Emperor Gaozong of Song
Emperor Gaozong of Song, personal name Zhao Gou, courtesy name Deji, was the tenth emperor of the Chinese Song dynasty and the first of the Southern Song dynasty, ruling between 1127 and 1162 and retaining power as retired emperor from 1162 until his death in 1187. The ninth son of Emperor Huizong and a younger half-brother of Emperor Qinzong, Zhao Gou was not present in the capital of Bianjing when it fell to the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty in 1127 during the beginning of the Jin-Song Wars. Narrowly avoiding capture by Jin forces, he escaped first to Yangzhou and then Lin'an, assuming the throne and re-establishing the Song court. Despite initial setbacks, including Jin invasions and a brief deposition in 1129, Emperor Gaozong consolidated his political position and presided over the continued military conflict with Jin. Prior to 1141, military commanders including Han Shizhong and Yue Fei reconquered portions of the Central Plains while chancellors like Lü Yihao, Zhao Ding, Zhang Jun, and Qin Hui managed the civil bureaucracy.
In 1141, Gaozong collaborated with Qin to pursue a peace settlement with Jin. Although the resulting Treaty of Shaoxing ceded the Central Plains and formally established Song as a Jin tributary, it ensured two decades of uninterrupted peace, allowing the Southern Song state to achieve internal stability and open a lucrative trade with Jin. Furthermore, it served to preclude the return of Emperor Qinzong, who remained in captivity in Jin and whose release could have jeopardized Gaozong's claim to the throne. Gaozong and Qin then secured court control over the military, forcing Han Shizhong and the general Zhang Jun into retirement and executing Yue Fei on trumped-up charges. Despite his successes as emperor, Gaozong's treatment of Yue, who was remembered as a culture hero, and his surrender of over half of Song China to the enemy, marred his reputation in both traditional historiography and popular memory. Gaozong, along his father and half-brother, were blamed for the Song dynasty's decline.
Gaozong's only biological son, Zhao Fu, died in childhood. In 1160, he adopted his distant relative Zhao Yuan and elevated him to crown prince in 1162, shortly before abdicating in his favor. Despite his abdication, Gaozong retained de facto control of state affairs as retired emperor, continuing to oversee the dynasty until dying of natural causes in 1187, at the age of 80.
Early life
Emperor Gaozong was the ninth son of Emperor Huizong and a younger half-brother of Emperor Qinzong. His mother, whose maiden family name was Wei, was a concubine of Huizong. She was honoured as Empress Xianren after his ascension to the throne.Emperor Gaozong was originally a prince named Zhao Gou during the reigns of his father and brother. After Huizong abdicated, his older brother Qinzong became emperor. During this time, the capital of Bianjing was under siege by the Jurchens. He was ordered to the Jurchen camp to negotiate peace by Qinzong in an effort to end the siege early but Zhao Gou was held for ransom. He later came back after being ransomed due to the Jurchens' doubts of his identity. After his half-brother and father and the capital were captured by forces of the Jurchen-led Jin Empire in the Jingkang Incident in 1127 along with majority of the imperial clan members due to his predecessors' incompetence and the imperial court's corruption, he escaped to Southern China due to being in Cizhou for a diplomatic mission and therefore, not in Bianjing. In order to escape, Zhao Gou had to move province to province in order to escape the Jin troops. The Jurchens tried to lure him back to Bianjing where they could finally capture him, but did not succeed. Zhao Gou finally arrived in the Song Southern Capital at Jiankang, the first of many temporary capitals.
Reign
Enthronement
After proving himself to be a more competent administrator than his predecessors, he won support from imperial court's remnants of his ascension to the throne; he reestablished the Song Empire and was proclaimed as Emperor Gaozong with the era name Jianyan in Jiankang which at the time was a temporary residence for the remnants of the Song. The new reign name Jianyan 建炎, literally meaning "Establishing the Fire," suggests the Southern Song's continuation to the Northern Song. He would later move to Yingtianfu due to the historical significance to Emperor Taizu of Song.From 1127 to 1129, the Song sent thirteen embassies to the Jin to discuss peace terms and to negotiate the release of Gaozong's mother and Huizong, but the Jin court ignored them. The Da Chu, a puppet state established by the Jin Empire, was abolished in 1127 when Zhang Bangchang and the regent of Da Chu, the former Empress Meng, submitted to Emperor Gaozong, who then ordered Zhang's execution under pressure from Li Gang.
Emperor Gaozong's early reign was filled with Jurchen raids and attacks on his realm. This can be traced to Zhang's execution and the submission of Da Chu to Song, which ultimately caused the Jin to renew their attacks and quickly conquer Northern China. Initially, he employed military leaders such as Li Gang, Zong Ze, Yue Fei, Han Shizhong, and Yu Yunwen to lead the Song forces to hold off the Jurchens, as well as to improve his public image through his declaration to restore the Song Empire to its former glory. However, when one of Li Gang's guerrilla forces, the Red Scarf Army, scored a major victory against the Jin troops and almost captured their commander-in-chief, the emperor dismissed the minister on a trumped-up charge, implying that he did not want to win this battle, because if Song won, Emperor Qinzong might be restored.
Owing to the vulnerability of Yingtianfu, Emperor Gaozong moved to Yangzhou in late 1127 or early 1128. However, Yangzhou proved to be no safe haven for the Song either, as barely a year later the Jurchens advanced to the point where they were threatening to capture Yangzhou. When the Jurchens advanced to the Huai River, the court was partially evacuated to Lin'an in 1129. Days later, Gaozong narrowly escaped on horseback, just a few hours ahead of Jurchen vanguard troops.
Mutiny and first abdication
On March 26, 1129, Gaozong lost his throne to a mutiny that was instigated by the palace guards led by Miao Fu and Liu Zhengyan. They were unsatisfied with Gaozong's decision to appoint their adversary Wang Yuan to an important imperial post hence would outrank them. Banding together with at least ten thousand palace guards under the pretense that Wang and the court eunuchs were plotting, Miao and Liu mutinied and murdered Wang. They then forced Gaozong to abdicate in favor of his two-year-old son, Zhao Fu. The plot came to an abrupt end less than a month later on April 20, 1129, when Miao and Liu were defeated by Gaozong's loyal army, led by Han Shizhong, and were both executed for treason. Gaozong's son later died from illness after an unofficial reign of three months. After being restored to the throne, Gaozong himself was pursued by Jin forces and was not in full control of southern China until the late 1130s. The mutiny would cause Emperor Gaozong to move his capital to Jiankang.In 1130, Wuzhu, a Jurchen general, crossed the Yangtze southwest of Jiankang and then captured the city. Wuzhu set out from Jiankang and advanced rapidly to try to capture Gaozong. The Jin seized Hangzhou on January 22 and then Shaoxing further south on February 4 where Emperor Gaozong was almost captured by Wuzhu at Mingzhou near Lin'an but Zhang Jun, another general who briefly halted the Jin advance, giving Emperor Gaozong the chance to flee the city by ship. Soon, the Jurchens gave up the pursuit and retreated north. After they plundered the undefended cities of Hangzhou and Suzhou, they finally started to face resistance from Song armies led by Yue Fei and Han Shizhong.
In 1130, during the Battle of Huangtiandang, when fleeing to the south, he had the newly appointed commander-in-chief, Yue Fei, who was only 27 years old at the time, to help with the defense, and Yue scored a major victory against the Jin armies neared Nanjing. After the Song forces defeated the Jin, they stayed north of the Yangzi River, and Emperor Gaozong declared the city of Lin'an as the dynasty's new temporary capital, replacing Kaifeng in 1133.
Having no surviving sons of his own, he adopted two boys in 1133: one of them became the foster son of the future Empress Wu in 1140, and the other one in 1142.