List of Emperors of The Song Dynasty - Head of State

Head of State

In theory, the emperor's political power was absolute, but during even the ancient Han Dynasty he shared many executive powers with civilian officials and usually based his decisions on the advice and formal consensus of his ministers. During the Song Dynasty, a national examination system managed by scholar-bureaucrats was used to recruit officials; those who passed the Palace Examination—the highest-level examination in the country—were appointed directly by the emperor to the highest central-government posts. Just like commoners, these senior officials had to obey his edicts as law or be punished. However, senior officials not only challenged the emperor over policy disputes, but checked his behavior and actions by convincing him to follow Confucian mores and values upheld by the literati gentry class that supplied officials.

During the previous Tang Dynasty, the emperor encountered generally little political opposition to his policies. At that time, the competitive civil service examinations did not yet produce a sizable majority of all serving officials as seen during Song, whereas a hereditary aristocracy was still in place and remained dependent on the court for privilege in holding rank and office. Yet Song rulers, particularly Emperor Huizong, encountered a great deal of political opposition despite attempts at conforming the whole of society like the sage kings in China's remote past. The inability of Song rulers to monopolize political authority and avoid civil opposition was linked to the expansion of the civilian government's power and the rise of a new class of gentry and scholar-official.

When the Song Dynasty was founded, the political elites consisted of officials (and their progeny) who had served in the previous administrations of the Five Dynasties era, as well as those who came from prominent families which boasted an aristocratic ancestry and had provided officials for generations. Since the first Song emperors wished to avoid domination of government by military strongmen such as the jiedushi of the previous era, they limited the power of military officers and focused on building a powerful civilian establishment. During the 11th century, the massive expansion of the government-run school system and amount of officials appointed through the examination system ensured the rise of a larger, nationwide gentry class which could provide most if not all officials. By the late 11th century, the elite marriage strategies of many prominent families broke down due to the intense partisan politics involving the so-called New Policies (Xin fa 新法) of Chancellor Wang Anshi (1021–1086). These great families dissolved as a major sociopolitical group and were replaced by officials representing many local gentry lineages throughout the country.

Peter K. Bol, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, asserts that the supporters of Wang's expansionist, activist central government outlined in his New Policies were convinced that he understood the dao which brought utopia to Western-Zhou (c. 1050 BC – 771 BC) antiquity and were determined to conform society according to his vision. The marginalized emperor—the last remaining aristocrat with any true political power—embraced the fiction that he was like the sage kings of old who brought society into a state of total harmony with court rituals and policy reforms. Yet after the reign of Huizong, Song rulers and officials alike disregarded the New Policies and focused instead on reforming society through a local, bottom-up approach. For example, Huizong attempted from 1107–1120 to bar anyone who had not attended a government school from serving in public office. He thus rejected anyone who did not acknowledge his brand of Confucian ideology as orthodoxy. However, the government-run school system during the Southern Song eventually lost prominence to private academies, which had outnumbered government schools during the early Northern Song. Even before Huizong's reign, Sima Guang (1019–1086), a prominent chancellor and political rival to Wang Anshi, had little to say about the emperor's role in shaping major reforms and public policy, mentioning that the emperor simply made major appointments when necessary.

Emperors could choose whether to be active or completely absent in military affairs and politics, and were always free to pursue scholarship, cults, hobbies, or women instead. However, Frederick W. Mote argues in Imperial China: 900–1800 that most Song emperors—who spent much of their childhoods confined and isolated within a luxurious palace—were aloof conformists detached from the world of normal affairs and thus relied on officialdom to administer the government. While the mainstream view is that the Song court exercised the highest degree of restraint and courtesy towards civil officials, the new protocol of enhanced deferential treatment by officials towards the emperor during conferences and meetings further severed the emperor's close contact with his ministers.