48 Facts About Southern Song

1.

Southern Song dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279.

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2.

The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Southern Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou.

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3.

The Southern Song conquered the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.

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4.

The Southern Song often came into conflict with the contemporaneous Liao, Western Xia and Jin dynasties in northern China.

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5.

The Southern Song refers to the period after the Song lost control of its northern half to the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song Wars.

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6.

At that time, the Southern Song court retreated south of the Yangtze and established its capital at Lin'an .

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7.

The Southern Song dynasty was the first in world history to issue banknotes or true paper money and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy.

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8.

Economically, the Southern Song dynasty was unparalleled with a gross domestic product three times larger than that of Europe during the 12th century.

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9.

Southern Song ensured administrative stability by promoting the civil service examination system of drafting state bureaucrats by skill and merit and promoted projects that ensured efficiency in communication throughout the empire.

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10.

Southern Song court maintained diplomatic relations with Chola India, the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt, Srivijaya, the Kara-Khanid Khanate in Central Asia, the Goryeo kingdom in Korea, and other countries that were trade partners with Japan.

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11.

From its inception under Taizu, the Southern Song dynasty alternated between warfare and diplomacy with the ethnic Khitans of the Liao dynasty in the northeast and with the Tanguts of the Western Xia in the northwest.

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12.

The Southern Song dynasty used military force in an attempt to quell the Liao dynasty and to recapture the Sixteen Prefectures, a territory under Khitan control since 938 that was traditionally considered to be part of China proper .

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13.

Southern Song forces were repulsed by the Liao forces, who engaged in aggressive yearly campaigns into Northern Southern Song territory until 1005, when the signing of the Shanyuan Treaty ended these northern border clashes.

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14.

The Southern Song created an extensive defensive forest along the Southern Song-Liao border to thwart potential Khitan cavalry attacks.

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15.

Southern Song dynasty managed to win several military victories over the Tanguts in the early 11th century, culminating in a campaign led by the polymath scientist, general, and statesman Shen Kuo .

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16.

The Southern Song fought against the Vietnamese kingdom of Ðai Viet twice, the first conflict in 981 and later a significant war from 1075 to 1077 over a border dispute and the Southern Song's severing of commercial relations with Ðai Viet.

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17.

Southern Song revived the New Policies and pursued political opponents, tolerated corruption and encouraged Emperor Huizong to neglect his duties to focus on artistic pursuits.

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18.

However, the poor performance and military weakness of the Southern Song army was observed by the Jurchens, who immediately broke the alliance, beginning the Jin–Southern Song Wars of 1125 and 1127.

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19.

In Kublai's absence, the Southern Song forces were ordered by Chancellor Jia Sidao to make an immediate assault and succeeded in pushing the Mongol forces back to the northern banks of the Yangtze.

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20.

Southern Song dynasty was an era of administrative sophistication and complex social organization.

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21.

The Southern Song government supported social welfare programs including the establishment of retirement homes, public clinics, and paupers' graveyards.

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22.

The Southern Song dynasty supported a widespread postal service that was modeled on the earlier Han dynasty postal system to provide swift communication throughout the empire.

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23.

The Southern Song government—excluding the educational-reformist government under Emperor Huizong—spared little amount of state revenue to maintain prefectural and county schools; instead, the bulk of the funds for schools was drawn from private financing.

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24.

Southern Song judges specified the guilty person or party in a criminal act and meted out punishments accordingly, often in the form of caning.

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25.

Southern Song Ci stressed the importance of proper coroner's conduct during autopsies and the accurate recording of the inquest of each autopsy by official clerks.

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26.

Southern Song military was chiefly organized to ensure that the army could not threaten Imperial control, often at the expense of effectiveness in war.

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27.

At its height, the Southern Song military had one million soldiers divided into platoons of 50 troops, companies made of two platoons, battalions composed of 500 soldiers.

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28.

Southern Song cavalry employed a slew of different weapons, including halberds, swords, bows, spears, and 'fire lances' that discharged a gunpowder blast of flame and shrapnel.

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29.

Visual arts during the Southern Song dynasty were heightened by new developments such as advances in landscape and portrait painting.

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30.

Southern Song dynasty had one of the most prosperous and advanced economies in the medieval world.

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31.

Southern Song Chinese invested their funds in joint stock companies and in multiple sailing vessels at a time when monetary gain was assured from the vigorous overseas trade and domestic trade along the Grand Canal and Yangtze River.

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32.

The Southern Song economy was stable enough to produce over a hundred million kilograms of iron product a year.

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33.

The most notable advancement in the Southern Song economy was the establishment of the world's first government issued paper-printed money, known as Jiaozi .

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34.

Polymath figures such as the scientists and statesmen Shen Kuo and Su Southern Song embodied advancements in all fields of study, including botany, zoology, geology, mineralogy, metallurgy, mechanics, magnetics, meteorology, horology, astronomy, pharmaceutical medicine, archeology, mathematics, cartography, optics, art criticism, hydraulics, and many other fields.

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35.

Southern Song'sn theorized that geographical climates gradually shifted over time.

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36.

Southern Song created a theory of land formation involving concepts accepted in modern geomorphology.

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37.

Southern Song performed optical experiments with camera obscura just decades after Ibn al-Haytham was the first to do so.

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38.

Southern Song improved the designs of astronomical instruments such as the widened astronomical sighting tube, which allowed Shen Kuo to fix the position of the pole star .

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39.

Southern Song Chinese observed supernovae, including SN 1054, the remnants of which would form the Crab Nebula.

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40.

The enhancement of widespread printing and print culture in the Southern Song period was thus a direct catalyst in the rise of social mobility and expansion of the educated class of scholar elites, the latter which expanded dramatically in size from the 11th to 13th centuries.

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41.

The Southern Song used crossbeams to brace the ribs of ships in order to strengthen them in a skeletal-like structure.

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42.

The Southern Song arranged the protruding teeth of anchors in a circular pattern instead of in one direction.

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43.

Southern Song addressed the standard methods of construction, design, and applications of moats and fortifications, stonework, greater woodwork, lesser woodwork, wood-carving, turning and drilling, sawing, bamboo work, tiling, wall building, painting and decoration, brickwork, glazed tile making, and provided proportions for mortar formulas in masonry.

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44.

Southern Song outlined the standard units of measurement and standard dimensional measurements of all building components described and illustrated in his book.

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45.

Many of the pagoda towers built during the Southern Song period were erected at heights that exceeded ten stories.

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46.

Scholar-officials of the Southern Song period claimed to have discovered ancient bronze vessels that were created as far back as the Shang dynasty, which bore the written characters of the Shang era.

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47.

Southern Song'sn objected to the idea of his peers that ancient relics were products created by famous "sages" in lore or the ancient aristocratic class; Southern Song'sn rightfully attributed the discovered handicrafts and vessels from ancient times as the work of artisans and commoners from previous eras.

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48.

Southern Song disapproved of his peers' pursuit of archaeology simply to enhance state ritual, since Shen not only took an interdisciplinary approach with the study of archaeology, but he emphasized the study of functionality and investigating what was the ancient relics' original processes of manufacture.

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