9 - From Soldier to Sage

Summary

Chapter 10, “From Soldier to Sage” details the development of the historical image of the first emperor of the Song dynasty, Emperor Taizu (927–976; r. 960–976). Related themes also include evolving definitions of the dynastic founders or “ancestors” in the context of the “policies of the ancestors” explored in Chapter 7. Simply put, as the chapter title states, the image of Taizu evolved from the reality of a military commander who emerged victorious from the bloody wars of the tenth century to a paragon sage-emperor, parallel to the mythical Yao of Confucian antiquity. In the process, Taizu’s “mind,” his imagined, ingrained approach to governance, came to be associated with “benevolence” and by extension with the supposed “civil” character of Song Confucian institutionalism. As with the “benevolence” cluster, the early 1130s witnessed a crucial inflection point when Emperor Gaozong transferred the Song imperial line back to the descendants of Taizu, thus linking himself to the first founder in order to enhance his own legitimacy as founder of the post-1127 Restoration. The result was a Taizu–Qingli–Yuanyou axis of positive political value that became a fundamental tenet of the grand allegory. This chapter also deconstructs two key Taizu narratives, the Song founding at Chen Bridge and the “banquet to take back military power,” and determines their texts were finalized during this period and reflect the geopolitical concerns of the Restoration.