The Fallen Sage: Emperor Huizong’s Dilemma and the Wise Ruler Doctrine

Abstract

This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study of the reign of Emperor Huizong (1100-1126), whose rule proved so paradoxical: after building a new stage of the Northern Song dynasty that resulted in two decades of prosperity, his empire collapsed within a few years. The dissertation examines the strengths and weaknesses of the three leading explanations of the failure of Huizong’s rule, and it shows why they cannot adequately account for the collapse of the empire. The root cause of Huizong’s downfall was not that he was an undisciplined ruler, or that he was the victim of military misjudgements, or that he badly handled tensions between his own Daoist beliefs and a Confucian bureaucracy, as has been claimed. The dissertation asserts that Huizong instead had a legitimation problem. It shows that in his struggle for political power Huizong mainly relied upon the doctrine of the Wise Ruler. This doctrine is analysed in some detail, in order to develop the main thesis. It is argued that Huizong’s attachment to the Wise Ruler doctrine trapped him within a dilemma: questing for unrestrained political power and at the same time claiming authority as a sage-like ruler. This contradiction eventually triggered his downfall. The dissertation shows that the Wise Ruler doctrine stipulated that (a) the emperor’s power and authority should be tightly integrated; (b) that there had to be a subtle balance between the emperor and the other forces in the ruling group; and (c) the ruling group was entitled to comprehensive dominance over the common people. In practice, the dissertation argues, the consolidation of Huizong’s political power destroyed the balance in the ruling group and exacerbated tensions with the disadvantaged common people. The tensions between the emperor’s power and authority sowed the seeds of the Northern Song empire’s destruction. The dissertation argues that the case of Huizong is of great relevance for future research on pre-modern and modern Chinese political leadership, political system and political culture, and that the issue of power and authority is a perennial challenge for all rulers.