How Ruthless Was the Southern Song's Revenge, Years After the Humiliation of Jingkang?
[You shouldn't go too far. The wheel of fortune keeps turning, and one day their turn will come.]
[Didn't the Song Dynasty go too far? Zhao Guangyi got his retribution. He forced himself on Empress Zhou the Younger and even had someone paint a picture of it. He murdered his elder brother and younger brother and drove his nephew to his death. His descendants suffered this calamity—isn't that retribution?]
[It certainly looks like retribution! In the end, Zhao Gou was the only one left of Zhao Guangyi's line. Zhao Gou established the Southern Song in the south, but he himself had no heirs. To keep the Zhao Song realm going, he had no choice but to adopt a descendant of the Grand Progenitor Zhao Kuangyin as his son. In the end, the throne returned to the Grand Progenitor's line. Looking across all the dynasties in history, there was never another like the Zhao Song!]
When they saw this comment, some of the Northern Song emperors were furious, while others wore bitter expressions.
"Retribution?" Emperor Renzong of Song, Zhao Zhen, who had never had a son, felt dazed.
"We mustn't do evil! Look, even the imperial family suffers retribution!"
"Retribution? We Jin have never feared that. If there's retribution, let it come!"
[Seeing the Humiliation of Jingkang made me furious, but when I saw my address, my anger slowly faded. My hometown is in the Land of Yan and Zhao, the ancient Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun. If I'd lived during the Song Dynasty, I'd have been a Liao, Jin, or Mongolian person of Han descent, not a Song person.]
[Going by the map, I'm not a Song person either. Maybe my ancestors even fought the Song Dynasty.]
[So what if they did? I don't understand why people who lived in the same era as the Northern and Southern Song, but not on Great Song soil, had their hearts set on the Great Song and hoped its armies would come.]
[Because they were all Han and spoke the same language. The Liao State was dominated by the Khitan, the Jin State by the Jurchens, and Mongolia by the Mongols. Ordinary Han people living in the north felt no sense of belonging with them. It was the Han people serving as officials under Liao, Jin, and Mongolia who, because of their interests, had no goodwill toward the Great Song at all.]
[The Song Dynasty lacked grandeur and had an incomplete map. It wasn't a dynasty that had unified all under heaven, yet it called itself legitimate. Those who came from the north to enter its service were called "people returned to righteousness" and were never trusted. Was a dynasty like that worth serving?]
[Ordinary Han people living in the north could hardly avoid being exploited, bullied, and subjected to racial discrimination by the Khitan and Jurchens, so they hoped the Song Dynasty could recover the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun. Perhaps it never occurred to them that the Song Dynasty wasn't much good either.
In the Song Dynasty, punishment didn't reach the scholar-officials. Short of rebellion, nothing they did would get them killed. If they had powerful patrons and backing, the worst they faced was exile and a post as a local official. For scholar-officials, oppressing the people, murdering and setting fires, embezzling and neglecting their duties, and seizing land by force were everyday affairs.
Because certain Northern Song empresses dowager believed in Buddhism, Buddhism flourished for a time. The monks in those temples seized commoners' daughters by force, and even the emperor couldn't stop them.]
"Our lives truly are worth no more than blades of grass!"
"The ones speaking up against our injustice aren't the emperors, but gentlemen of later generations!"
Unlike those oppressed commoners, officials in many dynasties envied their Song counterparts and regarded the Song Dynasty as their spiritual home.
The emperors of certain dynasties thought the Song Dynasty had too many problems.
"Punishment doesn't reach the scholar-officials? My Great Ming has no such rule!" Zhu Yuanzhang swept his gaze over the civil officials, killing intent in his eyes.
[Zhao Gou: Who says the Song Dynasty didn't kill scholar-officials? I did!]
[Zhao Gou dared kill scholar-officials?]
[He really did! Zhao Gou killed Zhang Bangchang, the emperor installed by the Jin State. The Jin State turned around and threatened to attack again, and Zhao Gou was terrified. He wanted to flee south at once. Some scholar-officials and scholars urged him not to run, but to restore the realm, gather an army, and keep fighting the Jin. He wouldn't listen and killed them instead.]
For those who still held hope for the Great Song, this comment completely killed the hope that had hung in their hearts.
Across the ages and in every time and space, countless people laughed.
Others laughed and fumed at the same time.
How ironic!
[You say the Song Dynasty was bad, and you're not praising Liao, Jin, or Mongolia either, so which dynasty do you say was good?]
[Not one feudal dynasty was any good! All under heaven belonged to one family, one surname, not to the people.]
These comments angered the emperors of every dynasty.
Though it was true, they couldn't say it openly to the people!
[Well said! As expected of someone who's had a red education for so many years!]
[The Jingkang Incident could actually have been avoided!]
The first few emperors of the Northern Song stared intently at the sky screen, hoping that someone from a later generation could tell them how to avoid the Jingkang Incident.
[The Jin State shouldn't have destroyed the Liao State. Instead, Liao, Jin, and Song should have stood together as three powers. Liao was an old wolf, and Jin a young one. When two wolves fought, what they feared most was the hunter standing by to profit. But once the other wolf fell, that weak hunter who hadn't dared strike was nothing to fear!]
[The Northern Song had the most developed economy and the greatest wealth. The Liao State was already in decline. The Jin State to the north was separated from the Song Dynasty by Liao, and the lands it occupied were the coldest and the most economically backward, but its army was the fiercest and strongest.
The Song Dynasty should have supported the Liao State, helping it fight the Jin State and suppress Jin's strength.
Before it swallowed up the Liao State, the Jin State couldn't possibly cross Liao to attack the Northern Song, unless it came by sea, and that would have been nothing to fear.
Before the Jin State was dealt with, the Liao State knew it was being used as a knife, but wouldn't have dared trouble the Northern Song, because then it would have been attacked from both front and rear.
The Northern Song had the advantage in population and economy, no enemies in the south, and Liao holding the line in the north. It could have sat on the mountain and watched the tigers fight, watching those two wolves tear each other apart and helping whichever grew weaker. It could have made Liao and Jin fight a protracted war, like the war between Big Mao and Second Mao now, draining both countries' economies and populations.
Once those two countries could fight no longer, the Northern Song could have headed north to recover its lost lands and expand its territory.]
"There's some sense to that. Song, Liao, and Jin standing as three powers would have been better than the Northern Song facing the Jin State directly."
"The people of later generations have thought it out nicely, but Liao and Jin wouldn't have let the Northern Song reap the fisherman's profit."
[Emperor Huizong of Song wanted to prove himself by recovering the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun and showing he was better than the Grand Progenitor and Grand Ancestor, so he joined forces with the Jin State to destroy Liao. In the end, Jin played him like a fiddle. The Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun weren't handed over to the Northern Song intact; their people and wealth were plundered, and all the Northern Song got were a few empty cities. It also had to hand over vast amounts of money. Once the Jin State had eaten and drunk its fill and digested the spoils, it immediately turned its spear on the Northern Song.]
[Do you know how ruthless the Southern Song's revenge was, years after the Humiliation of Jingkang? #History #Southern Song #Jin State]
"Revenge? The Great Coward actually dared seek revenge!" a Jin man said angrily, using the later generations' name for the Great Song.
Another Jin man said, "We'll march south again. This time we'll wipe them out completely and leave them no chance of revenge!"
"Let's see how they took revenge."
["Do you know how ruthless the Southern Song's revenge was, years after the Humiliation of Jingkang?"]
["It could be said that when the Jin Dynasty fell, the true misery of its fate was even worse than the Humiliation of Jingkang."]
["As everyone knows, the Jin State single-handedly brought about the fall of the Northern Song, and the Humiliation of Jingkang is regarded as an immense disgrace in history."]