Song Huizong reigned for 25 years. During his reign, he was extravagant and dissipated, and used Cai Jing, Wang Fu, Tong Guan, Liang Shicheng, Zhu Cuo, Li Bangyan and other treacherous officials to preside over state affairs. Song Huizong believed in Taoism and claimed to be the "founder of Taoism". Together with 26 Taoist officials, he built a large number of temples. Later, he used the state treasury funds to pay the Taoist priest. In order to satisfy his extravagant life, Song Huizong also plundered the people's wealth and the people's cream, set up a literary bureau for the royal family to enjoy, collected exotic flowers and stones everywhere, and transported them to Kaifeng House, known as the "Flower Stone Class" in history, in order to build Yanfu Palace and Genyue. When he was in office, he actually spent 70% of the property left by Song Shenzong in the world at that time. Song Huizong's ignorance eventually led to the outbreak of the people's uprising.
In the second year of Xuanhe (1 120), he sent an envoy to the rulers to make a contract with them to discuss attacking Liao. However, I don't want to. In the seventh year of Xuanhe, Xu Jin sent troops south to attack the Song Dynasty. Song Huizong quickly spread to Zhao Heng, known as Song Qinzong, while Evonne claimed to be the emperor's father. In the second year of Jingkang (1 127), Emperor Taizong of Jin deposed and demoted to two emperors, and was later captured to Jin. Later, he died in captivity.
Although from the ruling point of view, Song Huizong was a fatuous and extravagant king of national subjugation, from the artistic accomplishment point of view, Song Huizong was the highest among the emperors and generals in the past dynasties.
I have loved art since I was a child, and I often associate with painters such as Xu and Zhao. When he was in office, he elevated the status of a painter to the highest position in the history of China. He also established the Hanlin Painting and Calligraphy Institute, then the Palace Painting Academy. In order to show the importance of painting, Song Huizong established painting in the third year of Chongning (1 104), and formally put it into the imperial examination to attract painters from all over the world. There used to be a story. According to legend, Song Huizong takes poetry as the topic to examine students who take the imperial examinations every year. One year, Song Huizong asked students to paint with the theme of "Ancient Tibetan Temple on the Mountain". Many people focus on the cornices of remote temples, but the first place is different from these people. There is only one monk carrying water in the mountain stream. On another occasion, Song Huizong took "stepping on flowers to get rid of horseshoe fragrance" as the examination question. The winner of the first prize didn't draw any flowers, only one person rode a horse and butterflies danced around the horseshoe. Song Huizong's scientific research method has stimulated students' thinking and greatly promoted the development of artistic conception of Chinese painting.
Song Huizong's Painting and Calligraphy Works
Song Huizong is also a person who observes nature carefully, and records the observed phenomena, and writes theoretical articles about painting, such as "A peacock must lift his left leg before climbing the mountain". Song Huizong once ordered people to extensively collect historical relics and compile them into volumes, including famous art history books such as Xuan He Shu Pu, Xuan He Hua Pu, Xuan He Bo Lu Gu, which provided powerful and practical materials for us to study ancient art history.
Song Huizong not only loves painting, but also likes to inscribe poems on calligraphy and painting. People call this kind of painting "imperial painting". Because many paintings don't leave the author's name, and Song Huizong himself is good at painting, it brings great difficulties for future generations to identify his paintings. Of course, some of them can be regarded as Song Huizong's original works, such as Poems, Willow Duck, Pond in Late Autumn, Bamboo Birds and Four Birds. The Lotus Golden Rooster and Mera Mountain Birds belong to royal paintings.
Song Huizong also created the "thin gold style", which made this kind of calligraphy unique in the world. His calligraphy works handed down from generation to generation include "Handed Gold Scholar", "Two Poems Borrowed from Wind and Frost", "Summer Poems" and "Ou Yangxun Hans Zhang Postscript". Song Huizong's signature is very distinctive. It looks like a word "Tian", but the first stroke of the word "Tian" is some distance from the bottom. After Song Huizong, no one can reach his height. He is the first person in ancient and modern times.
Because of Song Huizong's worship of Taoism, he searched for Taoist books many times, set up the Bureau of Confucian Classics, and sorted out Taoist books. Zheng He Wan Shou Taoist Collection, compiled during Zheng He's reign, is the first fully published Taoist collection in China, and is a precious historical material for studying Taoist history and classics. His ordered History of Taoism and History of Immortals have also become the largest biographies of Taoist history and deified figures in the history of China. Song Huizong also personally wrote books such as Notes on Tao Te Ching, Notes on Virtue True Classics and South China True Classics, which provided complete information for the study of Taoist books in China.
Ancient calligraphy