The History of China - #139- N. Song 7: The Heavenly Text Affair

Episode Date: April 1, 2018

After feeling forced to sign the costly and humiliating Treaty of Chanyuan with the Liao Dynasty to end the Liao-Song War, Emperor Zhenzong needs a pick-me-up to make himself feel better. He thinks that a ritual that hasn't been performed in 3 centuries might be the way... and that's when the text messages from Heaven start popping up in his inbox... Time Period: 1004-1022 CE Major Historical Figures Emperor Zhenzong of Song (Zhao Heng)[r. 997 - 1022] Wang Qinruo, Minister of Grand Ritual [c. 962 – 1025] Chancellor Kou Zhun [c. 961 – 1023] Du Hao, Imperial Antiquarian. Minister Sun Shi, Grand Imperial Buzzkill. Major Works Cited: Cahill, Suzanne E. "Taoism at the Sung Court: The Heavenly Text Affair of 1008" in Bulletin of Sung and Yüan Studies, No. 16. Choi, Mihwa. Death Rituals and Politics in Northern Song China. Lau Nap-Yin and Huang K'uang-Chung. "Founding and Consolidation of the Sung Dynasty" in The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 5: The Sung Dynasty and Its Precursors, Part 1. Li, Tao. Xu Zizhi Tongjian Changbian ("The Extended Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Government") Sima, Guang. Sushui Jiwen ("Records of Rumors from Sushui"). Toqto'a and Alutu. Songshi ("The History of the Song"). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Four hundred 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 China. Episode 139, The Heavenly Text Affair Last time, we ended off with the final conclusion of the Liaosong War with the Treaty of Chanyun in 1004 that established a permanent border between the two empires, reopened the border

trade cities between them, saw both states formally acknowledge one another as effective equals, and forced China to pay a large annual indemnity to the Liao, as well as effectively giving up on his long-standing goals to reclaim the lost 16 prefectures of Yan Yun. We talked about how, in spite of it being a bitter pill that was indeed difficult for the Chinese court to swallow. In the end, it wasn't actually all that bad, since after all, Song had not actually lost any new territory. It had concluded what would prove to be an enduring peace at a relatively minimal cost to itself, and the territorial claims it had been forced to cede were, well, let's be honest, already in Khitan hands. It did, however, look really bad, and especially at the time.

So today we're going to be following Emperor Zhenzong as he tries to wash that taste of defeat out of his mouth by any and all means available. So first off, regarding that treaty, as the initial glow of having conducted a final peace with the Liao started to wear off, the idea that it was an imperial diplomatic victory began to fade as well. From Suzanne Cahill, quote, The peace treaty guaranteed the Khitan Liao dynasty an annual payment and pseudo-familial relations between the two families were established. The Liao history, undoubtedly reflecting terminology current at the time, calls the Song payments, which arrived annually from 1005 on, as tribute or gong. The annual payment, which at first had seemed a welcome substitute for the warfare that had proved so costly in human lives as well as material resources,

soon became an irritant, which constantly reminded the Song court of the ever-present military danger from the Liao, as well as of Song's own humiliating weakness. As the diplomatic pill turned poisonous in the Song's court stomach, one thing became crystal clear. Someone was going to have to be hung out to dry, and it wasn't going to be the emperor. Why was that? Because it was embarrassing, costly, and it made China look bad. We conquer, subdue, and colonize the barbarians. We don't recognize their sovereignty or officially give away our territory to them. Yes, indeed, someone was going to have to pay. And that someone would be Chief Imperial Counselor Ko Jun, by his longtime rival and the head of the Bureau of Military Affairs, Wang Qingrou.

In an audience with the Emperor, Wang is said to have stated, Does your majesty know about gambling? When gamblers are about to lose everything, Ko had indeed been playing him for a fool, and had then been instrumental in negotiating the humiliating peace treaty at its conclusion. Soon had Kojun fired, and drummed out of the officialdom in a humiliating and public manner in the second month of 1006. This torpedoing of Ko's career would be the event that would begin Wang's meteoric rise. By late the following year, Zhenzong, still rather despondent and disheartened thanks to Wang's own convincing that the treaty had been shameful

rather than pragmatic, again asked Wang how best he could rid himself of the sense of shame at the arrangement. Knowing that the emperor was sick of fighting and would never allow any warlike suggestion, Wang disingenuously replied that the emperor could go out with an army and secure the territory by force. When the emperor asked for his next best suggestion, Wang engaged in the following dialogue from historian Sima Guang's Su Shui Ji Wan, or the Records of Rumors from Su Shui. Quote, Recently, the state has wished to subjugate the Khitans, which it has not been able to accomplish. The barbarian's nature reveres heaven and believes in spirits. Now, if the state were to abound with auspicious talismans and introduce the mandate of heaven for self-esteem,

barbarians wouldn't dare belittle China by hearing this. End quote. Wang would go on when asked by Dunzong how such an outcome might come to pass. If your majesty does not seek to use military force, then you must accomplish a great task. You might be able to conquer the whole world and show off China to the barbarians. The emperor said, what can be called a great task? To which Qin Rou replied, it is none other than the Feng Shan ritual. Ah, yes, the sacrifice of Feng and Shan, conducted atop the holiest mountain in all of China, Mount Tai, the mountain of peace, the very site in modern Shandong,

where the spirits and gods descended to earth and where heaven and earth were still bridged. In the course of this ritual, a sovereign was to build an earthen altar at the summit to report his reign's merits and greatness to heaven, and then clear the land at the mountain's foot to express gratitude to the god of the earth. All in order to affirm the emperor's position as divinely apportioned mediator between the two. Mi Hua Choy writes in Death Rituals and Politics in Northern Song China, quote, Although, clearly, offering the Fenshan ritual had the potential of elevating the status of the

ruler, the relative infrequency and the context in which the ritual had traditionally been performed made it an unlikely choice. It was typically performed only in times of great prosperity and peace, as an offering of thanksgiving to heaven for granting such blessings. As a practical matter, this made perfect sense, since the emperor had to take the substantial risk of leaving the capital city for one and a half months of travel. Thus, prior to Zhenzong, it had only been completed ever before five times, as the gods would never allow any evil or unworthy emperor to reach the mountain summit. Legendarily, the rite had been first performed by Emperor Xun,

the fourth of the supposed five semi-divine sovereigns prior to the Xia dynasty. Possibly second was the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who might have completed the ritual in 219 BC, though other sources claim he attempted it three times, only to be forced back by the weather or the gods when they decided to turn against his brazenness in seeking out their blessing for his reign of terror. Next though would be Wu of Han, three times between 110 and 98 BCE. Then Guangwu of Eastern Han, albeit very reluctantly, in 56 CE. Gao Zong of Tang and Empress Wu Zetian completed the rites together in 666, and Tang Xuanzong had been the final emperor to perform the rite to completion in the winter of 725. There was just one slight little hiccup to this plan. You see, as an ardent and devoted

practitioner of Taoism, Zheng Zong needed to have the proper signs from heaven showing that he had the god's blessing to go forward with this holy ritual. He wasn't alone in this. Many emperors across time had attempted the Fengshan sacrifices only to flee the mountain entirely when the gods had showed their disapproval. The first emperor, Qian Shouhuang, had twice attempted the rites only to flee when storms rolled in. Emperor Wen of Sui had performed a smaller ritual at the foot of Mount Tai, but hadn't dared attempt the ascent to the peak in 595. And even mighty Taizong of Tang had attempted, and failed, three attempts to perform the ritual. It was no laughing matter that one must, must, be sure that heaven blessed the emperor before he proceeded.

The risk to the emperor's personal safety, and at least as important, his reign's reputation, was at stake. The key component was the receipt of a heavenly item called a fu, meaning a tally, conferring the mandate of heaven upon the ruling sovereign. And so, it was determined that Zhenzong would simply need to wait for heaven to send auspicious tokens of its approval. And there was nothing to do but wait and hope. Or was there? Minister Wang Qirou said, well, actually, and then it was off to the races.

He reasoned that, in fact, it didn't really matter where these tokens came from or who actually made them. Regardless of all that, they could still be valid as omens from heaven. He even went so far as to suggest that previous emperors who had received such heavenly documents had done exactly the same thing, pointing to the Yellow River chart and the Low River texts as what he deemed obvious examples of human forgery that had nevertheless been successfully used by dynasties past to carry out the feng shan rituals. He said, quote, In the past, there were cases in which humans caused the signs to appear. If people have a profound belief in what is declared to be true and venerated, it is tantamount to a heavenly sign. End quote. I mean, it doesn't matter what it actually is.

All that matters is that people believe in it, and it serves that purpose to completion. The belief in its power makes it powerful. Wang Qinrou, everybody. Chaos magician extraordinaire. For his part, Zhenzong seemed unconvinced. And so he asked the smartest guy he knew, the classical scholar and antiquarian Du Hao. The scholar Du, unaware of what was really actually being proposed here, I like to think replied, This is all strictly hypothetical,

isn't it, Zhenzong? All academic? To which I like to think, Zhenzong smiled and said, of course, sir, it'll be our little secret. And then Du Hao rather ambiguously sort of kind of confirmed that maybe, possibly, these old omens might have been made by humans rather than by heaven itself, stating cryptically that, quote, The texts were none other than what the sage used the spirit's words for teaching, end quote. And apparently that fortune cookie answer was enough for Zhenzong to assent to the plan. Now, it's worth exploring the kind of religious mindset that was prevalent at this time within the Song Empire. Again, from Cahill, quote, To a person of Song, a document purporting to be of divine origin, but made by human hands, was not necessarily a forgery. It might indeed represent a message from heaven. Whether an object was of human manufacture or not would not affect its potency or authenticity.

What mattered was that the omen be appropriate, accurate, and legitimate in religious terms. In other words, it might not have been the omen Song deserved, but it was the omen it needed right now. By this line of understanding, it's conceivable that Wang wasn't actually attempting to deceive or trick the emperor at all, but rather urging him to follow the ancient usage and precedence of ritual validity. It would be some two months later, in the 11th month of 1007, when the emperor reported a mystical experience that had occurred to him the night before. From the Yuan-era history of Song, Zhenzong recounted, When I was about to go to bed, all of a sudden I saw that one room was very bright. In surprise, I looked at it and saw a divine being. He told me,

You should establish a ritual enclosure for yellow register purgation in the audience hall for one month. Thereupon, three pieces of the great central tally of auspiciousness will descend from heaven. Do not reveal heaven's plan. When I quickly stood up to address him, he had already disappeared. End quote. From that day forward, Zhenzong observed a strict vegetarian diet and made immediate preparations to carry out the spirit's command. The ritual enclosure was constructed, a carved wooden carriage with gold and jewel decorations, and offerings for divine blessings were carried out daily within the palace. One month later, on the first day of the first month of 1008, the first heavenly text magically appeared. Ooh. Ah. It was found early

that morning by one of the palace gatekeepers on his patrol. He reported that hanging from the left side of the Chengtian Gate was a yellow silk cloth flapping in the breeze, attached, apparently, to the roof tiles. The emperor ordered his officials to observe and report this interesting development, and they dutifully reported back that it is a silk cloth, about two feet long, sealed like a scroll book. It is tied three times with blue cloth. Where it is sealed, there are faint writings. After considering this for a moment, Zhenzong determined that this, well, must be the heavenly text promised to him, because, I mean, really, what else could it possibly be? The document was removed from the roof and taken to the throne room, and then opened before Zhenzong.

It was read to the emperor, and it said, The Zhao family received the Mandate of Heaven and brought it to glory with the formation of the Song Dynasty. The Mandate will be handed down to eternity. It resides in ritual vessels and is preserved within the legitimate line of succession. Its succession will be assured for 799 generations. End quote. And so on and so forth in very, very ancient style, praising the emperor and the dynasty and laying out codes of proper ritual behavior of purification, yada, yada, yada. Well, okay, Evan. What, did you get

your lawyers to write that for you? I was kind of expecting something a little bit less legalese here. And also, how exactly is 799 generations equal to eternity? And also, while we're at it, it's kind of interesting how you haven't noted the necessity for a legitimate line of succession, but that certainly hadn't seemed to be an issue when Zhenzong's father, Taizong, had semi-usurped the throne from his brother and then systematically denied it to all of Taizu's sons. It's weird how it only matters right now. And also, it's kind of strange how your use of perpetuity using the character Hung is a clear pun of the emperor's personal name, meaning that the sentence could also be read as

the mandate had been handed down in perpetuity, or that the mandate had been handed down to Zhao Heng himself, but I digress. In spite of all of that, it was more than good enough for Zhenzong at his imperial court. After all, it emulated the style and format of all of their very favorite book, the Tao Te Ching, or the Taoist Bible. In any case, Zhenzong's officials sealed the document away in a golden case for its protection, and one and all congratulated the emperor on his totally legitimate document from heaven. That same day, there was a great feast held to honor the occasion, serving, of course, only vegetarian dishes. Soon thereafter, Emperor Zhenzong issued a proclamation stating that a text had descended from heaven and ordered officials to perform the ritual

of announcing this great celestial news to the imperial ancestral shrines and its guardian deities. He likewise declared the beginning of a new reign era, known as Dazhong Xiangfu, meaning the Great Central Tally of Auspiciousness, in honor of the heavenly message confirming his rule. And, well, of course, with a new reign era based on a heavenly blessing, so too came the statewide holiday. A five-day-long bacchanal was proclaimed in celebration, and by these actions, Zhenzong declared the descent of the text to be literally of epoch-making importance.

So just how in on the Khan was good old Emperor Zhenzong? Was he a totally cynical gamesman going forward with full knowledge that his lackeys were manufacturing this whole state of affairs to his own specifications? Or was he more of a deer in the headlights, a piously naive stooge being used by the likes of Wang Qingruo and his underlings to further their own objectives? We're going to get into this more a little bit later on, but for now let me say that there's virtually no question that Wang was the true mastermind behind the whole scheme. But Zhenzong's own complicity has been somewhat more up in the air over time, with some historians leaning towards one answer or the other, pretty much

according to their own biases. In the watch, however, it seems that while Zhenzong doesn't seem to have been a leading figure pushing the ball forward in the scheme, he at the very least had a pretty good idea of what was going on and was just pretty much A-OK with rolling with it, since it suited his own desires and objectives pretty much perfectly. They say I need heavenly documents? Oh, look, heavenly documents. Why should I question these? They seem totally legit to me. Still, it was made to go down much, much easier by virtue of Zhenzong's own deep,

deep piety to Taoism and his belief in supernatural signs and symbols. Think what you may of his vision of the spirits telling him about the documents, but there seems to be no evidence that he, that he made the whole thing up or something like that just to further his political goals. It seems much more likely that Wang Qingrong, learning of the emperor's genuine or genuinely believed vision, simply wove that into plans already in motion. Again, Wang Qingrong, chaos magician extraordinaire. Not exactly everyone was on board with this heavenly train, though. The five leading conspirators, Wang Qingrou, Ding Wei, Cheng Pangyan, Liu Chenggui, and Lin De,

were widely panned and ridiculed by contemporary critics as the five devils in writings for their obvious duplicity. Some opposition was even voiced openly in court. One particularly brave official, Sun Shi, wrote to the emperor in his first memorial, quote, According to what this stupid servant has heard, how could heaven possibly use words, and how could there possibly be such a text? End quote. When his remonstrations were read out to the emperor, Zhenzong could do little more than receive it in stony silence. The Song Empire's neighbors would also show their own contempt for this rather obvious sleight of hand in their responses to the news that the Song Emperor had received confirmation

of the mandate of heaven from the Great Above. Shortly before the Fengsheng sacrifice was to take place in late 1008, for instance, the Liao dynasty sent a request that Zhenzong, in his holy magnanimity, grant them a tremendous sum of money, far in excess of their treaty's stipulated annual payments, specifically an additional 30,000 tails of silver and 30,000 additional bolts of silk, in all an additional 20% over what they'd normally been receiving. But what could the Song government do? Say no? That would betray the whole illusion of them becoming the all-magnanimous and encompassing guarantor of peace and justice across the four corners of the globe if they

responded stingily to such a request. There was just nothing for it. Though this was couched in the language of it being technically a loan, no one was under any actual illusion that it would ever be paid back. Less than two years later, in 1010, the Tanguts of Western Xia would likewise get a turn at the Song Money Teat with a request for 10 million additional bushels of grain to aid in their own famine relief program. With the not-so-subtle subtext, like the Liao before them, that refusal would not only destroy China's image of greatness, but would very likely lead to outright war with its neighbor.

Again, the Song court accepted the lopsided conditions to purchase continued peace, though there were no shortage of calls from the officialdom that this was outright blackmail and should be dismissed out of hand. Lao and Huang write, quote, ritual claims notwithstanding, it was obviously the combination of generous concessions and compliant diplomacy that kept the foreign states at bay, not the religious charisma of the heavenly texts, end quote. In spite of such internal doubts and external cash grabs, Zhenzong and company were determined to move forward, and in the third month of 1008, the emperor ordered the discussion of the Fengshan ritual. Apparently, more than 24,000 people from all walks of life presented requests

that the emperor go ahead with the sacrifices, and I think we can be sure that those were pretty much all pre-screened calls. These included the elder chieftain of Qianfeng County, where Mount Tai was located, writing in and stating on behalf of his home region that, quote, The state received the mandate of heaven for 50 years. It has already brought great peace. Recently, heaven sent down an auspicious tally to make your great virtue manifest. Therefore, it is appropriate to undertake the sacrificial ritual at Tai Mountain in order to give thanks to heaven and earth in return, end quote.

Nevertheless, Zhang Zong apparently remained on the fence, citing the prohibitive cost and stating, quote, It's not stated as such from what I've read, but this strikes me very much as saying, oh no, I couldn't possibly have dessert to the waiter, but then expecting him to talk you into it by rating off the specials. And Ding Wei was right there with the menu in hand, soothing the emperor's monetary worries and telling him that there was always enough money in the treasury to accommodate great plans. Once again, though, another official was there to chime in his own objections to Zhenzong that,

hey, you know, there's actually way more pressing state business that we can and totally should be using this money towards rather than this grandiose back-patting ceremony. Things like, oh, I don't know, the several natural disasters that have been wreaking havoc across the empire these past few years. I mean, Feng Shui is supposed to show that heaven and earth are at total peace, right? What's heaven going to say when it looks down and sees plagues, floods, and famine, huh? In the fourth month, at least according to two sources, yet another heavenly text descended to earth, just as prophesied by the first tally. With that, whatever lingering doubts might have yet lingered in the emperor's mind burned away. Heaven had called, and was now calling back, and Zhenzong was going to answer that

call. 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. He appointed, who else, Wang Qingzhou, as the Commissioner of the Great Ritual, with his lackey, Wang Dan, as the Commissioner of Ritual.

It was decided that the ritual would take place in the 10th month of that same year, since these things, after all, take time. Wang Qingzhou was dispatched in the 6th month to Qianfeng County to begin making preparations, and wrote back to the palace that, quote,

At Mount Tai, a sweet spring bubbled up at Xi Mountain, and an azure dragon appeared, end quote. This was followed shortly thereafter by the most glorious event yet, the discovery of the third heavenly text by a woodsman. From the 12th century historian Li Tao in his Xu Zhizhetongjian Changbian, or the extended continuation to the Zhizhetongjian, quote, at Tai Mountain, a woodworker saw a yellow cloth hanging on a plant. There was writing on it, but he was illiterate. He reported it to an officer, Wang Zhuzheng. Seeing the emperor's name on it, the officer wrote to Wang Qingzhou.

Afterwards, Wang brought the text to the palace. End quote. This news astounded Emperor Zhengzong, who confessed to his court that just the previous month, he'd had another dream-slash-vision with the same divine being who had prophesied the first text, and this time informed him that another would appear at Mount Tai, as had just happened. He immediately accepted the authenticity of the text, and it was read in public with great pomp and reverence. Quote, blessings. I have granted you a blessed sign so that the black-haired masses would know of my blessing. If you secretly guard these words and achieve comprehension of my meaning, your country's

good fortune will be extended forever and eternal life be granted to you." End quote. This time, the message was addressed to the emperor personally rather than to the Zhao family as a whole, explaining why this particular emperor should conduct the sacrifice rather than to the Zhao family as a whole, explaining why this particular emperor should conduct the sacrifice rather than some other Zhao monarch. After this reading, it's reported that all manner of extraordinary and supernatural phenomena began occurring. Wang Qinrou, for instance, sent to the capital some 8,000 pieces of so-called auspicious fungus he'd found and collected, while another individual presented an elixir of five-colored gold jade cinnabar, aka mercury sulfide, or no, Zhao Zong, don't drink that,

get it away from your mouth, young man. Yet more auspicious fungus was found and likewise delivered to the capital, this time purple or red-colored. These omens were more than convincing enough for the emperor and his court, who plowed on full steam ahead toward the 10th month. Now, as I mentioned, it had been quite some time since the Fengshan ritual had last been performed, about 282 years in fact, and the Tang emperors had had to reconstruct the process from the last time it had fallen out of use some six centuries before that, so suffice it to say, everyone was rather out of practice, and the ritual was, as of now, only somewhat understood. Nevertheless, the court officials tasked with reading and preparing for the rituals

did their level best to follow the ancient instructions to the letter, since, after all, Zhenzong himself said in the sixth month, "...this ritual has long not been performed. If the ceremony is not adhered to precisely, how can it achieve its aims?" Officials poured over the ritual texts and argued over every conceivable detail, from what materials should be used to concoct the ritual liquor

to be used, all the way to the size, shape, and even spacing of the altars on which the rituals were to be performed. Everything had to be just so. As the day of days approached, everything just kicked into overdrive. The emperor spent much of his days rehearsing his central role in the hall of venerable governance, and as the 17th day of the ninth month, a nationwide taboo on slaughtering sacrificial animals and playing music was proclaimed. Those high officials and performers who were to directly take part in the sacrifice, including musicians, officers

handling the sacred texts, horsemen, and even common soldiers, were required to observe days of fasting and ritual bathing. As the 10th month rolled around, the emperor once again adopted a strictly vegetarian diet in preparation, though several of his advisors advised against such an action, as the journey to Mount Tai would be very taxing indeed, especially given the winter weather and harsh conditions. And Zhenzong would need to keep his strength up, since it wouldn't do to have him collapsing halfway up the mountain or the like.

But he brushed their worries off. No, if he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. None of this corner-cutting hogwash. Chinese eyes were on the skies as well, and Imperial astronomers reported auspicious stellar movements among the heavenly bodies, especially when all five known planets appeared in the sky in the same color at the same time. On the fourth day of the tenth month, the procession at long last set off from Kaifeng to Shandong amid great fanfare. At the head of this vast procession were

the holy texts themselves, reverently carried within a large jade chariot and followed by soldiers and officials on horseback numbering 1,962, all of whom flew yellow flags high, while legions of drummers and flutists played in perfectly rehearsed concert. Following this were 100 Taoist monks and holy men, and behind them the commissioners of assistants. As the procession passed before the imperial hall, all of the officials bowed deeply as the emperor descended from the palace and took his place beside the heavenly texts within the jade chariot. As the holy procession undertook its journey, some 400 kilometers or 250 miles in all, additional auspicious omens were reported across the country. The heavenly texts were said to begin emitting an ethereal aura, and Wang Qingrong apparently found 8,000 more pieces of auspicious fungi,

and dude, Wang, where are you getting all these mushrooms? In all, the journey took nearly three weeks to make it to the slopes of the looming Mount Tai. And now came the really difficult part, getting to the top of its 1,545 meter peak, which again, if your brain just refuses to process metric like mine, is 5,070 feet. In spite of the treacherous ascent and harsh conditions, and in spite of the fact that he alone among the entire procession had upkept his vegetarian diet. Zhenzong was singularly focused on having this successful sacrifice. When the horses pulling his chariot refused to ascend any further up the mountain,

Zhenzong got out and continued on foot, followed, albeit warily, by the rest of the procession. The ritual, though, went off without a hitch. The whole time, Zhenzong kept the three heavenly texts at his left side, the position of highest honor. When the sacrifices were successfully completed at both the peak and base of the mountain, their procession made its way back towards the capital in stages. Their first stop would be the ancestral temple of Confucius and the shrines of his disciples, as well as the temples of other paragons and heroes of the

ancient and most auspicious of all Zhou dynasty in order to pay respects. The emperor paid homage to the ancient masters and bestowed generous benefactions and donatives to their spirits. In so doing, he was not only emphasizing through further ritual the grand and indeed epoch-making nature of his undertaking, but also tying himself unmistakably with the exemplary figures of China's glorious past. On his way back, the imperial procession was approached by a foreign delegation who presented to Zhenzong a jade tablet inscribed with words, may your majesty accept this gift, your excellence sage lord of China performs the Fengshan ritual, we have therefore come from afar to present this.

And Choi writes, Once the emperor returned to the palace from 47 days of journeying, the previously indifferent Khitans also sent ambassadors to offer their congratulations. The Song believed these visits were a diplomatic achievement which created a momentum, confirming the state's allegiance with other states. So... mission accomplished? Well, let's hold off on the aircraft carrier photo op for now. Though the Fengshan ritual served the emperor's interests at least in the short term, it and he would continue to be plagued by haters and doubters like that obnoxious Sun Shi,

who just wouldn't keep his yap shut about how wasteful, unnecessary, and unjustly self-aggrandizing this all was. He would in fact submit a total of six passionate and point-by-point remonstrations of the ongoing sacrificial rituals between 1008 and 1019. Oh, you thought Zhenzong was done after Fengshan? No, no, no, please. 1009 saw him discover that the Zhao family was actually descended from the divine, when a Taoist ritual specialist called Wang Jie presented to the throne the interesting story that he'd studied under a great grandmaster, also surnamed Zhao, and from whom he'd learned alchemy and had been given a sacred ring and divine sword. By the by, Wang had become utterly convinced that his master was actually the Lord of Immortality,

Commissioner of Destiny, and the Zhao clan's sacred ancestor, and so of course rushed right away to the capital to deliver this great news. Oh, and he expected no reward at all, none at all, but of course would not say no to a little something, like, I don't know, maybe a generalship of the military guard corps of the left? Ten-ten would see Zhenzong conduct the sacrifice of the earth at Fenyin, the second most auspicious ritual after Fengshan. And once again, Sir Buzz Killington, Sun Shi, was right there with a ten-point list of complaints, telling him that it was unnecessary, unjustified, and squandering the people's energy and resources. And to top it all off, his plan wasn't even performing the ritual correctly,

and that if the emperor went through with it, Sun predicted dire consequences for the realm. But Sun still wasn't done. When the emperor went forward anyway, the minister followed up with yet more fiery rebukes of the plan, stating that no Song emperor had ever performed the Fung and Shan, though the issue had often been discussed, because none felt that his prestige and virtue be of sufficiently high order. The preconditions for the performance of the two greatest of all sacrifices had not yet under the Song come into existence. By performing them, the emperor had betrayed his sacred trust, and going so far as to tax Zhenzong for taking all sorts of bizarre phenomena as good omens,

whether they were auspicious or not, and to suggest that everyone was beginning to laugh behind his back. He expressed fear that the emperor might actually delude himself into believing that heaven could be deceived, the people befuddled, and future generations misled. He warned the emperor that he was trifling with great matters. Disloyal advisors were deluding him and leading him down a false path. Regardless, and he may have never even had Sun's remonstrations read to him, Zhenzong would go ahead with the earth sacrifice at Fenyin,

to much the same fanfare, purported omens, and results as the ritual at Mount Tai. In the 10th month of 1013, one of the great pieces of northern Song architecture was at last completed after some six years of construction, the Yuqing Zhaoying Gong, or the Temple of Reflecting and Responding to the Realm of Jade Purity. At enormous expense, the grand temple of more than 2,600 rooms, with a compound in total of some 310 by 410 meters, had initially been projected to require more than a decade to complete. Yet due to the excessive cruelty of the foreman, one of Wang Qingrou's

lackeys named Ding Wei, the laborers doubled their efforts while they broke their backs. Kehoe writes that Ding had, quote, turned night into day, making the workers labor around the clock to complete the building. Despite the rush, he was reputed to be a perfectionist. If a piece of work were not perfect, even though it might be completed down to the surface ornamentation, he would order it ripped down and redone, end quote. The temple was to house and keep safe the heavenly texts, which had been carved into jade and given special enclaves at the heart of the facility. Zhenzong also ordered a statue of himself to be created and placed next to his prized possessions. But Sun was right. Those around the emperor were more and more done with taking these continued spades of omens, prophetic

dreams, and tremendously expensive rituals very seriously at all. By the 9th month of 1015, the anti-Fengshong clique made its swelling ranks apparent through the last will and testament of a recently deceased official, who requested that one of the leading pro-Feng Shong ministers, Ding Wei himself, as a matter of fact, be publicly executed and his head put on display for complicity in the heavenly text incidents and pushing the sacrifices, which he charged had been crimes against the people. This effort backfired, though, when Zhenzong not only brushed the charges against his favored minister off, but instead had the late official's body exhumed and itself publicly beheaded. So, good thing he'd waited until he was already dead to send the message. Still,

it was clear that a large and growing number of officials within the imperial court were at their wit's end regarding the heavenly texts and the ongoing kooky mysticism of their monarch. The following year would cast even more doubts on the heavenly favor of the emperor when a plague of locusts descended upon the capital itself. From Lao and Huang, quote, at first, Zhenzong believed that his faith could minimize the calamity or even quicken the death of the locusts. As proof that it could, some counselors presented heaps of dead locusts and suggested a court celebration. Before the celebration could be held, swarms of live locusts flew over the audience hall, darkening the sky,

making it obvious that both the emperor and his counselors were mistaken. From then on, Zhenzong reportedly began to feel sick. End quote. The year 1017 saw the further unraveling of the faithful, when Zhenzong punished a minister who refused a promotion to a Taoist facility charged with proving the Zhao clan's ancestry back to Taoist divinity, by demoting and disgracing him before the assembled court at the urging of Wang Chinru himself. This incident was the last straw for the formerly faithful, but now wavering, Wang Dan, who praised the demoted minister's uprightness, loyalty, and refusal to get caught up in dishonest plots. Later that year, with his

health rapidly deteriorating and him laying on what would become his deathbed, Wang Dan confessed to his sons that he regretted his involvement in the whole affair, and that he regarded his complicity as the single event that had stained his life and career. He then asked that his family, as an act of his own penitence, have him buried with his head shaved in tonsure and clothed in the simple robes of a Buddhist monk. Though it sounds as though his sons did intend to carry out his father's dying wish, they were forbidden from doing any more than placing the monastic robes into Wang's casket alongside his corpse. A couple years thereafter, in 1019, yet another heavenly text appeared and was again presented to the throne. At this, the nothing if not persistent Sun Shi reminded the emperor of two of his predecessors who had faced similar

situations, Emperor Wu of Han and Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. Sun compared the two, stating that while Emperor Wu had recognized the prophetic hoax being played upon him and ordered the forger executed, Tang Xuanzong had been far more gullible and allowed all manner of forgeries to pass as genuine, which Sun argued had led to the ultimate downfall of the Tang, beginning with the An Lushan rebellion at the end of his reign. Zhenzong, however, continued to ignore poor, put-upon Minister Sun. He really got a feel for the guy. So what exactly might have motivated the emperor

to reject all evidence showing what seems to have pretty clearly been a scheme manufactured by his own flunkies towards their own ends, and instead so uncritically accept the omens that he was receiving as true. Historians of the time tended to remain pretty ambivalent about the emperor's motives, but writers from the succeeding Yuan dynasty had a pretty great explanation. From the 13th century Book of Song, Now the various ministers of the Song, because they knew Khitan customs, and also because they saw that their own ruler was against warfare, accordingly advanced assertions about the established teachings of the divine Tao.

Did they not hope to draw the enemy's attention through these devices and perhaps even cause his aggressive intentions to dissolve? However, they did not consider cultivating the fundamentals, which means, by the way, ensuring that the emperor followed the correct path of governance. Continuing the quote, indeed, their imitations even exceeded their model, and so their own plans came to naught, end quote. In other words, the ministers in on the plot concocted these rituals specifically to overawe the Catan into submissiveness, since they knew that a military solution was off the table, and things just eventually got out of hand. Even this, though, critical though it might be, fails to specify Zhenzong's own motivations. Sima Qian, himself of the Song, though a generation after Zhenzong's reign, believed that Zhenzong was a knowing and willful participant in the fabrication of the heavenly texts through the justification of overawing the Khitan Liao.

As evidence, Sima points out that following his return to the capital after the conclusion of the Fengshan ritual, Zhenzong made a point of paying a visit to Chanyuan, where the treaty with the Liao had last been signed. Sima posits that the trip was specifically to rub the Khitan's noses in his massive ritualistic success. Cahill, however, tempers this explanation, or at least that it was the sole reason for the rituals, and says, quote, the emperor was not reluctant to dazzle foreigners with evidence of heaven's favor, and was fully aware of the tactical value of doing so. However, if he is allowed to have a grain of religious commitment, then he almost certainly

would not have lent himself to hypocritical performances of the most ancient and prestigious of rites, end quote. So it seems most likely that Zhenzong really did believe in the signs he was receiving, or at least that he was able to suspend his own potential for disbelief because he so very much wanted the signs to be true. The real key difference, the one that Zhenzong's detractors never ever let him forget, was the essential nature of the rituals themselves. The Fengshan rites were supposed to be a gigantic thank you to heaven when the realm was at total peace. Definitely not some beseechment to heaven to make that peace come to pass, because homie don't play that. But it seems possible, and perhaps

even likely, that Junzong was kind of trying to tweak the rules here towards that latter goal. Or at least that performing the sacrifices in an attempt to act as though that worldwide peace had already come to pass, and by succeeding through sheer force of will, would just, you know, make it true. If he could just manage to get heaven's blessing, then the good times surely could not be far behind. In the end, though, as we've seen, all the rituals and sacrifices, and at least the seeming devoutness, couldn't alter the awkward position in which Zhenzong found his reign or his empire, nor the several natural disasters that would so inopportunely mar his claims to heavenly blessing. Just two months shy of his 54th birthday, Emperor Zhenzong would die in 1022.

The circumstances of his death have not really been able to ascertain, but it seems to have been either of natural causes or illness. And as the heavenly texts were at his side through all of his great Taoist rituals and sacrifices, so too did Zhenzong order them buried with him. This may have been so selfish a reason as simply wishing to take it with him, but far more likely there was at least some part of the guy who realized that they'd done his empire no actual good and had been predicated, ultimately, on a series of lies and distortions. Thus, he might have simply wished to do his kingdom one final favor by scrubbing it of their fabricated, expensive, and ultimately humiliating existence. As a Yuan-era book of song would conclude, quote, alas, how wise, end quote.

As we move forward then, we're going next to get into the reign of the longest reigning of all Song emperors, Renzong, who would sit the throne for just over 41 years, beginning in 1022. But before that, I'm going to be scraping all those different pages and sites for the questions you've been leaving, and striving to answer them in the upcoming and long-awaited Turn of the Century Q&A. If you hurry, there might still be time for you to sneak yours in under the wire, so don't delay. Ask today. And as always, thanks for listening. Hey all, before letting you off the hook today, let me plug my fellow Agora member and good friend Thomas Daly's show, American Biography, a podcast that looks at American history by following the course of human events and examining the lives of important, if less discussed, Americans who have exerted great influence upon the nation's development. So far, Tom has taken an incredible deep dive into one of the men that fundamentally shaped the character of the American Republic, its first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Marshall. And, you know,

if you listen long enough, you just might hear yours truly pop in for a few whimsical side quests. Once again, that's American Biography by Thomas Daly, available on iTunes or at acast.com slash American Biography. The American story as told through Americans' stories. 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.