It Was Soon Made Evident That Chao Yuen Possessed The Military Power To
Support An Imperial Dignity.
He defeated the emperor's army in two pitched
battles at Sanchuen and Yang Moulong, and many years elapsed before the
Sung rulers can be held to have recovered from the loss of their best
armies.
The Khitans of Leaoutung took advantage of these misfortunes to
encroach, and as Jintsong had no army with which to oppose them, they
captured ten cities with little or no resistance. The Chinese government
was compelled to purchase them back by increasing the annual allowance it
paid of gold and silk. A similar policy was resorted to in the case of
Chao Yuen, who consented to a peace on receiving every year one hundred
thousand pieces of silk and thirty thousand pounds of tea. Not content
with this payment, Chao Yuen subsequently exacted the right to build
fortresses along the Chinese frontier. Soon after this Chao Yuen was
murdered by one of his sons, whose betrothed he had taken from him. If
Jintsong was not fortunate in his wars he did much to promote education
and to encourage literature. He restored the colleges founded by the
Tangs, he built a school or academy in every town, he directed the public
examinations to be held impartially and frequently, and he gave special
prizes as a reward for elocution. Some of the greatest historians China
has produced lived in his reign, and wrote their works under his
patronage; of these Szemakwang was the most famous.
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