The History of China - #134 - N. Song 2: Golden Cupboard, Flickering Shadows

Episode Date: December 14, 2017

Zhao Kuangyin has seized the north and now aims to reunify China under his new Song Dynasty by smashing the south. And it’s super effective! But when a strange order of succession leaves question mark surrounding his legacy, it’s anyone’s guess as to what will happen next. Time period covered: 960-976 CE Major Historical Figures Emperor Taizu of Song (Zhao Kuangyin) [r. 960-976] Emperor Taizong of Song (Zhao Guangyi) [r. 976-997] Prince Zhao Dezhao [951-979] Chancellor Zhao Pu [922-992] Liu Chang, Emperor of Southern Han [r. 958-972] War Elephants!!! Li Yu, King of Southern Tang [r. 961-976] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. History isn't black and white, yet too often it's presented as such. Grey History, The French Revolution is a long-form history podcast dedicated to exploring the ambiguities and nuances of the past. From a revolution of hope and liberty to the infamous Reign of Terror. You can't understand the modern world without understanding the French Revolution. So search for the French Revolution today. Bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, ba-ba-bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, along Old Valyria with the Iron Fleet, venture to the furthest reaches of Yunkai by the Shadow, and explore the frozen wastes of the Others' domains in the lands of always winter. So take a trek with Aziz and Ashaya to Westeros, with the history of Westeros, wherever fine

podcasts are peddled. Do it today. After all, winter is coming. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 134, Golden Cupboard, Flickering Shadows When last we left off, the newborn Song Dynasty, under its founding emperor Zhao Kuangyin, aka Taizu, had pulled off a fantastic judo maneuver and supplanted the later Zhou regime by turning its own strength against it. Taizu had then consolidated his absolute authority over the bulk of northern China by

ensuring that virtually none of the people who had helped him overthrow the last dynasty remained in a position capable of doing the same to him, before deciding in the midst of a snowstorm that he ought to conquer the south before dealing with his enemies in the north. That's a bold move, Cotton. Let's see how that works out for him. It must be said again that there was every reason to leave the north alone for now, and to focus southward. Though later Zhou had done much to bring stability to the region, and even a measure of prosperity, the fact remained that it still paled in comparison, economically and culturally, to the disunited but prosperous and vibrant southern states,

a region seemingly out of nowhere, with nearly limitless potential for he who would dare to knit it back together. Professors Lao and Huang write, quote, with this economic power, the new dynasty first held off and then bought off its foreign enemies and sustained a cultural efflorescence centered on the south, end quote. In other words, it'll wind up going pretty darned well indeed for Taizu and his successors. The first of the southern kingdoms to fall before the rising might of Song will surprise precisely no one. That's right, tiny, vulnerable Jingnan, which you'll remember from our sweep of the southern kingdoms two episodes ago, existed purely by the grace of its neighbor's charity and goodwill. As it turned out, Taizu wasn't even really focused on Jingnan

itself. Much like Belgium was to Germany at the outbreak of the First World War, Jingnan simply stood in the way of the most logical path to the real target, the kingdom of Chu to the southeast. Sorry, Jingnan. It's nothing personal. It's just business. This path would prove to be the key to unlocking the south for the Song, as Jingnan and Chu, quote, pierced the south like a dagger. Along its edges were the later Shu on the west and the southern Tong on the east. The All this was precipitated in 962 when the king of Chu died, leaving his throne to his 11-year-old son, who almost immediately faced an uprising by one of his generals. The young monarch, or more precisely, his court,

somehow thought it would be a great idea to send a call for aid to Kaifeng and the Song imperial court, to which Taizu eagerly responded in the affirmative. Why, yes, I'd be more than happy to liberate your lands from you, I mean for you. I'll be right there. The so-called relief army traversed through tiny Jingnan, terrifying its ruler into immediate submission. But by the time it had reached the border of Chu, well, wouldn't you know it, the revolt had already been suppressed. And I guess we won't be needing your help after all, Taizu. Thanks anyway, but you can now head home.

Wait, why aren't you stopping? Taizu, what are you doing? Taizu, stop! But the Song force had no intention of stopping, much less heading home without its prize, the Chu capital, Tanzhou, which within three months fell before the unstoppable Song military juggernaut. This time, the emperor seems to have let his forces rather more off the leash than his earlier conquest of later Zhou,

possibly seeing less of a reason to force them to toe the line in terms of discipline, since this was, after all, more of a shock and awe expedition than it was a conquest with intent to live and govern there thereafter. As such, rumors spread far and wide, telling of riots in the streets, mass looting of the city, and even wild reports of the Song troops practicing cannibalism, which on the whole seems a little bit unlikely. Regardless, with the 17 prefectures of Chu firmly in hand, a first in more than 50 years for any northern dynastic power to hold so much territory south of the Yangtze, and an additional quarter million households providing not just taxation and manpower, but all the riches the Southlands had to offer, rich stores of rice, fish, tea, silver, copper, tin, and iron flowing into the

north. The conquest of Chu not only threw the Song military machine into overdrive, but also completed a strategic objective that was arguably at least as important. That is, in taking Chu, Song had managed to completely isolate and entrap the Sichuan kingdom of later Shu, which found its access to trade via the Yangtze, as well as its communication lines to southern Tang, suddenly and completely cut off. Later Shu's ruler, named Meng Chang, no doubt rightly guessed that it was all just so much buildup to an outright invasion of his kingdom by a Song state drunk on victory. Seeking out whatever allies he could to thwart such an imminent attack, in late 964, he dispatched a series of secret emissaries to northern Han, seeking out a defensive alliance against further Song aggression. But their journey was long, and Song

coin was plentiful. So, wouldn't you know it, while stopping off at Kaifeng, one of the Shu emissaries spilled the beans about their mission, which was exactly the kind of pretext Song needed to justify an expedition against later Shu. Whoops. As with the conquest of Chu, the Song armies moved with lightning speed through the hills and valleys toward their far western foe, along two paths aimed at providing the state no reprieve and no escape. One army moved directly south from Song territory through the mountain passes, while a second column proceeded from east to west along the course of the Yangtze, in order to cut off any retreat and press the state into a fatal vice. As it turned out though, two armies was twice what turned out to be needed. The northern army smashed through the initial Shu defenders with apparent ease and took up positions within the it turned out, though, two armies was twice what turned out to be needed. The northern army smashed

the initial Shu defenders with apparent ease and took up positions within the Jianmen Pass, the final natural barrier between them and the Shu capital at Chengdu, before their shell-shocked enemy could even muster a response. The Shu reinforcements were led by the reportedly incompetent son of the Shu ruler, however, and when they wandered into the mountain pass, clearly under bad intel, they were ambushed and overwhelmed, leaving the path open and clear for the Song army. Within just two months, later Shu had been forced to surrender to Song. A war begun and over so blazingly fast that it had reached its conclusion before the second Song army had even arrived at the theater of war. This time, the victorious Song armies were let completely

off the chain, and they commenced with a brutal slaughter of surrendering troops, raping, and looting. This proved too much for even the defeated populace to bear, and Lao and Huang write, quote, distressed and fearful over what might happen to them under the Song occupation. Over 100,000 discontented peasants and surrendering soldiers rose in rebellion against their occupying forces. Pacifying this rebellion took the Song armies almost two years until the end of 966 to complete, end quote. So remember kids, it's almost always better to be gracious in victory as well as defeat. In the aftermath of this PR nightmare, Emperor Taizu took swift and decisive action

by removing all but one of the commanding officers, the only one who did not permit his troops to loot or pillage from their posts. But it wasn't just because they'd been total jerks that Taizu punished his commanders, but at least as much because the cost and time it took to suppress the revolt virtually ate up all the profits the initial conquest had netted the state. Plus, it had delayed the further plans of military operations by those two years the pacification had taken, which is to say it was a royal screw-up. But there was at least a lesson to be learned from such a debacle, and one that Taizu took to heart in the future. Going forward, he would always, always be sure to keep all of his troops under tight discipline and keenly aware of the price of their losing

control. The next expedition undertaken by Song would wait a further two years, and seems to have been one born more out of sheer opportunism than overall stratagem. Because this time it was not aimed at the south, but little northern Han, the small state that found itself wrapped in a sudden political crisis following the assassination of its newly enthroned second ruler, and then the minister who had orchestrated the killing urging the new new king to surrender to Song at once. Yep, sometimes these things just fall into your lap like that. Haizhou sent forth his armies in early 969, and had surrounded the Han capital and beaten back the reinforcements sent by Han's Khitan allies. Over the course of the next three months, the Song force attempted to divert the nearby river to flood the city and force its capitulation. But when those efforts failed and the siege dragged on,

it became clear that military morale was dipping dangerously low among the Song troops, and the cost of maintaining this operation was spiraling quickly out of control. When heavy spring rains sowed camp diseases among the besiegers, and reports of additional Khitan relief armies approaching from the north, reaching his court, Taizu, at last, and reluctantly, agreed to call off the siege and pull his armies back. To heck with Northern Han, who needed it? No, Taizu had an even better prize in mind that

would quickly put any thoughts of the failed siege out of his troops' mind. Southern Han sat on the southern tip of China like an oyster just waiting to be plucked and devoured, and Taizu now intended to add that pearl to his collection. Following an extremely ill-advised encroachment by Southern Han into the Hunanese territories of what had formerly been Chu, the ruler of Southern Han, a cruel tyrant named Liu Chang, sealed his fate when he flatly refused a Song message demanding his submission to the throne. Game on. In the 9th month of 970, Song forces began streaming into the southern state en masse, and within four months had taken up positions on the outskirts of Guangzhou.

Liu Chang responded by counterattacking with war elephants. That's right, freaking war elephants. Edward H. Schaeffer writes in his article, War Elephants in Ancient and Medieval China, in the publication Oriens, The only nation on Chinese soil to ever maintain a line of elephants as a regular part of its army was Southern Han, which had its capital in Canton in the 10th century. This development may be attributed to two factors. First, geographical, the local abundance of elephants. Second, cultural, the proximity of Annam and Champa, where war elephants were in ordinary use. The Han Elephant

Corps was commanded by an officer who bore the title of Legate Dignate and Adjutant of Gigantic Elephants. The beasts had been captured and trained in Han itself. Each carried ten or more men, presumably on some sort of platform, and all were stationed in line before the host. This battalion, under the command of Wu Xun, was effective during the Han invasion of Chu in AD 948, especially at the Battle for the Hull. However, it was finally broken in the unsuccessful defense of Shao on January 23rd, 971 by the crossbows of the victorious armies of Song. Thereafter, this exotic introduction into Chinese culture passed out of history, and the tactical habits of the North prevailed." Yes, it turned out that even war elephants were afraid of flaming arrows, and when they were employed en masse by the Song archery corps,

the southern defenders were utterly routed. With his elephants having failed, Leo resorted to constructing a massive stockade outside his palace to halt the invaders. And then his eunuchs got an idea. Wouldn't it be great if we set all the treasures in the palace on fire? That way, there will be nothing left for the Song emperor to take from you, your majesty. And so, when the Song army set fire to the outer barricades, the eunuchs within set fire to the duly gathered and stacked treasures

as a giant burning middle finger to the Song. And oh yeah, you'd better believe Taizu received the message loud and clear. When all was said and done, and southern Han was under the Song's thumb, Taizu ordered those arsonist eunuchs all gathered together and cut down where they stood. Even so, despite this loss to the royal treasury, Taizu was still able to add more than 170,000 households and 60 prefectures to his rolls, so it wasn't a total loss. By this point, Wuye, on the Yangtze Delta,

had been brought under Song dominance as a tributary state through little more than negotiations and an understanding of the clear inevitability of what was to come. And so that left just southern Tang as the last truly formidable state left standing against Song. It was by far the wealthiest and most populous of the southern kingdoms, with some 881,000 households across 33 prefectures, and as such, Taizu wished to avoid bruising that particular peach before he could pluck it, and aimed for a peaceful annexation rather than the ravages of war. He had high hopes for this strategy, especially given that he had by now been able to completely surround the state to the north, west, and south. This had been partially accomplished in the early 970s, when southern Tang had accepted an inferior but not quite tributary status, wherein it accepted the use of the Song dynastic calendar system

and received its messages as state-level edicts. But that quasi-subservience would only satisfy Taizu for so long, specifically until 974, when Song forces detained the Tang ruler's younger brother at Kaifeng while he was on a diplomatic mission, and then conspicuously deployed its navy up and down the Yangtze as a show of power. This was followed up with messages from the Song court demanding that the ruler of southern Tang personally journey to Kaifeng to pay his respects to the throne. The Tang ruler declined once, twice, and three times, at which point Taizu declared that such disobedience must be punished and he declared war against the state. The Yangtze River had long served as a formidable

nigh impassable barrier for the northern army seeking to attack its southern shores but Song had an app for that. Its strategists had been carefully studying the patterns and ebbs of the river and around the new year of 975, constructed a massive bridge spanning the breadth of the river, constructed out of ships linked together for the army to simply march across. That would all be useless, of course, without the close support and protection of the Song's powerful navy. David A. Graff writes in A Military History of China, quote, The Song navy was vital to continental conquest. Although conceived in continental terms, the entire campaign turned on the ability of the Song navy

first to span the Yangtze with a pontoon bridge, and then to protect that link from repeated attacks by the powerful Southern Tong navy. Every attack on the pontoon bridge jeopardized the army's success on land. The Southern Tong ruler surrendered only after the last of his navy was destroyed or captured, despite the fact that the Song navy had surrounded his capital for some 10 months, end quote. In total, the campaign against Southern Tang would drag on for a full 15 months before its capitulation, representing by far the longest any state would resist annexation by the northern power. When the last fires from his ruined navy had burned to ash and his kingdom lay in ruin, the fallen ruler of Southern Tong, Li Yu, wrote a poem mourning the loss of his fortunes and lamenting his own

gullibility, which had led him to actually execute one of his own top generals when he'd been framed by the Song intrigues as an enemy defector. It goes, as translated by Stephen Birch, When will the last flower fall, the last moon fade? So many sorrows lie behind. Again last night the east wind filled my room. Oh, gaze not on the lost kingdom under the last moon fade. So many sorrows lie behind. Again last night the east wind filled my room. Oh, gaze not on the lost kingdom under the bright moon. Still in her light my palace gleams as jade, only from bright cheeks beauty dies. To know the sum of human suffering, look at this river rolling eastward in the spring. Napoleon Bonaparte rose from obscurity to become the most powerful and significant figure in modern history.

Over 200 years after his death, people are still debating his legacy. He was a man of contradictions, a tyrant and a reformer, a liberator and an oppressor, a revolutionary and a reactionary. His biography reads like a novel, and his influence is almost beyond measure. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast, and every month I delve into the turbulent life and times of one of the greatest characters in history, and explore the world that shaped him in all its glory and tragedy. It's a story of great battles and campaigns, political intrigue, and massive social and economic change, but it's also a story about people, populated with remarkable characters. I hope you'll join me

as I examine this fascinating era of history. Find The Age of Napoleon wherever you get your podcasts. September of the following year, 976, would see Taizu, his subjugation of the South completed at last, turn once again to that little thorn that had been so long in his side to the north, northern Han. He launched a full five armies against the tiny state which had advanced rapidly and quickly put the capital of Taiyuan to siege once more. But then, all of a sudden, on the 17th of November, 976, Taizu suddenly died in the middle of the night at the age of just 49, after a reign of 17 years. This unusual event was blown into a full-on scandal when, inexplicably,

Taizu's younger brother, the Prince of Qin, Zhao Kuangyi, succeeded Taizu to the throne, in spite of the deceased emperor leaving four sons with the eldest, Crown Prince Zhao Dezhao, 25 at the time. As for just why this highly irregular succession took place as such, well, that remains speculative and rather mysterious, the perfect soil in which folktales and rumors are grown. Sima Guang tells of one such delightfully improbable tale. Apparently, at some point following his seizure of power from later Zhou, he had had a conversation with his mother, the Empress Dowager Du, on her own deathbed in 961, who asked him why he thought he had been able to become emperor.

When first Taizu refused to answer, she pressed him again, at which point he replied, I gained the empire thanks to the accumulated merit of my ancestors and you. But his mother rebuked him, no, it was actually because Guo Rong left a child to rule the empire. Had he left an adult ruler, would the empire have been yours? For the sake of your posterity, you should be succeeded by your younger brother. Tears in his eyes, Taizu could only nod his assent and mutter, Dare I not follow the Empress's teaching? At this point, the Empress Dowager ordered the Chancellor, Zhao Pu,

who had been present and listening to the whole interaction, to record this decision and seal the document in a golden cupboard. Thus it was, upon Taizu's own death 15 years later, that when his wife, Empress Song, ordered her eunuch servant, Wang Zilong, to fetch the crown prince to be installed as the new emperor, the eunuch, himself knowing all this somehow or another, and that Taizu's intention to pass the throne on to the Prince of Qin was widely known. So instead of doing what he was darn well told, he went running off to find Zhao Kuangyi, who then proceeded immediately to the palace to take up power. When he entered the throne room instead of the crown prince, the empress was visibly shaken, and stated to her brother-in-law, the lives of myself and my son now rest with you,

to which Kuangyi tearfully replied, together we will ensure prosperity and order without distress. Which, yeah, wraps it all nicely up with a neat little bow, doesn't it? The funny thing about history, though, is that events are rarely that simple, and this whole, the throne should go to your brother to avoid a child emperor conversation was nice and all, but doesn't it seem weird that Taizu had never bothered to rethink that decision once his son was, you know, not a child anymore? Pretty strange. Moreover, the story goes on that apparently Zhao Pu waited until 981 to reveal the Golden Scroll to Zhao Guangyi, by then Song Taizong. According to Lao and Huang, quote, in order to curry favor with him. However, the timing of this supposed revelation is not credible. First, the timing of this supposed revelation is not credible. First, if these events really happened, why did Zhao Pu not reveal them in 976,

when Taizong needed to legitimate his own succession? Second, why would Taizong want the issue of succession reopened after he had already been on the throne for five years? End quote. Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser. But it gets even stranger, because further rumors speculate that it might have been Guangyi himself who was responsible for the death of Taizu, specifically to seize power for himself. From John W. Chaffee in Branches of Heaven, a history of the imperial clan of Song China, quote, Indeed, some give credence to the popular speculation that Taizong murdered his brother. The sound of the axe in the shadow of the flickering candle, or Indeed, some give credence to the popular speculation that Taizong murdered his brother.

The sound of the axe in the shadow of the flickering candle, or chuyin fusheng, as it was commonly described. If not personally, then at least through intermediaries. End quote. The account goes that Guangyi had gone to the palace the night of the emperor's death, and had been alone with him in his quarters. Emperor Taizu's servants, standing outside and at a distance, noticed that his shadow in the window appeared to flicker and dance unusually, appearing to move quite a lot, as though he were dodging something. They then heard what they described as the sound of an axe falling

to the ground, or into a post from somewhere in the palace grounds, though they were unable to determine exactly what or where it had come from, since the several inches of recently fallen snow muffled the sound, and the emperor bellowing, Do it then! Do it well! Later, he fell asleep and snored tremendously, but by the next morning, according to this account at least, the emperor was found dead, supposedly found as such by his very brother. Suspicious indeed, but nothing was, or has ever been,

definitively proven against the Prince of Qin, for that next morning would indeed be enthroned as Emperor Taizong of Song, who would go on to title his new reign era Taiping Xingguo, or the Ascendant State of Heavenly Tranquility, apparently implying that he was better than his brother. Still, this account is pretty thin to put it mildly. It seems somewhat more likely that Guangyi had simply confirmed his fraternal succession with the already dying emperor, especially since no concrete evidence of foul play was ever turned up. Nevertheless, throughout his reign and across time, the

suspicion of this potential murder mystery has hounded his legacy. We'll delve further into Song Taizong next time, but I'd like to spend the rest of today focused on Taizu and his legacy. As the dynastic founder, his impact on the empire he had reformed was singularly important to its overall arc through history. His unification of China was remarkable for its military ease and rapidity, but even more so for the level of leniency he showed his foes, both foreign and domestic. The people of the states he'd conquered, though subject at times to immediate military wrath, were granted amnesties and relieved of the most onerous taxes and corvated duties. Their soldiers were mostly returned to agricultural and the fittest enrolled in Song armies.

Great numbers of their officials with proven abilities or special talents were reappointed to other parts of the empire, and the ruling families of the conquered kingdoms were given honorary titles, generous allowances, and splendid residences in Kaifeng. Some members of former ruling families were even given court appointments. They might well be living in a cage, but Taizu made sure it was a comfortable, gilded one. Taizu's mastery of political manipulations was evident in his running circles around the two Li's attempts to conspire against him in 960, employing a deft combination of crushing military might with political cunning and rapid conciliation with the lesser members of both governors' courts and armies. Likewise, he ensured the unwavering loyalty of his military

governors by tying them all by marriage to himself, and in fact, all of Taizu's empresses were daughters of his jiedushi. Though his career and throne had been made as a military commander, once emperor, Taizu rarely took to the field of battle personally. Nevertheless, his presence was ubiquitous in every conquest. The battle plans were one and all personally drawn up by the emperor, and his troops and their commanders never held any doubt as to who their ultimate and absolute authority was. Much more than a simple, if effective, warlord like so many of his predecessors, Taizu held a certain je ne sais quoi of absolute and overwhelming authority and command that would differentiate the state of Song as a lasting empire rather than ephemeral

warring state. It would of course be impossible to understand Taizu's total grasp of power and the effects that that would have on the state of Song thereafter, though, without looking at his right-hand man, Zhao Pu. In the 12th century continuation of the extended Zizhi Tongjian, historian Li Tao wrote of Zhao's reply to the emperor's question of how to secure a lasting and stable empire. Zhao is written to have replied, The source of previous troubles was none other than the regional military governors becoming too powerful, rendering the dynasty weak and its vassals strong. The solution is to whittle down their power,

check their revenues, and appropriate their crack troops, end quote. It had, in other words, been the progressive devolution of power and authority to the regional and later on even local levels that had led to the collapse of the Tang dynasty, and would require a return to the absolutist centralism embodied by the early Tang and Han states to forge the fractured empire back together for any significant period of time. Moreover, though, it could not rest on an individual leader's sheer charisma, since as soon as he would inevitably die, such a cult of personality would refracture and unmake the whole enterprise. Instead, Zhao argued, successful forging of a lasting dynastic order would require embedding absolutist power into the administrative structure itself, which would then supersede any

individual ruler's lifespan. To that end, the power of the military governors needed to be curtailed permanently. They were quite simply too dangerous to permanent stability to be left as such. In the short term, Taizu's strategy of marrying their daughters to ensure their loyalty would work for him, but what about the rulers after him? That would not be viable long term. So at first he shuffled them around, making sure that they'd been moved out of their power bases. But the coup d'etat came in 977, when, quote, in one stroke, Taizu ordered the remaining 18 Jiedushi to surrender their 40 or so subordinate prefectures to the central government. With few exceptions, they were reappointed as prefects of their headquarter prefectures under the supervision of the fiscal intendants, which I will explain more in a moment.

At the same time, they were forbidden to continue trade either within or outside their jurisdiction. In time, military governors were replaced by court-appointed civil officials, and any new appointment as a jiedushi was little more than an honorific title. Now, as for their ultimate replacements, the civil officials that would oust the military governors, the tongpan, aka the controller generals, which was a position created as early as 963, though they'd initially be charged with overseeing the affairs of the Jiedushi, and only in time come to supplant them entirely. Again from Lao and Huang, quote, In 964, 43 controller generals were appointed to supervise all aspects of prefectural administration. They were charged with overseeing taxation and making sure that the full quota of taxes was forwarded to the capital. A Comptroller General held the same court rank as a Prefect and had the right to send confidential memorials directly to the throne.

Without a Comptroller General's countersignature, no Prefectural Directive was considered valid. In 965, the Comptroller Generals were ordered to send all surplus tax revenues from the Prefectures to the capital. At the same time, military governors were prohibited from signing financial documents and were confined to the use of revenues from their base prefecture alone. In 966, in order to maintain a system of checks and balances, the Comptroller Generals were ordered to obtain their prefects' counter signatures when issuing orders and vice versa. By that time, at intervals of three years, court officials were increasingly commissioned as prefects under the title of Most of them were civilians, for Taizu optimistically thought that their excesses would be far less harmful than the abuses of military men.

Above this local level, the regional position of fiscal intendant, or chuanyunshi, were created to govern the imperial circuits. These prototypes for civil government would serve as the model for all future intendant positions within the Song bureaucracy, as they proved highly successful in their tasks of both provisioning the circuit armies and logistical matters at first, but with their powers and authorities rapidly expanding to include all aspects of regional governance. By 1966, they were in charge of not only finances, but also tax collection, census data, labor requisition, the judiciary, supervision of subordinate officialry, and a variety of social and educational duties, some even becoming so powerful in their own right that they could act as a direct representative of the emperor himself. The fiscal intendant,

Li Fu, for instance, who governed the region southwest of the capital, was given a banner by Taizu declaring, quote, wherever Li Fu goes, it is as if his majesty goes in person, end quote. Alright, so that wraps up the reign of Emperor Taizu of Song, which means next time we'll be launching into the life and times of Song Taizong, who in spite of his questionable succession, will nevertheless do his utmost to earn that name. After all, as Tang Taizong would have surely told Song Taizong, you can't make an omelette without killing a few brothers. Thanks for listening. 400 years ago, a trio of tiny kingdoms were perched on some damp islands off the coast of

Europe. Within three short centuries, these islands would become the centre of an empire which ruled a quarter of the globe and on which the sun never set. I'm Samuel Hume, a historian of the British Empire, and my podcast Pax Britannica follows the people and events that built that empire into a global superpower. Learn the history of the British Empire by listening to Pax Britannica everywhere you find your podcasts, or go to pod.link slash pax.