Zhao Kuangyin in Song Dynasty
2 min readTaizu by the name of Zhao Kuangyin （927-976）（see Figure 11）was born in Zhuozhou ，Hebei Province.When he was young he was a playboy who didn’t read much，nor did he like manual labor.But he was good at the marshal art and he joined the army and served at first under Guo Wei，who made himself emperor of the Later Zhou Dynasty.When Guo Wei died，Shi Zong Chai Rong took the throne.
When Shi Zong died from wound in battle his seven year old son Gong Di became the emperor and Zhao Kuangyin made his attempt to control the army.
He，therefore，planned the Mutiny at Chenqiaoyi ：
The young emperor is reported that his country is being attacked by the enemy so he sends Zhao Kuangyin to lead the army to defend the country.When the huge army comes to Chenqiaoyi，an army relay station，it stops.Zhao’s followers praise him for the contributions made to the country and put the yellow emperor’s gown on him.They all kneel down on the ground and call him emperor.
The young emperor of the Later Zhou was made to abdicate and given the title of“Baqiansui” Prince，meaning to live for 8，000 years，which would be inherited.The emperor was called“Wansui”，meaning to live for 10，000 years.These terms produced difficulties in translation because westerners have no such a part in their cultures.Later they were put at random，i.e.“Long live so and so！” and“Good health to so and so！”instead of the exact meanings.
Zhao Kuangyin made himself emperor and named his empire Song.In order to strengthen his power，he called all the generals to a banquet.Zhao himself liked drinking and got drunk frequently.But this time he pretended to be drunk.
During the feast he poured a cup of wine for each of the generals and they all thanked him promising to obey any order ofhim.He asked them to hand in their power and put their army under his sole command.In this way he took the control of the army firmly.This is only one of the many stories about the cunning man in Chinese history.Later dictators all followed suit，demanding personal control of the army.
As the story above describes，Zhao Kuangyin realized the threat his own military posed.He persuaded the generals to retire with generous pensions.He then structured his government so that military officials were subordinate to civilian ones rather than equal as in the Tang.Military governors were replaced with civil officials in administrative organs.In thearmy，there was a supervisor on each level whose duty was todirect the political behaviors.This clever measure was also imitated by later rulers.They all held a firm control of the gun.
