Diminished Empire and Nomadic Challengers 71
form of calligraphy called “slender gold.” He brought many painters to
his court, where he supervised and instructed them as if the survival of
the empire depended on their artistic abilities. Unfortunately, it did not.
In the early twelfth century another nomadic group, the Jurchen,
formed a powerful coalition of tribes to the northeast of the Khitan Liao
under a new leader, Aguda. Aguda had his own dynastic ambitions and
proclaimed himself emperor of the Jin dynasty. When Aguda’s forces
attacked the Song’s dangerous neighbor, the Khitan Liao, Huizong’s
court allied with the Jin in hopes of eliminating its strongest nomadic
threat. The strategy backfi red as the Jin defeated the Liao with Song
help and then kept right on marching in 1127 into Kaifeng, the Song
capital. Huizong and his son were captured by the Jin and later died in
captivity. Many court offi cials and another of the emperor’s sons fl ed
to the south. They established a new capital south of the Yangzi River
at Hangzhou, where the many rivers and canals and wet rice fi elds pre-
vented easy invasion by nomads on horseback. Thus, the Song dynasty
is divided into the Northern Song (960–1127) and the Southern Song
(1127–1279).
It is easy in retrospect to blame the self-absorbed emperor-artist
Huizong for “painting while Kaifeng burned,” but there was a self-
perpetuating weakness built into the Song state that went far beyond
Huizong and his artistic passions. Without control over the northern
and northwestern territories that had been held by the Han and Tang,
even the Northern Song lacked the capacity to breed the large numbers
of horses needed to fend off its powerful nomadic neighbors. In the
Southern Song, the main focus of debate among Confucian offi cials was
whether to mount an aggressive counterattack against the Jin occupiers
of the north or rest content to maintain a reduced empire in the south.
In 1139 the Southern Song court, under the leadership of chief
councilor Qin Gui, signed a peace treaty with the Jin. The fi ery South-
ern Song general Yue Fei attacked the idea of conceding the north to the
barbarians as a treasonous betrayal of the nation’s best interest. When
the Jin broke the treaty and sent troops southward in 1140, Yue Fei led
Song forces in repelling them. However, Yue Fei was seen by the court
as dangerous, reckless, and sure to invite a deeper invasion by the Jin
or else, in his frustration, to threaten the Song ruling family itself. He
was ordered to withdraw from the territory he had taken in the north.
Recalled to the southern capital of Hangzhou and held under house
arrest, Yue Fei was accused of plotting against the emperor and killed
in prison in early 1141. Qin Gui concluded a new peace treaty with the
Jin on even less favorable terms to the Southern Song. Since Song times,