The Shaoxing Peace Treaty was a humiliating peace treaty between the Southern Song Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty. The Southern Song Dynasty surrendered and paid a heavy price in exchange for 20 years of peace between the Song Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty. period. Although there have been conflicts between the two sides since then, the scale has been much smaller than before.
In the Southern Song Dynasty, under the auspices of Gaozong, the villain was successful and the hero was short of breath. The monarch sings and sings night after night, and is full of sensuality; among the courtiers, the treacherous Prime Minister Qin Hui has been controlling the government for a long time, excluding dissidents, creating unjust prisons, and betraying the country in pursuit of glory. The Southern Song Dynasty court was disloyal, but it still begged for mercy from the Jin Dynasty regardless of its face, hoping to sign a humiliating treaty in exchange for peace and live in an ignoble way.
The common people resisted the Jin, and the monarchs and ministers negotiated peace
In the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, the cavalry of the Jin soldiers galloped wantonly across the Central Plains. The people in the occupied areas were ravaged, and the Southern Song Dynasty regime was in turmoil. The imperial court, which was partial to the south of the Yangtze River, ignored the loss of its territory and was bent on negotiating peace in exchange for peace.
In the Central Plains, from the civilians to the military, there are vigorous nationwide anti-golden activities. This situation became a weight for Emperor Gaozong Zhao Gou and Prime Minister Qin Hui to seek peace with the Jin Dynasty. In the tenth year of Shaoxing (1140), the Song army repeatedly won in the battle against the Jin army going south, and achieved great victories in Shunchang and Yancheng. It was a good opportunity to regain the lost territory in one fell swoop. However, Song Gaozong and Qin Hui were worried that such an attack would anger the Jin Dynasty and undermine the peace negotiations, so they ordered a withdrawal and abandoned the recovered areas such as Henan. When the officers and soldiers of the Southern Song Dynasty saw that the situation was over, they all sighed with regret.
The next year, the Jin army went south again and was defeated by the Song army led by Liu Qi in Zhegao (now northwest of Chao County, Anhui). Emperor Gaozong still did not allow the Song army to pursue the victory. In order to show his determination to seek peace thoroughly, Emperor Gaozong recalled Han Shizhong, Zhang Jun, and Yue Fei to Lin'an and granted them high positions in the name of rewards for their merits, but in fact he deprived them of their military power. Qin Hui also contacted Zhang Jun to frame Han Shizhong and Yue Fei, who were determined to resist the Jin Dynasty.
The Jin Dynasty was very happy with the olive branch extended by the Southern Song Dynasty, and they also needed to stop their troops and rest. On the one hand, this is because the anti-golden activities of the Eight Character Army and other civilian rebels greatly restricted the strength of the Jin Army and effectively hindered the Jin Army from moving south; on the other hand, the Jin Army was unable to break through the defensive barrier of Yue Fei and other anti-golden generals. In addition, there was also a fierce power struggle within the Jin Dynasty, which was more than willing to attack the Song Dynasty southward but insufficiently capable. However, unlike the Southern Song Dynasty, which was bent on peace, the Jin Dynasty wanted to strive for the greatest interests.
Living an ignoble existence and bowing to the throne
In October of the 11th year of Shaoxing (1141), the Southern Song Dynasty sent Wei Liangchen to Jin Dynasty to propose peace negotiations. A month later, Jin ministers Xiao Yi and Xing Juzhan followed Wei Liangchen to Lin'an and put forward conditions. Finally, the two sides signed the Shaoxing peace treaty. From then on, the Song Dynasty professed its vassal status to the Jin Dynasty, and the Jin Dynasty granted land to the Song Dynasty. The two sides were bounded by the middle flow of the Huaihe River in the east and Dashanguan Pass (now Baoji, Shaanxi Province) in the west. The south belonged to the Song Dynasty and the north belonged to the Jin Dynasty. The Southern Song Dynasty ceded Tangzhou (now Tanghe County, Henan Province) to the Song Dynasty. ) and Dengzhou (now Deng County, Henan Province) gave gold to the Jin Dynasty, as well as most of the land of Shangzhou (now Shangxian County, Shaanxi Province) and Qinzhou (now Tianshui, Gansu Province); in addition, the Song Dynasty paid an annual tribute of 250,000 taels of silver to the Jin Dynasty. 250,000 pieces of silk are sent to Sizhou for delivery every spring. In exchange, the Jin Dynasty returned parts of Henan and Shaanxi that were under the control of Liu Yu's puppet Qi government, and returned Huizong's Zi Palace and Gaozong's biological mother, Queen Mother Wei, who was captured in the "Jingkang Incident". In the spring of the next year, Jin canonized Zhao Gou as Emperor of Song Dynasty.
This is the entire content of the Shaoxing Peace Negotiation. Not only was Qin Hui not ashamed of this, but he shamelessly claimed that he had won peace for the Southern Song Dynasty and could recuperate and fight again in the future. After the peace agreement was signed, Emperor Gaozong and his ministers did not try to avenge their humiliation, but intensified their efforts and lived a decadent life of debauchery all day long. Any ministers who raised the issue of resistance to gold were dismissed.
However, Qin Hui's lies were quickly exposed. The peace Qin Hui said only lasted for 20 years, but the Southern Song Dynasty paid a heavy price: not only did it ruin the great hope of the army and the people to resist the Jin Dynasty, situation, and brought a heavier tax burden to the people who were already devastated by the war. More importantly, the peace agreement pushed the capitulationists to the pinnacle of power and led the country's fate to the abyss.
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