Реферат: Song Dynasty Essay Research Paper The Song

About 100 years after the Songs first started ruling over China, their

government started to go through a major decline. Officials that held important

government positions were corrupt. Wealthy merchants that became rich from

foreign trade found ways to avoid paying taxes. The peasants began to rebel when

the heavy taxes were placed on them.

The Song Dynasty had a lot of problems, in 1069 Emperor Shen Tsung

appointed Wang An-shi as chief minister. Wang was a scholar who studied earlier

Chinese governments. Wang noticed the corrupt government and made huge reform in

the government. His reforms were based on the text of ‘Rites of Chou’. Wang

tried to get honest, intelligent officials by improving the university system.

He made civil examinations more practical and reformed the merit system to

reduce corruption among government officials.

Wang help the governments financial problems by establishing a graduated

income tax. This meant the wealthy people were required to pay a greater

percentage of their income that poorer people pay. This new tax method reduced

the burden on the peasants and increased the governments revenues. The extra

money created from the taxing was used to pay government workers, which

abolished forced labor.

Many of his new laws were revivals of earlier policies, many officials

and landlords opposed his reforms. So when the emperor and Wang died, which

happen to been within a year of each other the laws were withdrawn. For the next

several decades, until the fall of Northern Song in 1126, the reformers and

anti-reformers took turns in power, this in turn created havoc and turmoil in

the government.

The Song tried to regain the territory that they had lost to the Khitans

by becoming allies with a new powerful Juchens from Manchuria. Once the Juchens

defeated the Khitans, they turned on the Song and occupied the capital of

Kaifeng. The Juchens established the Chin dynasty. They took the emperor and his

son prisoner, along with 3,000 others, and ordered them to be held in Manchuria.