to ask for a transfer. Any such move tended to damage the court’s valuable Confucian image. On sensitive issues the emperors were likely to invoke their absolutist power, but this was usually handled gently, by quietly advising the opinion-officials to refrain from commenting on the issues again.

Under this bureaucratized manipulation by the court, the institution of opinion-officials degenerated. Often the emperors appointed their own friends to such posts, but just as often, when the emperors hinted that they were displeased with certain ministers, the opinion-officials dutifully responded with unfavourable evidence, thus furnishing the court with grounds for dismissals. Such imperial manipulations served manifold purposes: safeguarding absolutist power and its delegation to various individuals, disguising absolutism, and keeping the bureaucracy in balance.

The Chief Councillors

The later Nan Song emperors preferred not to take on the awesome burden of managing the huge and complex bureaucracy. Most of them were concerned chiefly with security and the status quo. The Nan Song court delegated a tremendous amount of power and thus had a series of dominant chief councillors; none of them, however, ever was a potential usurper. No bureaucrat during the Song era had a political base, a hereditary hold, or a personal following in any

geographic area. In addition, the size of the bureaucracy and fluidity of its composition precluded anyone from controlling it. The tenure of chief councillor essentially depended on the sanction of the emperor. At times even the chief councillor had to reaffirm his loyalty along with other bureaucrats. Loyalty in absolutist terms being another name for submission, the court, bureaucratized as it was, retained its supreme position beyond challenge.

Nevertheless, the history of Nan Song politics had much to do with powerful chief councillors, increasingly so as time went on. Gaozong at first had a rapid succession of ranking ministers, but none of them measured up to the difficult task at hand: seeking external security by maintaining peace with the northern empire and maintaining internal security by undermining the power of leading generals. Only the chief councillor Qin Kui did both; moreover, he increased tax revenues, strengthening the fiscal base of the court and enriching the private imperial treasury. For these merits, he was given full support to impose tight control over the bureaucracy as long as he lived. Powerful as he was, he avoided doing anything that might arouse imperial suspicion. He had many dissident scholar-officials banished from court, but only with imperial sanction. He accommodated many bureaucrats, even those who neither opposed nor followed him, but he made many of them jealous of his great power

and of the rapid promotions he gave to his son and grandson. Qin Kui failed, however, to properly assess the wiles of his bureaucratized master, who turned out to be the more skillful politician. Upon Qin Kui’s death, the emperor shifted all blame to him and recalled from banishment some of his opponents, thus restoring in time a balance in the bureaucracy.

After his voluntary abdication, Gaozong retained his power by using Xiaozong more or less as a chief councillor. Xiaozong subsequently failed to find a firm hand among his successive ministers, and the great burden on himself was probably one reason that he chose to abdicate. His son, Guangzong, was mentally disturbed, unresponsive to bureaucratic consensus, and pathetically dominated by his consort. He turned against Xiaozong and even refused to perform state funeral rites when the retired emperor died—an unprecedented default that shocked the court. The solution was equally unprecedented: the empress dowager, the palace personnel, and the ranking ministers agreed to force his abdication and oversee the accession of Ningzong. Through the crisis, Han Tuozhou, who renewed the war against the Juchen, moved rapidly into power. Related originally to the empress dowager and again to a new consort, he received deferential treatment from Ningzong. He was made chief councillor but found it hard to control many bureaucrats who objected to his lack of scholarly

qualifications, questioned his political ability, and criticized his nepotistic appointments. Reacting to the hostility, he made first a crucial mistake and then a fatal one. First, he banned a particular school of Confucian idealists, led by Zhu Xi. This proved unpopular, even among neutral scholar-officials. After he rescinded the ban, he attempted to recruit support and to reunite the bureaucracy by initiating the war against the Juchen. After its defeat in the war, the Song executed him as a sacrifice in its search for peace.

Shi Miyuan emerged as the dominant chief councillor. He came from a bureaucratic family background and understood the gentle approach and the importance of accommodating various kinds of bureaucrats in order to achieve a political balance. Promoting on merit and refraining from nepotism, he restored stability. He also recognized that the ideological prestige the followers of Zhu Xi had won had become a political factor, and he appointed some of their prominent leaders to highly respectable posts but without giving them real power. Like the emperors he served, Shi wanted to have both authority and a good political image. Ningzong had no son, and the chief councillor helped him adopt two heirs. When the emperor died without designating an heir apparent, Shi Miyuan arbitrarily decided in favour of the younger one, which was contrary to the normal order of succession but had the backing of palace-connected personnel.