Performance of Learning through Imperial Voice: Parallel Proses by Wang Zao and Sun Di in the Northern–Southern Song Transition

Abstract

This paper discusses how scholar-officials in Song China performed ‘classicising learning’ through the medium of court documents written in the northern-southern Song transition. In early 1127, the Jurchen conquerors seized the Song capital of Kaifeng and captured two Song emperors, Huizong and Qinzong, together with nearly the entire Song imperial family. Zhao Gou, the ninth son of Emperor Huizong and the younger brother of Emperor Qinzong, managed to flee. With the assistance of some loyal Song subjects, he acceded to the throne and continued the Song reign in the south. Through a close examination of two genres of official documents written on behalf of the Song sovereign by two imperial drafters Wang Zao and Sun Di in the northern-southern Song transition, it shows how the two men demonstrated their literary skills in composing parallel prose as well as their erudition in the Confucian canonical and Chinese historical traditions. It also discusses the extent to which such a performance of learning helped consolidate imperial power in the early Southern Song. It argues that the historical precedents and Confucian canons that Wang Zao and Sun Di referred to in the official documents became important intellectual resources for Zhao Gou’s image building and political propaganda, which helped legitimize the rule of and motivate extensive support for the Southern Song founder.