The History of China - #165 - S. Song 8: The Kaixi War

Episode Date: May 4, 2019

Chancellor Han Tuozhou is down-but-not-yet-out following his ill-fated attempting to bring down the Neo-Confucians. Thus, in an attempt to salvage his career and reputation, he'll launch the Song Empire into full-scale war against the Jin Dynasty... with unexpected results. Time Period Covered: ca. 1200-1207 CE Major Historical Figures: Emperor Ningzong of Song Empress Yang Chancellor Han Tuozhou Minister Shi Miyuan General Wu Xi Commissioner Cheng Song 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. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 165, The Kaixi War.

Last time, the Song court of Ningzong had been convulsed by the conflict between the stodgy Neo-Confucians of Zhu Xi and the rising power of the soon-to-be High Chancellor, Han Tuozhou. The conflict had resulted in something of a stalemate. Though Zhu Xi himself was dead by the first years of the 13th century, via old age and not assassination, I should remind you, and the majority of his followers were no longer a part of the government, Han Tuozhou had been thoroughly embarrassed by the scuffle. His attempt to blacklist the Neo-Confucians had blown up in his face, as had his attempt to reintegrate them into the court after the fact. Both had left them looking morally superiorate them into the court after the fact. Both had left

them looking morally superior, and him looking the incompetent fool. Yet, Han remained in power at the emperor's side, and so, as of 1204, he began searching for another way to take the egg off of his nose and repair his image. Today, then, we're going to be looking at Han's efforts to win himself acclaim, victory, and a place in the history books. But first, we're going to be looking at Han's efforts to win himself acclaim, victory, and a place in the history books. But first, we're going to take a closer look at what would be his target, the mighty Golden Empire of the Jurchen, the Jin Dynasty. On its face, at the dawn of the 13th century, the Jin looked to be at the height of their power. Militarily, they were the dominant force in East Asia, and had repeatedly shown that they were more than a match for Song Chinese forces in any battle conducted north of the Yangtze River. They controlled the very heartland of the ancient Chinese civilization, including the ancestral

lands and the ancestral shrines of the Song emperors, indicating that they were well on their way to being able to lay claim to the mandate of heaven in truth, as well as pretense. If they were not quite the most populous of the East Asian empires —that distinction still went to the Song's 60 million compared to the Jin's 50 million people— they were sure close. And in spite of ongoing formal prohibitions by the Jin court against the Jurchen succumbing to sinicization, more and more they were adopting Chinese language, dress, culture, and social mores.

Again, from the outside looking in, it seemed that now more than ever, the jinn was a firmly rooted and established powerhouse that was set to rule northern China and Manchuria for generations to come. How ironic it seems then, that within a single lifespan, the jinn would go from prime actor on the East Asian game board to little more than a historical speed bump. But as the old saying goes, no matter how mighty the tree, even a gentle breeze can knock it down if it's rotted from within. Even by the 1190s, there were worrisome signs of what Herbert Frank terms imminent decline. One of the major factors explaining this weakening from within was something both entirely beyond the control of any government of the period, and as old as China itself, the boon and Bain that was the Yellow River.

The 1180s and 90s had seen it flood the farm plains of Shandong and Hebei repeatedly, and in 1194, it even opened up two entirely new courses, grounding some areas and desiccating others. The regions worst affected were some of the most fertile and productive of the entire empire, and their loss, especially over several successive years, had plunged vast stretches of the gene into all the consequences we might expect—famine, social upheaval, population displacement, and large upticks in crime and banditry. This, predictably, destabilized the government's tax base, resulting both in their inability to effectively provide

relief to all the afflicted areas, as well as feeling forced to levy even heavier rates of taxation onto those unaffected areas, thus increasing their dissatisfaction with the central government. This dissatisfaction was certainly not helped by the diverse makeup of the Jin Empire. As a conquest dynasty, the Jurchen lorded over an ethnically diverse population, primarily Han Chinese, but also ethnic Koreans, Khitan, Mongols, and numerous other nomadic and semi-nomadic clans and tribes that either lived directly under the rule of the Golden Emperor, or as many, especially the northwestern populations referred to him, the Altan Khan, or paid him homage and tribute. The Khitan especially, as the descendants of the prior Liao dynasty that the Jurchen had wiped out and replaced a century prior,

were of particularly tenuous loyalty to their Jurchen paymasters. This, combined with the Jurchen's adoption of the old Chinese border policy of staffing its frontier armies with foreign troops, the old use the barbarians to deal with the barbarians line, it meant that ultimately, the guys with the weapons weren't ever particularly on great terms with those they were supposed to defend. As we'll see in relatively short order, that will all come around to bite the gene in the butt in rather spectacular fashion. Speaking of which, all of these internal rumblings and grumblings was further exacerbated by a rising series of increasingly bold barbarian border raids along the northern and western frontiers. By 1192, the Jinhai command had begun to awaken to the increased danger posed by these bolder and more daring transgoby forces striking into their territories with greater and greater regularity. Such was the measure of the problem that in the decade to follow, its emperor, Changzong,

would order large-scale border fortifications constructed and manned against these Ongirad, Tatar, Saljud, and other bands. Not content to rest on the defensive behind their border walls, the Jin likewise actively pursued a series of punitive campaigns into the steppe people's territories, inciting smaller bands against larger ones, including against their longtime ally, the Tatars. None of this, however, happened for free. Frank writes that these measures, quote, severely taxed the resources of the Jin, just at a time when the Yellow River floods had hit their agricultural surplus areas in northern China. The government resorted to confiscating Chinese-owned lands, chiefly those of tax evaders, and gave them to reliable Jurch's, end quote. This,

of course, only served to further inflame the ethnic tensions between the Han populace and the Jurchen overlords. All in all, the Jin had their hands very full indeed. Between floods, famine, pestilence, plagues of locusts, barbarians, rebellions, banditry, and ethnic strife, the last thing they needed or wanted was yet another chainsaw to juggle in the form of a flaring up of old conflicts to the south. Their very clear policy at this point was to do everything in their power to maintain the live-and-let-live ideology with the Song Empire, and to adhere scrupulously to the terms of their treaty with the southern regime. The southern Song was very much aware of the majority of its northern neighbor's difficulties.

Twice per year, the two nations exchanged embassies, and in the course of that journey to and back, the Song envoys had many opportunities to assess for themselves the scope and scale of the environmental damage being wrought on the Jurchen-held Northlands. What remains unclear is the extent to which the Song ambassadors were or could have been aware of the Jinn's difficulties along their northern borders. Given that their natural path would take them nowhere near the frontier, and the Jin court would have likely done as much as possible to keep a lid on that sort of information, it's reasonable to assume that the Song would have had only very limited, if any, information about the Mongol raiders.

Even so, there was an evident drawing back from the southern frontiers by the Jin armies, and a thinning of their ranks as many of their numbers were shifted north that the Song were sure to have taken note of. It appears that as early as 1201, the Song had begun thinking about such a course of action. This is hardly surprising. Reconquest had been on the minds of many emperors and ministers for about a century at this point, yet it's rather strange that it would be under Emperor Ningzong that the gears of war would finally start turning in earnest. Markedly unlike many of his predecessors, such as his grandfather Xiaozong, Ningzong was much more like his father, Guangzong, in that he didn't seem to particularly care much about the north

or his regime's claims on it. That chalice would therefore be taken up by none other than Han Tuozhou, who now sought to bolster his image, further his career path, and begin making that deeply embarrassing anti-Confucian fiasco but a minor speed bump rather than the defining incident of his career. That year, a minor official wrote and delivered an official recommendation that Chancellor Han be made the Pingzhang Junguo Shi, or the Minister of National Security. This was highly irregular in two ways. First, that title was only ever conferred in times of war,

and in the whole of the Song only four times, all of which were in the Northern Period. Second, the idea that some no-name, low-level bureaucrat would have even dared to be so bold as to advance such a high-level recommendation, especially while the empire was at peace. In typical imperial bureaucratic form, Han declined the honor, which he almost certainly was himself behind, but the indication was as clear as it could be. By 1202, Tuozhou was ready for war, and to lead the Song force in that venture against the Jin. By this logic, even Tuozhou's doomed initiative to try to make amends with the Neo-Confucian Daoshui thinkers of the court makes considerably more sense. The Confucianists were, after all, some of the most strongly revanchist members of the government when it came to reclaiming the

Song's lost northern territories. Thus, by adopting an even more overtly militaristic policy than his opponents, Han figured on one of two outcomes, either of which would have been acceptable. Either the Neo-Confucians would become friendlier to Han and his government, or failing that, he'd at least steal a significant portion of their thunder. More than just a shrewd political maneuver, however, Davis writes that Han Tuojiu's war drum beat also, quote, made good sense from a military standpoint. As early as 1200, the Jin court, worried about the growing Mongol menace, had begun to reinforce military installations along the northern border. For the first time since its seizure of power in 1115, Jin's strategic concerns had shifted from south to north, end quote. That, combined with the Jin's evident

internal troubles on full display to the Song emissaries, many of whom would, probably not coincidentally, become military commanders in the war to come, must have made Jinn seem like a tempting target indeed. In spite of this drive toward war, the Song military apparatus moved only ponderously, giving the Jinn ample time to notice and enact countermeasures to the evident force buildup along their southern border. In 1203, for instance, the J Jean began reinforcing its southern border once again, after being informed of military drills being conducted by Song troops along the border, and of abnormally high numbers of warhorses being purchased by the southern empire.

Even so, the Jean were loathe to actually believe that the Song might be contemplating war against them. That same year, when a Jin envoy returned from Song and reported his sighting of troop buildups, he was flogged for quote-unquote inflammatory comments. Two years later, when a Song spy was captured and questioned, he revealed his knowledge of the Chinese troop movements, news that staggered the disbelieving Jurchen court. For his own part, the new Jin emperor, now Zhang Zong, did all he could to act with caution, taking every possible step to avert direct conflict. As I mentioned, he knew that between the ongoing floods and natural disasters, and the border problems along his

northern frontier, the realm was in no position to undertake a war against Song. Thus, he took steps only to strengthen his border defenses and attempt to dissuade through diplomacy any potential attack by the Chinese. By 1203, though, the Song had clearly laid the foundation for a full offensive push against the North. One of the steps taken at home was to further rehabilitate the image and reputation of the late Great Anti-Jurchin General of the Song, Yue Fei, upon whom additional posthumous honors and titles were heaped. Moving from the preparatory to actual combat stage would prove almost ludicrously ponderous, though, taking a further two years before the Song troops were in position and ready to begin

their invasion of Jin in the summer of 1206. Even at this point, the disunity within the Song court on the question of war was on full display. When Chancellor Han ordered his deputy minister of war, someone who had been vocally on his side about reconquest until that point, to draft a formal declaration of war, the deputy refused on the grounds that it was too risky, thereafter accepting his punishment of demotion and banishment to a remote provincial post. It would therefore be his replacement that at last drafted the formal declaration, citing that the Jin, through their The declaration went on to assert, with an unmistakable air of hope, that the ethnic Han Chinese populace under the Zhezhen yoke would rise up,

throw off their foreign overlords from within, and assist in the reunification of their country under its rightful Song Chinese rulers. Six days after the draft was accepted, read to the court, and promulgated across the empire, the high officials solemnly consecrated the proclamation of war to heaven and earth, the imperial ancestors, and vowed through such a ritual that the war was holy and irreversible. Yet even prior to this formal declaration, the Song had begun unofficial military operations both along the frontier and within the Jin borders. Quote-unquote bandit raids had been covertly subsidized by the Song, mostly in Shandong, one of the regions Jin most heavily impacted by the ongoing environmental catastrophes. Such efforts provided minimal risk to the Song itself, who could maintain plausible deniability about supporting such bandits if they were captured, while serving to further destabilize the Jin and divert more of its resources to attempting to root out such groups. It also provided valuable intelligence.

The Jin responses to the subsidized banditry proved uniformly feeble, informing the Southerners that their opponent was indeed weak enough to strike. When the war was at last formally declared, the Song had adopted a two-pronged strategy against the Jin, in an attempt to divide and conquer, while minimizing the risk to their own major cities and heartland to the east. To guard and strike out from this eastern front, a force of some 135,000 was committed. A further 100,000 troops had been dispatched to Sichuan to the far west.

It was from here that Han Tuozhou had hoped to launch his initial strike to the north, thus drawing the Jin forces westward and clearing the path for his larger eastern force to capture the Huai River Valley with ease. It was a solid strategy on paper, but one that wouldn't survive even the initial hours of the war. Jumping the gun of the formal declaration by a month, Song commander Bi Caiyu launched a lightning attack north of the Huai River, capturing the border city of Sizhou, followed by several other Jin counties in the surrounding area. In spite of writing back announcing his glorious initial victory over the weakened Jin, in fact, it was almost nothing of the sort. Frank writes, This cannot be regarded as a great victory. Frank writes, quote, Modest though this initial victory was, it would prove to be one of the very few instances of victory

that the song would be able to point to whatsoever in the course of this ill-fated war. Even contemporary song accounts of these initial stages of the conflict are forced to admit that the campaign was from the outset, and in spite of the ponderously slow nature by which it had taken shape, poorly led and badly organized. Further campaigns against Suzhou, Shuzhou, and Caizhou across the central border region all resulted in resounding defeats for the Song armies. In all, the first offensive push by the Song,

lasting a total of three months before the Jin could mount an effective counter-response, would be its last and only offensive of the war, and resulted in only the most minimal of gains. In late fall, the Jin response would come in force, and put lie to the Song idea that it had been facing a weakened opponent ready to topple over at the first push. An initial strike of some 70,000 Jin troops surrounded and laid siege to the town of Chuzhou in Anhui for three months. Outnumbering the Song defenders by a purported 10 to 1,

the Jin were only prevented from capturing the settlement when the commander, Bi Taiyu, snuck into the enemy camp under cover of darkness and set fire to their supply cache, forcing the besiegers to pull back. Yet this was just a minor setback to the Jin response, which unlike the Song's two-pronged battle plan, was an assault with no fewer than nine near-simultaneous targets, quote, that repeatedly involved hundreds of thousands of troops and affected most of the 1,200-mile border separating the two empires, end quote. By itself, this rapid and total turning of the tide against the Song, along its eastern border with By itself, this rapid and total turning of the tide against the Song, along its eastern border with the Jin, might have proved enough to convince them to

seek peace, or perhaps not. The final nail in the coffin of their offensive, however, would come not in the east, but in the west, and not through enemy action, but through the betrayal of the Song commander of Sichuan, General Wu Shi. The initial jumping of the gun to the east by Commander Bi might have proved to be an effective lure, had General Wu Shi. The initial jumping of the gun to the east by Commander Bi might have proved to be an effective lure, had General Wu launched his own campaign from Sichuan and helped surround the pinned down Jin forces. This could have proven especially true had the Han majority of the populace living under Jin rule done as the Song expected they would and risen against their Jurchen overlords. Instead, to the Song's shock and horror, not only did the

Chinese populace not reject en masse the northern domination, but the Song war ministers would find their own forces defecting and turning against them at the most desperate hour. Wu Shi was of a long line of prominent military leaders, and the third generation of his family to hold military command over Sichuan. Those of you who have remembered to take notes about the ins and outs of Chinese dynastic military commands will of course already recall just how unusual that was in any dynasty. But in case you left them at home, markedly unlike medieval Europe or, say, Japan, Chinese official posts, and especially military posts, were granted at the pleasure of the emperor and very rarely carried over from one generation to another. In fact, it was fairly typical to have official posts be rotated every few years to ensure that no general or governor could build up a sufficient base of local connections and support to potentially

resist central command authority. Time after time, the thrones of the various emperors had been reminded, often in spectacularly bloody fashion, that their hold on power over such a vast stretch of territory depended on them not letting any of their officials or generals get too terribly comfortable. Yet the Southern Song emperors had grown, granted out of necessity, rather lax in their policy with the military commanders of the far-flung Sichuan. And as such, they were about to learn that ancient and costly lesson all over again. By the time Wuxi's father, Ben the military commander, died in 1193,

there was already a rising chorus of worry and discontent from the various ministers about the potential ramifications of such a succession were it allowed. For instance, the previous commissioner of Sichuan, Liu Cheng, wrote of the potential for imminent disaster where the House of Wu allowed to maintain its monopoly on regional military power in lieu of strong civilian oversight and control. He wrote, quote, of the three generals to the west, only the Wu House has inherited power for generations. Theirs is known as the Army of Wu House, and they are oblivious to the commands of the court, end quote. From Fort Sumter to the Battle of Gettysburg.

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In contrast, the local population seems to have been rather keen on the notion of maintaining a stable, known family in charge of their province, since they were used to such continuity of leadership. Nevertheless, for the time being, the officials' concerns won out, and Wu Xi was transferred to eastern posts, not accidentally, far from his home for much of the subsequent decade. Prospects of ever seeing his homeland again must have seemed very remote in that period, yet nevertheless, it's written that the Sichuan populace looked with necks outstretched for the eventual return of that scion of Wu. That would occur at last in 1201, supposedly after Wuxi had managed to bribe a number of high-level bureaucrats to overlook the impropriety of such a transfer. It would be unfair to agree too terribly much with the assessments of many of the pre-modern historians who have the tendency to ascribe

to a person from the outset the worst aspects of their character all along. Wuxi had no prior history of insubordination, nor of being unduly arrogant or glory-seeking, at least no more so than would have been typical for a man of his station and lineage. Yet his return to Sichuan to inherit his father's and grandfather's title does seem to have stirred some of those feelings within the man. Davis writes, Wuxi's vanity and ambition, if not previously apparent, became so upon his return to Sichuan. He immediately constructed a temple in honor of his grandfather, Wu Lin,

spending 100,000 strings of cash on the main hall alone, probably using government funds. When word reached Hangzhou that he had engineered the dismissal of his own second-in-command and took over his troops, the imperial court attempted to respond as it normally would at the presence of a potentially dangerous military commander. It appointed and dispatched a civilian official, a man named Cheng Song, as the military commissioner of Sichuan, thereby outranking and overseeing General Wu. But the distance from the capital, and Cheng's own unfamiliarity with the region or its populace, placed him at a great disadvantage against the canny and native Wu Shi, who outmaneuvered his

repeated attempts to hold the general in check. Just as bad, if not worse, was the troop disparity between the two. Wu Xi himself commanded some 60,000 soldiers, whereas Cheng Song could only count some 30,000 loyal to him. As such, this situation, quote, left the Song court with little leverage to use against the Sichuan general. Much rested on simple good faith and mutual benefit, end quote. That wing in a prayer system of keeping Wu in line with the power of positive thinking was about to face, and mutual benefit. End quote. That wing in a prayer system of keeping Wu in line with the power of positive thinking was about to face, and lose, the acid test. Back here in 1206, the Songshan forces numbered some 90 to 100,000. It faced only a small force along the western front, perhaps only a few tens of thousands strong. Nevertheless, and almost inexplicably,

Wu and his armies were able to score no notable or sizable victories in the course of their war against the Jin. Wu's initial, and it would turn out only, offense of that year was a poorly timed assault on the strategically vital border city of Qingzhou on the south bank of the Wei River, some 150 miles west of the Jin-held former Chinese capital city, Chang'an, which of course is modern Xi'an. Though they outnumbered the Jin defenders,

the Song force displayed a stunning level of incompetence in the course of the battle, and were forced at last to retreat. Later that summer, Commissioner Cheng launched his own attack with his force of 30,000 in an attempt to capture the plains surrounding Fengxiang city. Once again, the Jin prevailed and followed their victory up with a counter-assault on Heshang Plain, capturing it in short order. This was no minor defeat. From Davis, quote,

This Jin victory opened the Song's western flank to enemy attack. Before long, the prefecture in Xiehezhou, scarcely 60 miles from Wuxi's base at Xingzhou, was being attacked. The Song response was inexplicably weak. Even the Jin's strike against Tongqing, a scant 30 base at Xingzhou, was being attacked. The Song response was inexplicably weak. Even the Jin's strike against Tongqing, a scant 30 miles from Xingzhou, did not provoke a counterattack. By fall of 1206, Wu Xi had clearly withdrawn active support for the war effort

and meticulously tried to avoid any serious engagement with the enemy, allowing Jin forces to overrun much of Lizhou's circuit. It would be fair for anyone to ask at this point, what in the world was going on here? It's difficult to answer with any certainty, though traditional historians tend to have very strongly held opinions. That Wu Shi was a seditious traitor from the outset, who never intended to do anything but cripple the Song offensive for his own personal gain.

That, however, was likely not the case. It ignores, after all, his sizable, if failed, contribution that prior summer. Wu had committed his army in strength to attempt to seize Fengxiang, which was certainly no token effort. Yet clearly something had changed his heart at some point after the outbreak of hostilities. It's possible, Davis writes, that he may have simply become disheartened and realized that he could not defeat the Jin forces, and thereafter would not risk his men against them. Or perhaps he sought to squirrel his armies away in the easily defensible mountains of Sichuan, thereby avoiding high-risk confrontations on the flat terrain. It seems very likely that

tensions may have emerged between him and either his local overseer, Commissioner Cheng Song, or the imperial court itself at Hangzhou, making him question his commitment to a cause that didn't seem to want or trust him with it. Or maybe a sizably large delivery of gold and the promise of rank, position, and ennoblement from the northern court might have changed his mind and turned his cloak. In the end, the only person who could have known his true rationale was Wu Xi himself. What was clear to all, though, was his decision's devastating effect on the war effort as a whole. It would be during the Lunar New Year of 1207 that Wu Xi would issue his greatest and final blow to the Song's offensive against the Jurchen, when he formally renounced his fealty to Hangzhou and its ruler, and thereafter pledged himself to the Jurchen emperor in Kaifeng. In return, he was quickly ennobled as the Jin dynasty's Prince of Shu, adopting his own reign

title and elevating his own residence at Xingzhou to the level of imperial palace. By the Jin's own records of this shocking betrayal, Wu's defection had been brought about by simple bribery. Yet Davis notes that there may have been more behind his decision than sheer rapacious self-interest. He writes, Wu Xi may have switched sides to stem the further advance of Jin forces into his area of control. The Jin had already seized Heshang Pass and were beginning assaults on Chengzhou to the northwest of Xingzhou, Qiehezhou, Pengqing, and Fengzhou, end quote. It seems almost certain that the Song government in the Westerlands would crumble before the combined onslaught of the Jin forces,

and those of the new Prince of Shu. Yet as events played out over the next 40 days, Wu Shi would find his fortunes rapidly and unexpectedly reversed. Wu's forcible seven-year absence from Sichuan had given enough space to other players that he felt compelled to co-opt or otherwise neutralize those others who might challenge his supremacy over the region. Chief among these were An Ping, the former disciple of Wu Xi's father and current intendant of Da'an Commandery, and his now former boss, the Song

Commissioner, Cheng Song. Yet even as he offered Cheng a post in his new regime, and Cheng accepted, Wu seemed to realize that he did not command the loyalty of the Commissioner, and that Cheng had only accepted because he was trapped in Sichuan and couldn't escape back to Song-controlled territory. Thus, Wu put into motion a plan to assassinate Cheng. It would not, however, go according to the plan. Again from Davis, quote, Before the order to kill Cheng Song had been given, a conspiracy against Wu Xi had been hatched by two men, a minor inspector of military supplies from Xingzhou and a commander there. It seems that both were motivated by loyalty to the Song court, but Wu Xi's stinginess in sharing the spoils may have also alienated them.

Regardless, the two of them were able to covertly set up an extensive network of support for their plan to off Wu Xi himself. This network included Wu's own intended assassin of Chen Song, the Da'an intendant on Ping, and apparently even a sufficient number of the 1,000 palace guards on station at Wuxi's residence to neutralize them entirely. With a contingent of 70 men, they infiltrated the palace of the Prince of Song, found him in his bedchamber, and decapitated him. Then, as a further insult, they cut his body in half at the waist. Only 41 days after its formation, the principality of Shu had ceased to exist. Quote, upon learning of Wuxi's death, the people of Xingzhou are said to have rejoiced to the point of shaking heaven and earth. The head of Wuxi was hung in the marketplace as a grim

reminder of the risks of duplicity. His wife, close relatives, and supporters were all put to the sword. End quote. This surely must have come as a relief to the Song court back in Hangzhou, but it had been yet another reminder in little more than a month that it had virtually no say over what happened in Sichuan. The court certainly hadn't planned or authorized the assassination of Wuxi, nor could it have. Any person appointed to high office over the region would essentially have to be trusted completely to not just start ignoring the throne again and do their own thing like Wu Shi had. Though the region had nominally returned to them, the Song would thereafter take great care

not to overplay their hand or incite further acts of defiance by trying to be too overweening. For the Jin, on the other hand, the assassination of Wu and the reflipping of Sichuan back to nominal Song control was a devastating shock. They had been poised to launch a combined westward strike, but now suddenly they had to protect their flank once again. Their reaction, therefore, was to pull out of the south and retreat northward with unusual rapidity. This emboldened the Song military commanders in the west to the point that they were able to launch several offensive strikes against the retreating foe, and regain virtually all of the western territories that the Jin had captured to this point.

They were petty times, but they were not to last. For within months, the tenuous coalition of westerners that had come together to bring the traitorous Wuxi down had fractured, and rather than presenting a united front against the Jin, began to fight among themselves, quickly resulting in the murders of several other prominent Song commanders. Even so, such was the timidity with which the imperial court felt it must deal with the region that those responsible for the murders, obviously usually subject to the death penalty for such crimes, were instead merely transferred out of Sichuan and back to the east. It was feared that any more severe punishment might simply stir up further trouble in the region.

Ultimately, the court would appoint An Ping as the Grand Military Commissioner-in-Chief, an act surely hoped to finally unite the region and renew its military drive against the Jin. Yet though An Ping never overtly betrayed the Song Emperor or his ministers, nor did he listen too terribly closely to any of them either. Instead, he operated semi-independently in a manner described as, quote, acting out of arrogance and self-interest, end quote. Many died by the hands of his agents during the sweeping purges, and instead of uniting and strengthening the region,

his tenure only served to exacerbate the already endemic atmosphere of suspicion, treachery, intimidation, and alienation that left the region divided from within and vulnerable from outside. With both sides depleted, exhausted, and disenchanted with the war that had swiftly devolved into stalemate, by late 1207, the major clashes had given way to negotiations about how to restore the peace between Song and Jin. In fact, sporadic negotiations had been going on between the two states since as early as late 1206, mere months into the war that both felt by that point

the Song was already well on its way to losing. Unsurprisingly, then, the terms proposed by the Jin were excessively harsh. Further reduction in Song's status relative to the Jin, an upping of the annual tribute payments, and surrender of the man deemed responsible for touching off hostilities in the first place, none other than the Chancellor Han Tojo. On this last point especially, the Jin were insistent, as was the Song in refusing to hand over a high government official to a hostile power for punishment. The negotiations broke off without having reached an accord. The war continued. The following spring, negotiations

resumed, and the Jin tightened the screws down even further against the Song, who they now viewed as desperate, increasing their demanded tribute further, proposing unacceptably large territorial concessions, and now not just Han Tuozhou as a prisoner, but insisting that the Song deliver his head to them. Once again, the Song rejected these demands flatly, and called a halt to the proceedings. Yet in the court, Han Tojo was doing himself no favors, imperiously firing military officials who failed to achieve the great victories he'd envisioned, and then replacing them, seemingly on a whim, with inexperienced and incompetent officials from distant provincial posts. His fellow ministers saw him as increasingly erratic and impulsive, a view that cost him any

real friends or allies that he might have still had at the court. More and more, Chancellor Han looked like a liability rather than a leader, and maybe his head wouldn't be such a loss to the realm if it purchased peace. The final straw would come when Han, clearly just swinging around wildly at this point, began threatening a further escalation of the war effort rather than seeking a negotiated peace in late 1207. This was beyond the pale for even those who had most ardently supported the war cause, if not Han Tojo himself, up to this point. No one in their right mind could possibly think that further fighting was anything other than a ludicrous waste of life and treasure, almost certainly for nothing, or if the jinn regained the upper hand, then possibly

for less than nothing. In doubling down on his harebrained war scheme, Hojo therefore had sealed his own fate. Direct action against the chancellor would come in the early morning light of the 24th of November, 1207. Han, you'll remember, was nothing if not a carouser, drinker, and all-around party boy, and he certainly hadn't let a devastating and losing war get in the way of his nocturnal merriment. He'd had a typically long and eventful night, and its effects on his body and mind showed. He was, in a word, hungover. His frazzled brain likely didn't even really register the approach of the guard commander, Xia Zhen, and his contingent of several hundred elite palace guardsmen,

as he made his way across the Sixth Platoon Bridge on his way to the court to oversee the day's affairs. But they certainly noticed him. He was, after all, their very reason for being there. And before Han could determine what exactly was happening, they had surrounded him. Commander Xia stepped brusquely forward and read out an imperial rescript, ordering Tojo's immediate dismissal from office. In disbelief, Han began in on a harangue, but was cut off by Commander Xia, ordering his men to take the former chancellor outside of the palace walls and get rid of him.

Sputtering curses, Han was dragged off by the guards to the Eugene Garden, and then beaten to death. This was a shocking turn of affairs, even for someone as widely reviled among the ministers as Han. Davis writes, took pride in the unique Song tradition of venerating scholar-officials. Chief ministers might suffer banishment for improper conduct or misguided policies, but never had a chief minister been assassinated while in office. Worse yet, enacting this brutal scenario in the emperor's own precincts suggests complicity at the highest levels. There are two prime suspects of being the orchestrator of Han Tuojiu's cold-blooded murder, the man who would succeed him in office as imperial chancellor, and the empress herself.

Let's deal with them one at a time and the cases against them. Han's successor, Mr. Shi Mi Yuan, had been in many histories of this era the person assigned blame for the deed, and certainly he is the one who benefited the most after the fact, being promoted as he was to the senior-most office of the realm. Yet markedly unlike many others, there seems to have been a lack of compelling motive for him to engineer such a fate. They disagreed over the war policy by the end, sure, but the two ministers had enjoyed an otherwise amicable and conflict-free working relationship. Moreover, at the time, Shi's position within the court was very unlikely to have had the connections or influence necessary to get an entire guard court to go along with such a plot. On the other hand, Empress Yang, Ningzong's second empress, had the whole trifecta of means,

motive, and opportunity. You'll surely remember that the emperor's first wife had been Tuozhou's niece, Empress Han. When she died in 1200, that had left Ningzong in the rare position of being able to select his own next wife. He had several years before fallen for the common girl Yang Meizi, and fallen hard. She was intelligent, beautiful, and talented, I mean, who wouldn't fall in love, and she had thus been elevated to the status of imperial concubine shortly before Empress Han's untimely death. Following his niece's demise, Tojo seems to have realized that Ningzong's amorous disposition toward Lady Yang was likely to lead him to declaring her his new empress, and such a whip-smart and

self-confident woman as Yang was just the sort of wife Tojo did not want having the emperor's ear, and potentially advising him against Tojo's more extreme plans. As such, he attempted to intercede, recommending that the emperor instead permit a duller and more pliant concubine to the top spot. But Ningzong had persisted. He wanted Yang, and Yang is who he would have. But it did not escape the consort's notice that Tojo had attempted to deny her the title, and she never forgave him for his meddling.

As empress, Yang had been against the war from the outset, and it seems that Tojo's political isolation, coupled with his threats to not only continue but intensify the war in 1207, may have led her to finally move against him once and for all. Of course, this is all speculative and conducted well after the fact. In life, Empress Yang was smart enough to cover her tracks, and if she was indeed the prime conspirator to off Han Tuozhou, she got away with it scot-free. She would go on to serve as Empress until the death of her husband in 1224, and then behind a veil for her son as empress regent for eight years until her own death in 1232. Davis writes of her, quote,

Empress Young would continue to prove herself the most politically astute empress of the Southern Song, more daring than most men around her. She would also be remembered as a great patron of the arts and an accomplished calligrapher. Active involvement by the empress in affairs of state ordinarily evoked censure, but in this case it did not, perhaps because she camouflaged her actions with consummate skill and allowed praise and blame to fall on the men who did her bidding. Billy Xiaohong Li and Sue Wiles tell a slightly different version in their Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women, saying that though Emperor Ningzong did find out about his wife's actions against Han Tojo, she convinced him to keep quiet about it, otherwise

she threatened that she would commit suicide. In any event, and regardless of the emperor's personal level of involvement, or lack thereof, in the plot against Han Tojo's life, he responded atypically when presented with the completed deed. Not with punishments, but rather a generous round of promotions for all. With the new political leadership of the government, the stalled-out peace talks with the Jin were at last revived. This time, with both sides thoroughly exhausted and clearly at stalemate on the battlefield, a compromise was finally reached. The Song emissaries conceded to an increase in their yearly payments of silver and silk, from 250,000 to 300,000 units per annum. Likewise, they agreed to disinter the corpses of Han Tuozhou and one of his likewise-executed lackeys, Su Shidan, and deliver their severed

heads to the Jin. In return, the Jin dropped their territorial demands as well as the adjustment of the Song's diplomatic status. It was, as much as it could ever have been, an agreeable end for both sides. Before the heads were delivered to the Northern Dynasty, however, they were put on public display within the Song capital, an act meant to diminish them at home and repudiate them within the realm before being handed over to the barbarians. The Minister of Personnel, Luo Ye, succinctly put the position of the majority of the court over the issue when he stated, quote, End quote.

It was time for this conflict to be over, and if letting the Jurchens play football with Han Tojo's head got them over the finish line, then so be it. Thus it was that the third war between Song and Jin, the ill-conceived, ill-planned, and ill-executed Kaishi War, came to the same inconclusive end as the others. All that for nothing at all. Next time, then, we'll be picking up for the latter half of Emperor Ningzong's reign over the southern Song, but in the north, a storm is about to break over the Jin, as the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan ride screaming out of the Gobi and begin to take apart the empire of black and gold,

piece by bloody piece. Thanks for listening. The French Revolution set Europe ablaze. It was an age of enlightenment and progress, but also of tyranny and oppression. It was an age of glory and an age of tragedy. One man stood above it all. This was the Age of Napoleon. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast. Join me as I examine the life and times of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters in modern history. Look for The Age of Napoleon wherever you find your podcasts.