Song Taizong, the 'Record of Jiangnan' ('Jiangnan lu'), and an Alternate Ending to the Tang

Introduction

Zhao Kuangyi 趙匡義 (Taizong 太宗, r. 976–997), the second emperor of the Song, succeeded the dynastic founder, his brother Zhao Kuangyin 趙匡 胤 (Taizu 太祖, r. 960–976), under dubious circumstances. Because of the ensuing succession controversy, Taizong altered the historical record to suggest that on her deathbed, his mother Empress Dowager Du 杜 (902–961) had encouraged the transmission of the throne from older brother to younger brother. Peter Lorge has discussed this story and concludes that Taizong had contrived it in collusion with Zhao Pu 趙普 (922–982).¹ His usurpation placed a great deal of political pressure upon Taizong, for he had to show that he could handle the responsibility of running the empire. If he failed to prove his competence, he would most likely have faced resistance from the highranking members of the bureaucracy, many of whom had been supporters of the late emperor. Hence, Taizong turned to history to provide a precedent for his controversial succession. Although he rarely proclaimed his admiration for Emperor Taizong of the Tang (r. 626–649) directly, he strived to emulate the great Tang emperor in all his actions. In the first place, the way in which Tang Taizong had secured the throne may have appealed to Song Taizong as a historical model. Tang Taizong's rise to the throne had not been unproblematic either, for he killed his brother, the designated crown prince, and put his father Gaozu 高祖 (r. 618–626) under house arrest. Yet, despite his act of fratricide and the less than filial treatment of his father, Tang Taizong had turned out to be an able ruler. The transformation of Tang Taizong from villain to revered ruler must have appealed to Song Taizong. Therefore, he copied the policies and actions of his role model in many ways. As a military leader Taizong was a failure, and it was only due to the skills of his military aides that he escaped capture by the Khitan enemy after the poorly-executed campaign against Taiyuan 太原 in 979.² He was more successful in the civil sphere. Shortly after his accession to the throne, Taizong initiated a project that prominently included the compilation of encyclopedias and anthologies such as the Tai ping yulan 太平禦覽, Taiping guangji 太平廣記, and Wen­ yuan ying hua 文苑英華, among others.³ Even after ruling as emperor for over a decade, he still felt compelled to enhance his reputation as a ruler by taking recourse to patronizing Buddhist architecture in the capital, building the Kaibao Monastery 開寶寺 Pagoda in 989.⁴ In the 990s, towards the end of his reign, he had some of the previous dynastic histories revised so completely that the older editions that had existed until that time were lost forever.⁵

Clearly, Taizong was desperate to establish himself as truly worthy of the imperial position, and also to make the court accept his enthronement. In that sense everything he undertook in the cultural sphere may be regarded as attempts to compensate for his political, moral, and military shortcomings. Whereas Taizong of the Tang could claim to have succeeded the Sui dynasty with some justification, Taizong of the Song lacked that personal experience. After all, Taizu had not only ended the last of the Five Dynasties, the Later Zhou 後周, but had also conquered independent regimes in the south after 960. Taizu had subsumed all the states that had ruled the north under the rubric of the Five Dynasties and established them as the legitimate predecessors of the Song with the completion of the Wudai shi 五代史 (History of the Five Dynasties) in 974.⁶ In the best possible scenario, Taizong could have presented himself as having taken over directly from the Tang, which would also have given him an opportunity to create an implicit transfer of legitimacy from Taizong of the Tang to himself. However, this most desirable opportunity had apparently been blocked with the compilation of the Wudai shi.

However, at the time of Taizu's death, Taizong found himself in control of eminently important men who could provide the politico-historical legitimacy that he so eagerly sought. The...