The Rise of Song Dynasty & the Mysterious Death of an Emperor- Song Dynasty Origin 960 - 979

The Song Dynasty of China is often overlooked in the West.

And now I'm going to change that because you're all missing out on learning about the unofficial Kung Fu Dynasty of China.

And it is low-key my favorite dynasty. In the Chinese cultural imagination, this dynasty has strong connections to various martial arts and wuxia literature.

One of the four classic Chinese novels and a proto-wuxia fiction, Water Margin, is set during this period.

And so is Jin Yong's highly influential Legend of the Condor Heroes series.

Yue Fei, the most famous historical Chinese general and the legendary creator of the Xing Yi Kung Fu style, also lived in this period.

And even the first emperor of Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangying, was credited with the creation of a subtype of the popular long-fist Kung Fu style.

To be fair, this is just according to the traditional narrative though.

Of course, historically, we can't 100% verify if he really invented this style.

But history itself had rarely ever been more mundane than fiction.

So in this episode, I will tell you about the history of the rise of Zhao Kuangying.

Song Dynasty reunification of China and the mystery of a thousand years old who done it.

So Kuang Ying, the future first emperor of Song Dynasty, was born during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.

It was a chaotic era that took place after the Tang Dynasty, when China was fragmented.

Yeah, I know, again. During this period, a series of five dynasties

claimed the legitimacy of the Tang dynasty in rapid succession.

Until finally, Zhao Kuangying established the Song dynasty along the same line of succession and reunified China.

As for the 10 other kingdoms, they were just challengers that didn't have much chance of winning.

The interesting thing here is that all these emperors who established these five dynasties are actually all connected to each other.

Zhu Wen who established the later Liang dynasty, the first of the five dynasties was a colleague of Li Ke Yong.

They used to work together, quelling Huang Chou's rebellion.

But then, the serial backstabber Zhu Wen tried to assassinate the latter, but failed.

Thus, they became arch enemies. Eventually, it was Li Ke Yong's son Li Chunqu who conquered the later Liang dynasty and established the later Tang dynasty.

And all the successive emperors of the five dynasties, later Jing, later Han, and later Zhou, had all worked for either Li Ke Yong or his son Li Chunqu at one point,

including Zhao Kuang Ying's father, Zhao Hong Ying, who was a minor general under Li Chunqu.

So that's why, despite all the chaos, the death toll was not excessively high.

The change of dynasties feel a lot like a change of management when you are working for a corporation with lots of boardroom backstabbings.

As long as you smile and nod and continue to perform your job well, you will remain employed.

Fan Zi famously survived all five dynasties doing this and he even ended up becoming one of Song Dynasty's chancellors.

I covered this period in more detail in a previous video. Check it out if you want to know more.

Anyway, let's go back to the story of Zhou Kuang Ying.

He was born in 927 during the later Tang Dynasty.

As a young man, he was brave, physically fit and skilled in horsemanship and archery.

His mother, Lady Tu, had strong influence on him.

As for his brother, who was 12 years younger than him, was his mirror opposite. He did not get along with other kids.

In fact, they were even afraid of him. He was also a bookworm, well versed in the various arts.

This boy will become the second emperor of Song Dynasty.

mysterious circumstances after the sudden death of his brother. No, I'm not going to spoil what happened yet.

You will get all the details soon enough. Anyway, during his youth, Cao Quang Ying traveled and adventured through the land.

We don't have the details of his travels, but this missing piece of history

fueled the imagination of storytellers, often depicting him as an adventurer hero.

And one day during his travel, he met a fortune-telling monk who told him to go north.

That's where he will find his fortune, he said. So Yang Zhao Kuangying followed the suggestion and up there he discovered Guo Wei, the future emperor of the later Zhou dynasty.

At the time, he was just a general working for the later Han dynasty and he was putting down a rebellious general.

This period is just utterly plagued with mutinies and insubordinations.

In fact, in just a few short years, after Zhao Kuang Ying joined Guo Wei's army, his boss deposed the young emperor of later Han dynasty and founded the later Zhou dynasty.