The Arrangement Could Not Have
Been A Bad One, As It Gave The Empire Eighteen Years Of Peace, The
Country, No Doubt, Increased Greatly In Prosperity During This Period; But
The Reputation Of Chintsong Steadily Declined.
He seems to have been
naturally superstitious, and he gave himself up to fortune tellers and
soothsayers during the last years of his reign; and when he died, in A.D.
1022, he had impaired the position and power of the imperial office.
Yet,
so far as can be judged, the people were contented, and the population
rose to over one hundred million.
Chintsong was succeeded by his sixth son, Jintsong, a boy of thirteen, for
whom the government was carried on by his mother, a woman of capacity and
good sense. She took off objectionable taxes on tea and salt - prime
necessaries of life in China - and she instituted surer measures against
the spiritualists and magicians who had flourished under her husband and
acquired many administrative offices under his patronage. After ruling for
ten peaceful years she died and Jintsong assumed the personal direction of
affairs. During the tranquillity that had now prevailed for more than a
generation a new power had arisen on the Chinese frontier in the
principality of Tangut or Hia. This state occupied the modern province of
Kansuh, with some of the adjacent districts of Koko Nor and the Gobi
Desert. Chao Yuen, the prince of this territory, was an ambitious warrior,
who had drawn round his standard a force of one hundred and fifty thousand
fighting men. With this he waged successful war upon the Tibetans, and
began a course of encroachments on Chinese territory which was not to be
distinguished from open hostility. Chao Yuen was not content with the
appellation of prince, and "because he came of a family several of whose
members had in times past borne the imperial dignity," he adopted the
title of emperor. Having taken this step, Chao Yuen wrote to Jintsong
expressing "the hope that there would be a constant and solid peace
between the two empires." The reply of the Chinese ruler to this insult,
as he termed it, was to declare war and to offer a reward for the head of
Chao Yuen.
It was soon made evident that Chao Yuen possessed the military power to
support an imperial dignity. He defeated the emperor's army in two pitched
battles at Sanchuen and Yang Moulong, and many years elapsed before the
Sung rulers can be held to have recovered from the loss of their best
armies. The Khitans of Leaoutung took advantage of these misfortunes to
encroach, and as Jintsong had no army with which to oppose them, they
captured ten cities with little or no resistance. The Chinese government
was compelled to purchase them back by increasing the annual allowance it
paid of gold and silk. A similar policy was resorted to in the case of
Chao Yuen, who consented to a peace on receiving every year one hundred
thousand pieces of silk and thirty thousand pounds of tea.
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