Southern Song1224–1264
寶慶 · 紹定 · 端平 …
Zhao Yun (1205–1264), known by his temple name Lizong, was the fourteenth emperor of the Song dynasty and the fifth of the Southern Song. He reigned for forty years, from 1224 to 1264, under eight era names from Baoqing to Jingding.
His reign saw the destruction of the Jin dynasty in 1234 by a Song and Mongol alliance, and the start of the long war with the Mongols that would end the Song fifteen years after his death. He was also a gifted calligrapher, and works in his hand are still admired.
Zhao Yun was a distant descendant of the dynasty's founder, Emperor Taizu, but his branch of the imperial clan had long since sunk into obscurity, and he grew up far from the court. He had no claim to the throne.
His fortunes changed through the chancellor Shi Miyuan, who controlled the government under Emperor Ningzong. The designated heir, Prince Zhao Hong, was openly hostile to Shi, and Shi looked for an alternative. He had Zhao Yun brought to the capital, adopted into the line of succession and educated. When Ningzong died in 1224, Shi, with the cooperation of Empress Yang, set aside Zhao Hong and placed Zhao Yun on the throne.
For the first nine years of the reign, real power remained with Shi Miyuan, and Empress Dowager Yang shared in the regency. Lizong left the business of government to them.
Lizong's temple name, Li, refers to the Neo-Confucian philosophy of principle. He was a keen patron of the school of Zhu Xi, and in 1241 he had Zhu Xi and the other Song masters of the school honoured in the Confucian temple, a step that helped make their teaching the orthodoxy of later centuries.
Lizong was one of the best calligraphers among the Song emperors after Gaozong, writing in a quick, sharply pointed hand that is easy to recognise. Many surviving examples are poems written on round silk fans and album leaves, and he also added inscriptions to paintings by the court painters of his day, among them Ma Lin. Examples survive in museum collections in China, Taiwan and the United States, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
By the time Lizong came to the throne, the Mongols had been attacking the Jin dynasty, which held northern China, for more than a decade. In 1231 a Mongol army marched through Song territory in the Sichuan border passes to outflank the Jin, clashing with Song forces on the way.
In 1233 the Song agreed to join the Mongols against the Jin. According to the Jin histories, the last Jin emperor, Aizong, warned that once the Jin had fallen the Mongols would turn on the Song, but the Song court saw a chance to recover the north and to take revenge for the loss of Kaifeng a century earlier. Song and Mongol armies took the last Jin stronghold at Caizhou in 1234, and the Jin dynasty ended.
Shi Miyuan had died in 1233, and Lizong now took charge himself, bringing respected scholar-officials back into government in what is known as the Duanping reform. In the summer of 1234 Song armies moved north and occupied the former capitals Kaifeng and Luoyang, which lay in the territory left empty by the fall of the Jin.
The venture was a disaster. The armies were short of supplies, the Mongols broke the Yellow River dykes and flooded the approaches, and the Song forces at Luoyang were attacked and driven out. The Mongols treated the advance as a breach of their agreement, and from 1235 they were at war with the Song. The fighting continued, with pauses, for more than forty years.
In 1253 the Mongols conquered the Dali kingdom in present-day Yunnan, opening a route around the Song's western flank. In 1259 the Great Khan Möngke died during the siege of the Song fortress of Diaoyu in Sichuan. His brother Kublai, who was besieging Ezhou on the Yangtze, withdrew to pursue his claim to the succession. The Song chancellor Jia Sidao, who had negotiated with Kublai, presented the withdrawal at court as a great victory, and his power grew accordingly.
In his later years Lizong took less interest in government, and his court was dominated by favourites, including the families of his consorts Jia and Yan, the eunuchs Dong Songchen and Lu Yunsheng, and the chancellor Ding Daquan.
Lizong died in 1264, aged fifty-nine. He had no surviving son, and his nephew Zhao Qi, whom he had adopted as heir, succeeded him as Emperor Duzong. Jia Sidao dominated the government of the new reign, and officials who opposed him, among them Wen Tianxiang, were pushed out of office.
Lizong's long reign falls within one of the great periods of Chinese ceramics. The official Guan wares made near the capital, Hangzhou, the celadons of the Longquan kilns in Zhejiang, the dark-glazed tea bowls of Jian and Jizhou and the bluish-white qingbai porcelain of Jingdezhen were all in production. Song wares were not marked with reign names, so pieces are dated by style, body and glaze rather than by inscription. Among the Song pieces in our collection is a Song dynasty celadon jar.
Celadon Vase with Two Loop Handles and Carved Lotus, Song Dynasty
Celadon vase with a ribbed, flaring neck and two loop handles, the rounded body carved with lotus among leaves and stems, Song dynasty.
Celadon Jar with a Fluted Melon-Shaped Body, Song Dynasty
Squat celadon jar with a fluted, melon-shaped body and a short upright rim, covered in an even grey-green glaze, Song dynasty.
Celadon Vase with Carved Peony Medallions, Song to Yuan Dynasty
Ovoid celadon vase with loop handles round the neck, the shoulder carved in relief with peony blossoms in large round medallions above a fluted lower body, Song to Yuan dynasty.
Ewer with a Pale Glaze and a Ridged Shoulder, Song Dynasty
Undecorated ewer under a pale greyish buff glaze, with a straight-sided body, a raised ridge below the shoulder, a tall neck, a curved spout and a loop handle, Song dynasty.
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