AHC/WI: Northern (Song) China doesn't fall to the Jin?

CaliGuy

Banned
How do you make Song China strong enough so that northern China doesn't fall to the Jin?

Also, what would the consequences of this have been?
 
Make it so that Emperor Zhezong survives.If he survives,the accession of his irresponsible younger brother would be butterflied away.Emperor Zhezong was a fairly capable ruler,but he died in his early twenties.He can probably curb a large degree of the corruption that's been going on in Huizong's reign.That probably means that the army's in much better shape to conquer the Beijing region and repulse potential Jin invasion.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Make it so that Emperor Zhezong survives.If he survives,the accession of his irresponsible younger brother would be butterflied away.Emperor Zhezong was a fairly capable ruler,but he died in his early twenties.He can probably curb a large degree of the corruption that's been going on in Huizong's reign.That probably means that the army's in much better shape to conquer the Beijing region and repulse potential Jin invasion.
OK.

Also, what would the consequences of this have been?
 
OK.

Also, what would the consequences of this have been?
Song Dynasty might live longer and stronger.The Beijing region provides good war horses.The Tanguts also seemed to be pretty screwed.Even in Zhezong's reign,and that of the highly irresponsible Huizong,the Tanguts seemed to be on the way down,with them frequently losing wars and territory to the Song Dynasty.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
This seems to be over-simple-fication, you cannot blame dynasty raise and fall on one or two bad Emperor. Wang Anshi attempted New Reforms seems to indicated that Song dynasty were in trouble, otherwise there would be no need for large change.

Northern Song had problem with over-ambition, there are strong 'war faction' who dream of conquest of Liao and Hi-Hsia. while it did not have enough resources, financial and military, to do such thing.

even if conquest of Hi-Hsia success, what happen then ? Song now have desert border that need to be defended, and border with Tibet would be enlarged. Internally, success would breed over-confidence in provoking another war with Liao which would only result in defeat.

for Northern Song to succeed, it had to limit its ambition, perhaps several disastrous battle with Liao and Hi-Hsia might push for co-existence ? Annual tribute payment is costly, but war (and horse breeding program) is even more costly.
 
This seems to be over-simple-fication, you cannot blame dynasty raise and fall on one or two bad Emperor. Wang Anshi attempted New Reforms seems to indicated that Song dynasty were in trouble, otherwise there would be no need for large change.

Northern Song had problem with over-ambition, there are strong 'war faction' who dream of conquest of Liao and Hi-Hsia. while it did not have enough resources, financial and military, to do such thing.

even if conquest of Hi-Hsia success, what happen then ? Song now have desert border that need to be defended, and border with Tibet would be enlarged. Internally, success would breed over-confidence in provoking another war with Liao which would only result in defeat.

for Northern Song to succeed, it had to limit its ambition, perhaps several disastrous battle with Liao and Hi-Hsia might push for co-existence ? Annual tribute payment is costly, but war (and horse breeding program) is even more costly.
It's precisely because of this attitude that the Song Dynasty under-performs.The truth is that the Song Dynasty wasn't that ambitious at all for a large part of it's existence.For the most part,it was trying to win through sucker punches rather than try and seriously bolster the strength of it's forces.By the time it launched a war with the Khitans in the 1100s,it was when the Khitan Empire was clearly collapsing from the Jurchen revolt.The annual tribute payments generally help to strengthen enemy forces--who can always potentially use the money you paid against you.For the most part of the Song Dynasty's existence,it was paying large tributes to states clearly much weaker than it on paper--entities who were less wealthier and populated than it was.By the time the Song Dynasty finally declared war on the Khitans in the 1100s,they have been paying tribute to the Khitans for more than one hundred years....This was largely unimaginable in previous unified dynasties.Rather than not having the resources to conquer the Khitans and the Tanguts,the problem was that they did not have the political will for the most part to do it--as the officials were afraid of influential military officers,not to mention not having the will to devote resources to maintain a powerful army.Previous dynasties and succeeding ones like the Ming Dynasty have occupied North-West China successfully.The Song Dynasty was actually the wealthiest of all dynasties and had a much higher population than previous dynasties.

The reign of Emperor Huizong was seriously mismanaged.A large reason why the Song forces were defeated by the Jurchens was due to the corrupt nature of the army.The entire government was basically quite corrupt as a result of the cronies Huizong installed.Even before the Jingkang disaster,there were multiple revolts throughout the empire was a result of Huizong and his cronies trying to extract wealth from the population for their own private use.It was a highly incompetent force that couldn't even defeat the dying Khitan Empire.If a more capable emperor was at the helm,it is perfectly reasonable that the Jingkang disaster could be averted.

Another problem with the Song foreign policy was that they have a habit of helping a newly rising nomad power putting down an old,weakened one.This helped the Jurchens and later the Mongols.They kept on setting up far more powerful enemies for themselves.
 
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missouribob

Banned
they did not have the political will for the most part to do it--as the officials were afraid of influential military officers,not to mention not having the will to devote resources to maintain a powerful army.
This. From my understanding the Song Empire did not trust nor value having a military industrial complex. As a result they were much weaker than you'd think they'd be by looking at the resources and manpower under their control.
 
This. From my understanding the Song Empire did not trust nor value having a military industrial complex. As a result they were much weaker than you'd think they'd be by looking at the resources and manpower under their control.
Basically,things were so bad that a lowly bureaucrat can actually give orders to a general who's much higher ranked than the bureaucrat....

The military aristocracy(families of the generals who participated in the founding of the empire) was largely repressed and only given honorable posts without any authority.

If an official commited crimes and seriously blundered like openly extorting the population for bribes,the harshest penalty he could get would be banishment to a place like Hainan.Conversely,if a general blundered or commited a crime,he would be generally killed along with his/her family.The pay of the generals were also much lower than the officials IIRC.Service in the army was frowned upon by society and the government had to draft convicts to man the army.As a result,the best and brightest in the empire tried to be bureaucrats instead of generals.Things were bad enough that even the military aristocracy mentioned earlier tried to be bureaucrats as well.

The whole complaint about lack of horses was true,but equally bullshit,because the Song government brought it upon themselves by converting horse farms into agricultural farmland so that the officials can get more land for themselves due to political corruption.From what I've read,Wang Anshi's horse breeding program of outsourcing warhorse breeding to civilians in return for tax cuts was mismanaged as the civilians just bred the warhorses with random horses without paying heed to horse lineage and eugenetics--which ultimately depleted Song forces of useful warhorses.
 
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I can think of two ways.
One, is not invading Khitans. This was completely pointless, as Khitans had had little that you could tax even if you won total victory against them. To make it worse, Song kept betraying their allies Jurchen in most inept fashion, and got invaded for their stupidity.
Two, is victorious war of reconquest against Jurchens. I don't remember anyones involved names, but emperor didn't like his best general, even though he kept winning battles, and that general was later murdered by bureacrat who later ended up negotiating treaty that sold out northern China to Jurchens. So, have initial assasination against poor general fail, emperor gets annoyed at bureacrat and has him killed, Song keep winning battles until Jurchen are driven out.
 
I can think of two ways.
One, is not invading Khitans. This was completely pointless, as Khitans had had little that you could tax even if you won total victory against them. To make it worse, Song kept betraying their allies Jurchen in most inept fashion, and got invaded for their stupidity.
Two, is victorious war of reconquest against Jurchens. I don't remember anyones involved names, but emperor didn't like his best general, even though he kept winning battles, and that general was later murdered by bureacrat who later ended up negotiating treaty that sold out northern China to Jurchens. So, have initial assasination against poor general fail, emperor gets annoyed at bureacrat and has him killed, Song keep winning battles until Jurchen are driven out.
The Khitans controlled the vital region of You and Yun--which is crucial for the defense of China.If You and Yun's controlled by a foreign power,that foreign power can cross the Yan Mountains unimpeded.It's also a great horse breeding ground that the Song Dynasty needs.There's also the fact that You and Yun were traditionally Chinese provinces with a Han majority.So attacking them is a must,problem was that their army's completely inept and couldn't conquer You and Yun.This led to dishonesty on part of the Jurchens,who managed to conquer You and Yun themselves but charged the Song Dynasty for it.By the time the Song forces got to You and Yun,they discovered that the Jurchens had stripped the two regions of their population making it indefensible.

Yue Fei's death wasn't as much an assassination as a straight up execution--he was first ordered back to court,arrested and then executed .Zhao Gou and Qin Hui were absolute bastards,but Yue Fei was stupid as well.He got along with nobody except Han Shizong(another great general) at court and basically antagonized the entire government including other generals due to his taciturn/upright nature.He more or less brought it upon himself by frequently insisting that the government should obtain the release of Zhao Ji(Emperor Huizong) and Zhao Huan(Emperor Qinzong).Naturally,Zhao Gou had no interest of receiving his father and brother.If those two got back,it's possible that he'd be forced to yield the throne back to either of them.If that happens,he'd definitely be killed or put under house arrest for the rest of his life.So it wasn't as much as the bureaucrat wanted Yue Fei dead only,but that the emperor himself was dead set to have Yue Fei killed.Another thing was that Yue Fei was no where as close to beating the Jurchens as some may think.At his high watermark,he was only able to penetrate as deeply as Henan(which is in central China).
 
Khitans controlled those regions for 100+ years, and Song did fine. They were hardly that important, but Song backstabbed Khitans after century of mutual peace, for no reason other than 'quick, victorious war', and thats all that needs to be said about it.
 
I want to push back against the idea of decrepit Song. They held out against the Mongols for decades, something no other power did. Was it just Chinese geography? Maybe, but the Ming fell very, very quickly to the Qing.
 
I want to push back against the idea of decrepit Song. They held out against the Mongols for decades, something no other power did. Was it just Chinese geography? Maybe, but the Ming fell very, very quickly to the Qing.
Indeed it was weird.Recently,I've come into notice a South Song Dynasty general by the name of Meng Gong(孟珙).In the 1230s,when the Mongols first turned on the Song Dynasty following their joint defeat of the Jurchens,this guy was given command of the majority of the Song forces.He managed to not only smash the Mongol attempt to conquer areas south of the Huai river,but reconquer territory lost to the Mongols during the invasion.

Then again,Meng Gong's victories were largely the result of him fighting defensively by taking advantage of the riverine geography of southern China and counterattack where appropriate.Song forces couldn't fight well at all against the Mongols when they were north of the Huai river.
Khitans controlled those regions for 100+ years, and Song did fine. They were hardly that important, but Song backstabbed Khitans after century of mutual peace, for no reason other than 'quick, victorious war', and thats all that needs to be said about it.
Honestly,it was hardly a good peace--the Song Empire had to pay a massive tribute annually to stop the Khitans from attempting to reach Kaifeng.The importance of the Yan Mountains as a frontier cannot be overstated.Kaifeng along with most Chinese cities in the north China situated in a massive plain.From a defensive point of view,they were extremely difficult to defend--which forced the Song Dynasty to recruit a massive professional army whose size was unseen in previous dynasties.This massive army was a heavy drain on resources.The mountains acts as a force amplifier and restricts the routes where the nomads invade from.It's a major reason why the Ming Dynasty chose this region as the site for their capital.
 
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PhilippeO

Banned
Previous dynasties and succeeding ones like the Ming Dynasty have occupied North-West China successfully.The Song Dynasty was actually the wealthiest of all dynasties and had a much higher population than previous dynasties.

Wealth is not identical with military powers. a Dynasty / Regime capability depend on many thing, including :
- political will among elite and population to wage war
- method of controlling military officers from betrayals
- willingness of populace to be taxed for war
- military tradition
- economic resources needed for war (including warhorses)
- etc

Song is lacking many thing that Tang, Ming and Qing have, it don't mean its 'worse' than those dynasties, it just means it infrastructure (law, tax, tradition, etc) is non-suited to wage Northern war. And it is impossible to fundamentally change nature of dynasty without re-waging civil war and dynasty founding.

Chinese dynasty often heavily influenced by its founding Emperor, and after that changing relations with landowner, official and populations concerning tax and law is extremely hard to do. It is essentially 'fixed' and difficult to change without violence.

Two, is victorious war of reconquest against Jurchens. I don't remember anyones involved names, but emperor didn't like his best general, even though he kept winning battles, and that general was later murdered by bureacrat who later ended up negotiating treaty that sold out northern China to Jurchens. So, have initial assasination against poor general fail, emperor gets annoyed at bureacrat and has him killed, Song keep winning battles until Jurchen are driven out.

My reading of Yue Fei is that his Legend is mostly nationalistic myth, propagated to foster Chinese nationalism.
I think while he is tactically competent general, he is strategically-deficient warmongering general who push for unwinnable war.

The Khitans controlled the vital region of You and Yun--which is crucial for the defense of China.If You and Yun's controlled by a foreign power,that foreign power can cross the Yan Mountains unimpeded.It's also a great horse breeding ground that the Song Dynasty needs.There's also the fact that You and Yun were traditionally Chinese provinces with a Han majority.So attacking them is a must,problem was that their army's completely inept and couldn't conquer You and Yun.

Then again,Meng Gong's victories were largely the result of him fighting defensively by taking advantage of the riverine geography of southern China and counterattack where appropriate.Song forces couldn't fight well at all against the Mongols when they were north of the Huai river.

Honestly,it was hardly a good peace--the Song Empire had to pay a massive tribute annually to stop the Khitans from attempting to reach Kaifeng.The importance of the Yan Mountains as a frontier cannot be overstated.Kaifeng along with most Chinese cities in the north China situated in a massive plain.From a defensive point of view,they were extremely difficult to defend--which forced the Song Dynasty to recruit a massive professional army whose size was unseen in previous dynasties.This massive army was a heavy drain on resources.The mountains acts as a force amplifier and restricts the routes where the nomads invade from.It's a major reason why the Ming Dynasty chose this region as the site for their capital.

I see Sixteen Prefecture as uncapturable, Song repeatedly defeated while attempted to do so. And while population is Han Chinese, they have rule under barbarian for many years, there no evidence they would actually be sympathetic to Song.

Song massive waste of money and resources is because they refuse to give up land north of Huai, and over-ambition in capturing Sixteen Prefecture which cause unnecessary wars. if they give up on capturing Sicteen Prefecture, relation with Liao will improve much better, and there is no need to have massive armies north of Huai. Song proto-Nationalism is fundamentally unsuited with its time.

Liao Tribute in my view is payment for Song occupying land north of Huai river, which is impossible to defend from Liao.
if they don't want to pay tribute, the reasonable thing would be evacuating those areas.

---

in short : my view on Song is similar with 'Modern Germany recapturing Prussia' . They may have raw economic resources and historical precedent to do that, but its Society and Government had changed so much that doing that is self-defeating.
 
Wealth is not identical with military powers. a Dynasty / Regime capability depend on many thing, including :
- political will among elite and population to wage war
- method of controlling military officers from betrayals
- willingness of populace to be taxed for war
- military tradition
- economic resources needed for war (including warhorses)
- etc

Song is lacking many thing that Tang, Ming and Qing have, it don't mean its 'worse' than those dynasties, it just means it infrastructure (law, tax, tradition, etc) is non-suited to wage Northern war. And it is impossible to fundamentally change nature of dynasty without re-waging civil war and dynasty founding.

Chinese dynasty often heavily influenced by its founding Emperor, and after that changing relations with landowner, official and populations concerning tax and law is extremely hard to do. It is essentially 'fixed' and difficult to change without violence.
It is highly likely that the generals might launch a coup or rebel in the early years of the Song Dynasty,but by the 1000-1100s,this is downright paranoia.The Song Dynasty,unlike previous dynasties have essentially segregated military command from provincial administration.The state was also overcentralized due to all taxes,apart from expenses required to pay for local administration,being mandated by law to be fully sent to the capital--which rendered provinces underdeveloped and having a much reduced risk of rebelling under some governor.

The Song government was clearly extremely wealthy.Problem was that the emperors and their officials were not spending their money appropriately.In theory, military funding in the Song Dynasty actually consumed more than half of it's income .The successful campaigns against Western Xia showed that the Song Dynasty did have the capacity to wage offensive campaigns successfully.Problem was that by the 1120s,the bulk of the Song forces with the exception of the Western Army(the army group that's deployed to fight Western Xia) was a decrepit force that had trouble fighting even bandits and Manichaean rebels like Song Jiang and Fang La.Huizong was a highly wastrel ruler who taxed his people so heavily that there were numerous uprisings during his reign.Even though the treasury should theoretically be quite full,Huizong was basically spending more than he can make,with him spending much of the money on personal use.Eventually,a lot of funding originally projected for the military was basically re-routed towards spending for Huizong's personal pleasure.While the entire army had an on paper strength of roughly 800,000,most of it's ranks were not actually filled as a result of corruption or Huizong re-routing the military budget towards his personal pleasure.For the troops that actually filled the ranks of the army,they were not seriously administrated by their officers or trained.Even though they were supposed to be a fully professional army,a lot of the troops had secondary occupations and as a result,the discipline and fighting ability of them was negligible.

My reading of Yue Fei is that his Legend is mostly nationalistic myth, propagated to foster Chinese nationalism.
I think while he is tactically competent general, he is strategically-deficient warmongering general who push for unwinnable war.
That's my impression as well.There were three other great generals during the period as well,like Han Shizong,but Yue Fei for undeservedly gets most of the credit for the Song victories during the period due to Yue Fei getting propped up as a martyr in posterity.I agree that re-conquering all Song territory was probably unachievable given that the Song Dynasty was already badly exhausted--but I think that the terms of the subsequent peace treaty was what made it really bad.By the time the treaty was signed,the Song forces made it as far as the outer skirts of Kaifeng--yet the Song Dynasty decided to abandon all territory it reconquered north of the Huai River,not to mention pay a massive tribute(much larger than the one sent to the Khitans) and acknowledge that the Jin Dynasty was the Song Dynasty's superior.Apparently,Yue Fei spent most of his life fighting peasant rebels rather than fighting the Jin like the other three generals.



I see Sixteen Prefecture as uncapturable, Song repeatedly defeated while attempted to do so. And while population is Han Chinese, they have rule under barbarian for many years, there no evidence they would actually be sympathetic to Song.
I have no idea why you insist that the Sixteen Prefectures cannot be captured.There were only three attempts in the entirety of the Song Dynasty's existence.The first two were led by the militarily incompetent Zhao Guangyi.The third time happened in the 1120s when the Khitan Empire was clearly collapsing.The bulk of the Khitan forces were tied up/destroyed by the Jurchens with few troops remaining in the Beijing region.By all accounts,the 1120s expedition was badly prepared and poorly led,with the Song forces making multiple mistakes.Yet,it was actually aided by local Han elite who were eager to defect to the Song Dynasty and almost succeeded in conquering the region.Even with the multiple defeats of the expedition,the Song forces were able to overrun Beijing and only lost because the Song forces started to plunder the city whilst the Khitan forces took the opportunity to regroup and counterattack.
Song massive waste of money and resources is because they refuse to give up land north of Huai, and over-ambition in capturing Sixteen Prefecture which cause unnecessary wars. if they give up on capturing Sicteen Prefecture, relation with Liao will improve much better, and there is no need to have massive armies north of Huai. Song proto-Nationalism is fundamentally unsuited with its time.

Liao Tribute in my view is payment for Song occupying land north of Huai river, which is impossible to defend from Liao.
if they don't want to pay tribute, the reasonable thing would be evacuating those areas.

--

in short : my view on Song is similar with 'Modern Germany recapturing Prussia' . They may have raw economic resources and historical precedent to do that, but its Society and Government had changed so much that doing that is self-defeating.
The Song Dynasty gave up conquering the Sixteen Prefectures for over 100 years--choosing a policy of appeasement with the Khitans until the Khitan Empire was clearly collapsing.Land north of the Huai wasn't impossible to defend--if it was impossible to defend from the Khitans,the Khitans would have overrun such lands long ago.Countries don't simply choose payment over direct territorial conquest for no reason.The truth was that the Khitans lacked the capacity to conquer further Song territory.One has to remember that the whole Chanyuan Treaty where the Song Dynasty agreed to pay the Khitans tribute was only made after the Song Dynasty repelled the Khitan offensive--the Song Dynasty just decided that it's more worthwhile to just pay off the Khitans than to get another confrontation.Problem was that the Song government grew complacent after the treaty and thought that the Khitans wouldn't actually invade if they kept up with the payments.This led to a period in the decline in military strength--which resulted in the Khitans making even greater tribute demands--threatening war if their goals were not reached.

Tribute payments should only have been a short term solution--not a long term one.Paying tributes and thinking it alone could avoid war is utterly foolish.This is even worst than relying upon a foreign mercenary army.
 
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The Song Dynasty gave up conquering the Sixteen Prefectures for over 100 years--choosing a policy of appeasement with the Khitans until the Khitan Empire was clearly collapsing.Land north of the Huai wasn't impossible to defend--if it was impossible to defend from the Khitans,the Khitans would have overrun such lands long ago.Countries don't simply choose payment over direct territorial conquest for no reason.The truth was that the Khitans lacked the capacity to conquer further Song territory.One has to remember that the whole Chanyuan Treaty where the Song Dynasty agreed to pay the Khitans tribute was only made after the Song Dynasty repelled the Khitan offensive--the Song Dynasty just decided that it's more worthwhile to just pay off the Khitans than to get another confrontation.
Countries have no will on their own, that's Europa Universalis fallacy. However, people running those countries, do.
Who was to be interested in waging war for those border provinces, on either side?
Emperor didn't seem to care, he was already ruler of all under heavens, how would his personal life get affected by winning war against Khitans? Life, whatever, pour me more wine 16th wife.
Bureaucrats didn't seem to care either. They certainly didn't want some low-status general to get famous and influential at court for capturing those provinces for the emperor.
They had crappy army, but they had plenty of cash. Paying tribute to Liao was no risk, low cost solution. Waging was was high-risk, low reward solution. Like, ugh, if we conquered it, we'd have to set up new bureaucracy there, i'd have to travel all the way there to oversee it, like, whatever.
Khitans didn't seem to care for war either. They got tribute, and spend it on importing Chinese goodies, they didn't had to work much, and spend their time doing what they did best: riding horsies and hunting. Much fun. Conquering Song would be waste of time, when conquer it, set up bureacuracy and tax system, when they forked money on their own?
 
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Countries have no will on their own, that's Europa Universalis fallacy. However, people running those countries, do.
Who was to be interested in waging war for those border provinces, on either side?
Emperor didn't seem to care, he was already ruler of all under heavens, how would his personal life get affected by winning war against Khitans? Life, whatever, pour me more wine 16th wife.
Bureaucrats didn't seem to care either. They certainly didn't want some low-status general to get famous and influential at court for capturing those provinces for the emperor.
They had crappy army, but they had plenty of cash. Paying tribute to Liao was no risk, low cost solution. Waging was was high-risk, low reward solution. Like, ugh, if we conquered it, we'd have to set up new bureaucracy there, i'd have to travel all the way there to oversee it, like, whatever.
Khitans didn't seem to care for war either. They got tribute, and spend it on importing Chinese goodies, they didn't had to work much, and spend their time doing what they did best: riding horsies and hunting. Much fun. Conquering Song would be waste of time, when conquer it, set up bureacuracy and tax system, why they forked money on their own?
That is indeed mostly correct from Song point of view.I'm talking mostly about paying tribute from the Khitans' point of view.If they have the ability to conquer China,they would have done so just like the Jurchens.The war in the early 1000s started with the Khitans launching an offensive with the intent of conquering Song territory.It ended with the Khitans getting repelled.For the Khitans,Chinese territory was highly lucrative.Even the Sixteen Prefectures,which would normally be considered poor provinces in China was in fact the richest region in the Khitan Empire.So the profit of conquering even more Chinese territory cannot be overstated.Khitan defeat in this war showed that the risk-reward of conquering more Chinese territory was too great,the offer of Song tribute only helped this stance.However,the attitude that paying tributes alone would be enough to stave off invasion is foolish.The Khitan Empire ultimately backed off from trying to conquer more Chinese lands because Song opposition was too great.The Song Dynasty was essentially a sleeping giant.If it's possible,it would be in the Khitan Empire's interest to take it out before it 'woke up'.

As for the Song emperors,the first few emperors after Zhao Guangyi didn't have any ambition of conquering the Sixteen Prefectures.That sort of changed with Emperor Shenzong.The Song policy starting from him was to conquer land from the Tanguts in order to re-establish trade with the Tarim Basin and get warhorses in order to strengthen the state.This policy worked well,but a bit too late to get sufficient warhorses by the time the Jin invaded.It was also clear that Shenzong wanted to re-take the Sixteen Prefectures.In order to quash court opposition,he laid an order at his deathbed that any person who manage to retake the Sixteen Prefectures for the Song Empire would be made a King/Prince--which would give his successors and subordinates a moral obligation to try and retake the prefectures.Starting from Zhao Kuangyin,the emperors also created a special fund where the money stored in it would be used to either buy(like hell the Khitans are gonna sell the Sixteen Prefectures) the Sixteen Prefectures or fund a campaign to retake the Sixteen Prefectures.

Emperor Huizong sort of got around the problem of not trusting army officers by installing eunuch career army officers.The commander-in-chief of Huizong's army was a eunuch.
 
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Sometimes paying tribute does work. It certainly worked for Song.
Khitan ultimately backed off not because Song were too strong (perhaps initially), but because they got too comfortable with their mutual arrangement. They had no interest in taking out Song, and Song had no interest in "waking up". And Khitan emperor was more interested in hunting than ruling his empire.

Tunguts were actually being hostile against Song, so rather than invade Khitans out of blue, Song ought to kept fighting Tunguts.

And if their joint invasion of Liao with Jurchen was of any indication, Song didn't ever woke up, more like sleepwalked.

Song got so greedy to the point they betrayed Khitans with whom they were at peace for over hundred years, all for some border provinces. And to make it worse, they didn't even pull it of: Ce serait peu inadapté et stupide, ce serait irresponsable, ce serait pire qu'un crime - ce serait une déception.
 
Sometimes paying tribute does work. It certainly worked for Song.
Khitan ultimately backed off not because Song were too strong (perhaps initially), but because they got too comfortable with their mutual arrangement. They had no interest in taking out Song, and Song had no interest in "waking up". And Khitan emperor was more interested in hunting than ruling his empire.

Tunguts were actually being hostile against Song, so rather than invade Khitans out of blue, Song ought to kept fighting Tunguts.

And if their joint invasion of Liao with Jurchen was of any indication, Song didn't ever woke up, more like sleepwalked.

Song got so greedy to the point they betrayed Khitans with whom they were at peace for over hundred years, all for some border provinces. And to make it worse, they didn't even pull it of: Ce serait peu inadapté et stupide, ce serait irresponsable, ce serait pire qu'un crime - ce serait une déception.
Even if the Song Dynasty didn't fought the Khitans,the Khitan Empire would have still collapsed.It's worthwhile to note that the ruler of the ruler of the Khitans was quite incompetent as well and that the Liao Dynasty was badly decayed as well--just not as incompetent as the Song.So it's better to take retake the strategically important Yan Mountain passes rather than leave it under the control of a newly rising nomadic power.A smarter way of doing it would be assist the Khitans to repel the Jin invasion of the Sixteen Prefecture and keep the remnant Khitan state as some sort of client/vassal state before finally annexing it.

There's no right or wrong in attacking the Khitans,things aren't as black and white as you think.Look at how much wars there are in Europe during the same period of time over petty excuses.States works best if they are machiavellian.Problem was that the Song Dynasty bark louder than they can bite.

The Song definitely did sleepwalk.The Song military as mentioned was badly decayed due to the majority of the army being out of action for too long,corruption and bad government policies.The real problem was that the Song government at the time seemed to be ridiculously ambitious even though it knows just how pathetic its' military forces were.As mentioned earlier,it's so bad that they had trouble putting down brigands and Manichaean rebels like Fang La.According to official sources(not a fictional account like Water's Margin),government forces were so terrified of Song Jiang that most government didn't dare to fight him and simply just fled.In the south,even the future Song capital Hangzhou was captured by Fang La.Things were so bad that Fang La was only put down when the elite Western army was deployed to the South.When the government's having trouble putting down even peasant rebels--that's a serious indication of how fucked up things were going on in the Song government--especially when this isn't like the Ming Dynasty where the government lost because it was bankrupt and couldn't pay the army.The Song government was more than capable of paying it's troops,but did not do so adequately due to the incompetence and personal greed of its' leaders.This is essentially why if a capable,responsible ruler like Zhezong was alive,things wouldn't have been so bad.
 
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Yes, Khitan were fallen state at that point.
Propping up Khitans against Jurchens, in exchange for those mountain passes would've been good idea. Regrettably, Songs would be unable to pull it off, even less than partitioning Khitan with Jurchens. Well, maybe if Yelu Dashi was fighting Jurchen rather than waste his time holding off Song.
Things weren't black or white, but Song were such a big dicks, in their external and internal policies, for me to not feel terribly sorry their empire fallen.
Good and evil are relative, but being dick is not allowed.

Didn't Zhezong reinstitute New Policies? Those look suspiciously like Great Leap Forward...
 
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