Song Dynasty Founded
In 960, a military commander named Zhao Kuangyin was proclaimed emperor by his troops and founded the Song dynasty, ending the turbulent half-century known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. He is known to history as Emperor Taizu. The Song would rule for over three centuries and preside by many measures one of the most inventive and commercially dynamic eras in Chinese history, though it never controlled all the territory the Tang had once held.
The background was fragmentation. After the Tang dynasty collapsed in the early tenth century, northern China saw five short-lived regimes rise and fall in quick succession, many founded by generals who seized power from their own masters. Meanwhile, a number of regional kingdoms took shape, mostly in the south. Powerful military governors, who had undermined the Tang, remained a constant threat to any ruler. Zhao Kuangyin himself had served as a senior commander under the last of the northern regimes, the Later Zhou, whose child emperor was on the throne when the crisis came.
According to traditional accounts, Zhao's soldiers acclaimed him emperor after he led an army out of the capital, Kaifeng, to face a reported border threat. They allegedly draped a yellow robe over him, and he returned to take the throne with little bloodshed. Some historians suspect the episode was more carefully orchestrated than the official story suggests, and that Zhao or his allies planned it. Either way, the transfer was smooth, and the new dynasty set about conquering the remaining southern kingdoms, a task largely completed under his brother and successor, Taizong, by 979.
Having come to power through a military coup, the Song founders were determined to prevent another. They reduced the authority of regional commanders, centralized control of the army, and relied increasingly on civil officials chosen through the examination system. This strengthened civilian government and the scholar-official class, though it also left the dynasty militarily weaker than its rivals. The Song never recovered the northern frontier lands, and had to deal with powerful neighbors such as the Khitan Liao and later the Jurchen Jin, often through treaties and payments.
Despite this, the Song era saw remarkable change. Woodblock printing spread learning widely, and movable type was developed in the eleventh century. Paper money emerged, agriculture improved with new rice varieties, and cities grew large and lively. Advances included gunpowder weapons, the magnetic compass for navigation, and sophisticated ironworking. In 1127 the Jurchen captured Kaifeng and the dynasty relocated south, continuing as the Southern Song until the Mongol conquest in 1279.