed to the throne. Zhao Kuangyin was rewarded with a high-level military appointment after showing exceptional bravery in a crucial battle against the Turkic Northern Han in 954.
The talented young Emperor Chai Rong died in 959, leaving a six-year-old son to succeed him. As the Later Zhou court was celebrating its first Chinese New Year under the boy emperor, the news came that the Khitan Liao state and the Northern Han (951-79) had launched a joint invasion. Zhao Kuangyin led a defence force north. Shortly after the army left the capital, a large group of its officers and soldiers called for their popular commander to be enthroned as the new emperor.
The reported invading force mysteriously retreated and, in an almost bloodless coup (only one high courtier and his family were killed), Zhao Kuangyin proclaimed a new dynasty, the Song, but spared the lives of the previous imperial family.
Despite the fact that their support had given him the throne, the new Emperor Taizu was wary of the military. In the summer of 961, he gathered all his former comrades, most of them involved in his coup, to drink a glass of wine. He then stated that an emperor’s position was precarious, for a similar military coup could happen again. In an event that came to be known as 'relieving military command after a glass of wine', all the generals present 'voluntarily' requested to be relieved of their military commands the next day 'due to poor health', in exchange for mon¬etary rewards and a life of semi-retirement.
For similar reasons, despite coming from a military background himself and being suspicious of educated men, Emperor Taizu actively promoted the status of civilian intellectuals over the military. As a result, the Chinese intelligentsia flour¬ished in the Song, producing some of the greatest cultural achievements in China's history. However, the policy of promoting culture at the expense of the military, as well as measures to strengthen the central government's overall control of military and financial affairs, had serious side effects, the most prominent being a weak national defence against external threats. The Song not only lost opportunities to subjugate the Khitan Liao, but were also threatened by the independent Tangut Xia state. The most significant legacy of this policy, however, was the permanent loss of (northern) Vietnam, which had been ruled by China for over a thousand years.
For the Song's founding emperor, the early cultural success of his new dynasty came to a sudden end on the night of 14 November 976, when he died after a drinking party with his younger brother, who immediately succeeded to the throne. A Song Buddhist monk, Wenying, described the event as 'the sound of an axe under the shadow of candles', and the circumspect Song historian, Sima Guang, hinted at a coup.