Growing Importance of the Examination System
Just like the Sui and the Tang dynasties, the Song rulers continue
to emphasize the importance of Confucian education
 Examinations are called “Ministry of Rites”; students of Confucian
theology and also students who were “recommended”
 Students who pass the exams  “jinshi”
 The jinshi are exempted from certain taxes, allowed to wear more
luxurious clothing, and exempted from corporal punishment
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State and Religion in Tang and Song dynasties
 After the fall of Han China, Buddhism proliferates Chinese thought
 The “pure land” strain of Buddhism gains popularity because it
emphasizes peace
 Early Tang emperors patronized Buddhism while also trying to
emphasize the superiority of Confucianism
 Wealthy members of Chinese society favored the “Chan/Zen”
because it stressed appreciation of arts, music, etc.
 No emperor supported Buddhism like Empress Wu; she
attempted to adopt Buddhism as the official Chinese theology
 By the mid-9th century, there were more than 50,000 monasteries
and hundreds of thousands of monks/nuns
Anti-Buddhist Backlash
 Daoists and Confucianists attacked Buddhism as being “alien”
 Confucian administrators begin convincing that Buddhists were a
threat to the economic stability of the imperial order because
Buddhist monastic lands were not taxed
 Tang emperor loses authority because he can’t conscript or tax
monk/nuns who work on monastic estates
 By the 850’s, Tang emperors stopped lending money and land to
monastic causes
 Emperor Wuzong (r. 841-847) destroys Buddhist monasteries,
and forces monks/nuns to abandon their monastic
 Buddhism is not completely squashed under the Tang dynasty,
but is replaced as the central ideology of China by Confucianism
Tang Decline and Song Emergence
 The Song dynasty overruns the Tang dynasty in the 10th
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century
After Empress Wu, Empress Wei takes over
Empress Wei poisons her husband, and replaces him with
her young son
Wei’s son Xuanzong brought the height of the Tang dynasty
and Chinese civilization come to their height
Xuanzong quickly lost interest in running the empire, and
became infatuated with the city’s diversions (art, music,
dining, drinking, women)
After Xuanzong’s 2nd wife dies, he marries Yang Guifei
As she becomes a “royal concubine”, she uses her increased
status to pack the Tang dynasty with her own family
members
Other “cliques” in government get pissed at Yang and her
family because of their ambition
At the same time that Yang is rising to power, Xuanzong
adds to the upheaval by neglecting his state affairs  this
leads to military weakness, and in 755 one of the Tang
military commanders lead a revolt against the Tang dynasty
While he’s able to put down the rebellion, the military
mutinies and kills many of the Tang family members. They
also force the emperor to kill his wife
The Tang dynasty collapses at the end of the 9th century