Asking the Song Dynasty: Gains and Losses in the Internal Affairs and Diplomacy of the Zhao and Song Dynasties

After the Song Dynasty ended the troubled times of the Five Dynasties, it established a political regime that lasted for more than 300 years. With the changes in social conditions in each period, the politics of the Song Dynasty not only experienced rich and complex changes, but also had internal continuity throughout. Generally speaking, the politics of the two Song Dynasties showed the characteristics of "although there are constant foreign troubles, there are few internal worries." There are institutional causes behind this, but accidental factors in specific historical events cannot be ignored. This book is a popular book on the political history of the Song Dynasty written by You Biaoji, an expert on Song history, with 30 years of research and thinking skills, and written for the public readers. This is not a comprehensive work on the history of the Song Dynasty that pursues all aspects, but adopts a point-to-point combination method, from the establishment of "ancestral family law" in the early Song Dynasty to the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty at the Battle of Yashan. It carefully selects the characters and events that best reflect the political characteristics of each period. The author attempts to analyze the gains and losses of domestic affairs and diplomacy in each period in a simple and profound way, and grasp the internal logic of the political evolution of the two Song Dynasties.