The Song Dynasty (960-1279)

Peace allowed the Song state to diminish the political power of the military. Civil institutions were reinvigorated, and civil culture and economic devel­opment flourished. From the perspective of the civil elites, the literati, the Song was a time of civil dominance that had replaced the violence and chaos of a military dominated period.^[440] This was a ‘return' to the ‘correct' order of the Chinese world wherein the military and martial culture was subordinate to the civil side of culture and politics.

The strategies for the political use of violence in creating the dynasty and the physical and institutional structure of the Song empire were never obvious. Every military campaign was preceded by a contentious debate over strategy, and almost every expedition was opposed as too risky or unnecessary.^[441] Also contrary to later historiographical traditions and simpli­fications, the states and kingdoms that the Song attacked did not recognise that the Song emperor possessed heaven's mandate and so should surrender without fighting. All sides of every debate along with the courts of the rival states shared the same ideology. And all the statesmen and rulers involved knew that despite their diplomatic language, the fate of their states would be determined on the battlefield by violence.

The establishment phase of the Song dynasty ended in 1005 with the Chanyuan Covenant that concluded the war with the Kitan Liao empire. The Covenant would keep the peace for 120 years, making it one of the most successful peace treaties in world history. Yet despite that peace and the anti-military and anti-violence rhetoric of Song statesmen, most reviled the agreement. The Covenant was seen as humiliating proof of the military failings of the dynasty. Civil culture, by contrast, flourished, leading some to perceive a connection between military weakness and civil strength. This was one per­spective of the literati class, albeit the one that would dominate later percep­tions of the dynasty, but it ignored most of Song society, and some significant developments in non-civil activities within Song culture.

The public performance of violence also came into its own during the Song. It was during the Song that the ‘entertainment quarters' grew out of the wealthy merchant culture of the capital city, Kaifeng. Martial arts perfor­mances of a kind that had hitherto been confined to imperial banquets and celebrations, or intermittently performed by some travelling troupes, became regular entertainments for the common people.¹¹ During the Song the increase in economic activity and concomitant wealth of the society, combined with the breakdown of the previously restricted market system within the Kaifeng, allowed martial arts performances to break into the public sphere. The regular performance in fixed public locations led to an elaboration of martial arts practice beyond what was strictly necessary for combat effectiveness. It also included female martial arts performers. Violence was now a consumer good, along with restaurants and brothels.12

Official martial arts performances within the palace continued as before. Demonstrations of fighting were a standard component of official banquets, as well as diplomatic missions. Wrestling competitions remained the main­stay of these events, despite being acknowledged as having little direct value on the battlefield.

Some Song statesmen were troubled by the shift to professional soldiers, and attempted to replace the standing army with farmer-soldiers. This was one of the main policies of Emperor Shenzong (1048-85). The baojia system tried to spread a local militia scheme that existed in some northern border areas to the empire as a whole. Every household would contribute men to military service, once again requiring martial arts training in the general population. It was this ^{[442] [443] provision that Wang Yansou feared would produce bandits in addition to alienating the farmers. Trained soldiers were more violent than untrained farmers. Even worse, training farmers made them more violent without produ­cing good soldiers. Ultimately the baojia system was only partly implemented and it failed to replace the professional standing army.}

Song society had been relatively peaceful from 1005 to 1125, with most military activity confined to the border areas. Farmers were farming, and soldiers, while mistreated and denigrated by literati officials, took care of their military duties. This separation of responsibilities was also a contributing factor to Song economic development. The rising power of the Jurchen Jin dynasty in the early twelfth century broke down that peaceful arrangement. The Jurchen overthrew the Liao empire, which had maintained peace with the Song since 1005, and then captured north China from the Song, along with the emperor and the retired emperor. The Song court re-established itself in the southern part of its territory.

The Southern Song empire was under chronic military threat. Martial arts, which had been professionalised in the first half of the dynasty, once again flourished outside of the standing army.

Song society remained vibrant and wealthy, but the earlier balance of forces between the court and the army was permanently changed. Massive armies and navies were concentrated on the border, and broad powers over local govern­ment assigned to the commanding generals. The court wrestled with the problem of providing effective generals with the resources they needed to defend the dynasty while also maintaining control of them. With the main armies under immense pressure to defend the border, very few men were left to provide local security. Local communities learned to defend themselves, includ­ing creating mountain fortresses for refuge in case of invading armies, and merchants developed large numbers of armed men to protect their goods.^[444]

Soldiers were so much more important during the Southern Song that they were able to raise their status. Their previous poor treatment in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries was done away with.^{[445] [446]} Military and martial skills could not be denigrated to the same extent in a time of military crisis. Yet it was also true that the greater Southern Song valorisation of martial arts built upon real cultural developments in the Northern Song period that were explicitly downplayed by literati writers. Southern Song circumstances had altered, and caused changes in the valorisation or at least legitimacy of martial arts skills, but some of the shift is also historiographical.

Archery societies developed in the Southern Song, often meeting in temples where there was sufficient space to practice. Martial arts perfor­mances continued in the cities, which remained wealthy and culturally sophisticated. As the status of soldiers rose, joining the army became a more respectable thing to do. The Song government still struggled to recruit enough soldiers, resorting, as had always been done in China, to drafting captured bandits into the army. The court also on several occasions drafted successful local defence forces into the army.1⁵ This last expedient unfortu­nately failed to produce effective frontline units and undermined local security.

The intense violence of the Song-Jin conflict escalated in the thirteenth century with the rise of the Mongols to the north of the Jin empire. North China endured for a time a three-way conflict between the Jin, the Mongols and the Song for control of the area. Below that larger geo-political conflict, bandits and local warlords tried to carve out autonomous power bases, and local communities tried to defend themselves against marauding armies. North China, which had fallen behind southern China's economic development centuries before, became a battleground. The Song government supported various bandits or warlords in the hope that the Mongols would destroy the Jin and leave northern China open for the Song. Many bandits were canny enough to exploit the Song court's illusions in order to obtain supplies. The Shandong peninsula was for a time the cockpit of three empires, an intensely violent place of armed local bands fighting each other, Jin attempts to re-establish control, and Mongol incursions trying to shatter Jin government. Meanwhile, the Song waged a war of proxies.

The Mongols crushed the Jin dynasty in 1234 and briefly entertained the possibility of allowing the Southern Song to remain in place as a vassal state.

In order to defeat the Song the Mongols had to build their own navy. This was an entirely new kind of military force for the Mongols, but there was no other way to breach the Song's Huai River defence line. As important as the new navy was, so too were Mongol efforts to suborn the loyalties of Song border commanders. Within the complicated politics of the Song court, the strongest control mechanisms for maintaining the loyalty of important gen­erals were personal ties. The Song court never developed a systematic way to insure that its military was unconditionally obedient to the emperor. Literati officials sometimes seemed unable to understand that their civil values alienated them from the martial values of the generals. Their civil ideology blinded them to the fact that the military did not see literati officials as inherently superior to men who fought on the battlefield. Literati officials generally looked down upon the men of violence who were crucial to the survival of the dynasty, even when the dynasty was facing extinction.