The later Northern Song Dynasty was an age of brilliant statesmen, bitter factional politics, ambitious reforms, court intrigue, and rulers struggling to control a government that could be as dangerous internally as its enemies were beyond the frontier.
In The Northern Song Dynasty: A History of China, Part Three, the story begins with Emperor Shenzong and Wang Anshi's controversial New Policies. Their attempt to strengthen the state draws in some of the most memorable figures of Song history, including Sima Guang, Su Shi, Empress Dowager Gao, Emperor Zhezong, and Empress Meng, as reformers and conservatives fight over taxation, government power, political principle, and control of the court.
The story then moves into the reign of Emperor Huizong-the celebrated painter-emperor whose love of art and luxury existed beside increasingly serious problems of government. Around him rise powerful and often notorious figures such as Cai Jing, Tong Guan, Liang Shicheng, and Gao Qiu, while relations with the Liao, Western Xia, and the rising Jurchen Jin place growing pressure on the dynasty.
Written as accessible narrative history for general readers, this volume explains complicated Song politics through the people making the decisions: emperors, ministers, poets, eunuchs, reformers, opportunists, and rivals.
From Wang Anshi's reforms to the political crises surrounding Huizong and the Jingkang era, it is a story of intelligent ideas, human ambition, unintended consequences, and a dynasty approaching its most dangerous hour.