page_title: History of the Song dynasty
section_title: Partisans and factions, reformers and conservatives
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Song dynasty / Partisans and factions, reformers and conservatives
caption_attribution_description: Children Playing in an Autumn Courtyardlabel QS:Len,"Children Playing in an Autumn Courtyard" label QS:Lzh-cn,"秋庭婴戏图"
context_page_description: The Song dynasty of China was a ruling dynasty that controlled China proper and southern China from the middle of the 10th century into the last quarter of the 13th century. The dynasty was established by Emperor Taizu of Song with his usurpation of the throne of Later Zhou, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.
  The Song is considered a high point of classical Chinese innovation in science and technology, an era that featured prominent intellectual figures such as Shen Kuo and Su Song and the revolutionary use of gunpowder weapons. However, it was also a period of political and military turmoil, with opposing and often aggressive political factions formed at court that impeded political, social, and economic progress. The frontier management policies of the Chancellor Wang Anshi exacerbated hostile conditions along the Chinese-Vietnamese border. This sparked a border war with Vietnam's Lý dynasty, which was fought to a mutual draw and concluded with a peace treaty in 1082. To the northwest the Song Empire frequently quarreled with the rival Western Xia, led by the Tanguts, as well as the Liao Dynasty to the northeast, led by ethnic Khitans.
context_section_description: After students passed the often difficult, bureaucratic, and heavily demanding Imperial Exams, as they became officials, they did not always see eye to eye with others that had passed the same examination. Even though they were fully-fledged graduates ready for government service, there was always the factor of competition with other officials. Promotion to a higher post, higher salary, additional honors, and selection for choice assignment responsibilities were often uncertain, as young new officials often needed higher-ranking officials to recommend them for service. Once an official would rise to the upper echelons of central administration based in the capital, they would often compete with others over influence of the emperor's official adoption of state policies. Officials with different opinions on how to approach administrative affairs often sought out other officials for support, leading to pacts of rivaling officials lining up political allies at court to sway the emperor against the faction they disagreed with.
  Factional strife at court first became apparent during the 1040s. The unsuccessful war with Tanguts and the mounting economic pressures prompted the first reform movement of the Song: Qingli Reforms initiated by Fan Zhongyan (989–1052). Fan was a capable military leader (with successful battles in his record against the Tanguts of Xi-Xia) but as a minister of state he was known as an idealist, once saying that a well-minded official should be one that was "first in worrying about the world's troubles and last in enjoying its pleasures". When Fan rose to the seat of chancellor, there was a growing opposition to him within the older and more conservative crowd. They disliked his pushing for reforms for the recruitment system, higher pay for minor local officials to discourage against corruption, and wider sponsorship programs to ensure that officials were drafted more on the basis of their intellect and character. However, his reforms were cancelled within a year's time (with Fan replaced as chancellor), since many older officials halfway through their careers were not keen on making changes that could affect their comfortably set positions.
  After Fan Zhongyan, there was Chancellor Wang Anshi (1021–1086). The new nineteen-year-old Emperor Shenzong (r. 1067–1085) had an instant liking of Wang Anshi when he submitted a long memorial to the throne that criticized the practices of state schools and the examination system itself. With Wang as his new chancellor, he quickly implemented Wang's New Policies, which evoked some heated reaction from the conservative base. Along with the Baojia system of a community-based law enforcement, the New Policies included:
  Low-cost loans for farmers and replaced the labor service with a tax instead, hoping this would ultimately help the workings of the entire economy and state (as he directly linked state income to the level of prosperity of rural peasants who owned farms, produced goods for the market, and paid the land tax). These government loans replaced the system of landlords offering their tenants private loans, which was prohibited under the new laws of Wang's reforms.
  Government monopolies on tea, salt, and wine in order to raise state revenues (although this would now limit the merchant class).
  Instituting a more up-to-date land survey system in order to properly assess the land tax.
  Introduction of a local militia in order to lessen the budget of expenses paid for upholding the official standing army, which had grown dramatically to roughly 1 million soldiers by 1022.
  The creation of a new government bureau in 1073 called the Directorate of Weapons, which supervised the manufacture of armaments and ensured quality control.
  Introduction of the Finance Planning Commission, created in mind to speed up the reform process so that dissident Conservatives would have less time to react and oppose reforms.
  The poetry requirement of the civil service examination (introduced during the earlier Tang dynasty) was scrapped in order to seek out men with more practical experience
caption: "Children Playing in an Autumn Courtyard" (秋庭婴戏图), close-up detail of a larger vertical-scroll painting on silk by Su Hanchen (苏汉臣, active 1130-1160s AD)
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