Study On The Relationship Between Song Dynasty And Liao Dynasty

The Liao Dynasty(from A.D. 916 to A.D. 1125) which grew up on the northern grassland, unified the northern area of China, and the North Song Dynasty(from A.D. 960 to A.D. 1126) which unified the southern area of China by overthrowing those separatist regimes over there, carved up the China for 165 years, hence resulting in a so called post Northern and Southern Dynasties in Chinese history. The relationship between Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty could be divided into two states by the Chanyuan Treaty in 1004, warfare(with brief peace) before 1004 and peaceful afterward. There were some unique historical phenomenon during the coexistence and confrontation between Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty. In this paper we chose several out of those phenomenon as objects of our study, rather studying the relation of Liao Dynasty with Song Dynasty systematically and synthetically.There have been considerable studies on the relationship between Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty, but the objects of spy strategy and Qidan Guiming people(契丹归明人) are not reported so far. Although there were some discussions on the objects about the buffer zones between Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty and the ponds excavated by Northern Song Dynasty, still lot leeway to be explored in detail. We thus hope to trigger and deepen the studies on panorama of Liao-Song relation by solving these problems.There were buffer zones on the boundary of Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty, and bilateral governing fields on densely populated area in Hebei whereas forbidden areas on sparsely populated area in Hedong. For example there are bilateral governing fields on northern area of both Hebei Eastern Lu and Hebei Western Lu, even on northern bank of Juma river. But the bilateral governing fields in Xiongzhou has different meaning for Song Dynasty and Liao Dynasty in which Rongcheng and Guixin county locating on the southern bank of Juma river belonged to Northern Song Dynasty, andpeople living there were restricted by Northern Song Dynasty for corvee recruitment while they both were imposed taxes and were recruited for corvee by Liao Dynasty. The existence and maintenance of Xiongzhou bilateral governing fields relaxed the tension relation between Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty. Both Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty safeguarded its nature of bilateral-belonging, and implemented a preferential economic policy in this area. Forbidden area, acted as buffer zone designated in the western boundary region by Liao Dynasty and Northern Song Dynasty, located in those subboundary region such as Daizhou, Ninhuajun, Kelanjun, Huoshanjun, Xinzhou etc. in the northern area of Northern Song Dynasty Hedong Lu, resulted historically from the long-term policy of out-moving its population by Northern Song Dynasty. Northern Song Dynasty even lifted ban in these forbidden area for increasing food supplies, ending prohibition in Kelanjun and Huoshanjun in the 5th year of Qingli(1045), Daizhou and Ninhuajun in the 2nd year of Zhihe(1055) and further lifted the ban to Daizhou in the 9th year of Xinin(1076). Boundary dispute arose because the boundary misted over became one of the major reasons for redelimiting the boundary line on Hedong region between Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty. The Hedong dispute between Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty began in Kangding period( 1040-1041), ended in the 10th year of Xinin(1077), thus lasted for more than 30 years during which they fought for Hedong border repeatedly. The dispute for Tianchi was a typical case of the Hedong forbidden area striving between Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty.After changing its strategic attitude against Liao Dynasty from offensive to defense, Northern Dynasty built ponds, a kind of water defensive project, by using the native water conservancy in the north of Hebei. Ponds-building was started from Song Taizong period, a war state between Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty, directed by He Chengju, and peaked in Song Zhenzong period. Those ponds were finally constructed into a "great wall" over water of 450 kilometer starting from east at Cangzhou to west at Baozhou. Northern Dynasty also planted lots of elms and willows on those wastelands between ponds and farmland as a supplement to the ponds. Management and maintenance of the ponds became a duty for the Northern Song Dynasty's commanding generals in charge of the those prefectures along the ponds. Northern Song Dynasty also extremely valued defensive function of natural barrier of the Yellow River. The ponds had positive effect on defense against Liao Dynasty but also brought some negative effects. Liao Dynasty restricted and damaged the ponds constructed by Northern SongDynasty. Before the Chanyuan treaty Liao Dynasty mainly interfered with the pond construction, then set clear stipulations on the pond construction during Chanyuan conference, and raised more concrete requirements to confine the ponds, which written on Guannan Pledge, when scrambled for Guannan.The spy strategy was chosen as a strong measure bom by Northern Song Dynasty and by Liao Dynasty to hit enemy during confrontation period. They both had specialized espionage organization to organize and manage spies. Spies of either side used various methods to sneak into the opposite for stealing secret information. Either side took great effort to guard against enemy spies. Spies contributed a great effect on the politics, military affairs and culture of both Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty during their confrontation period.Some of population submitted to Northern Song Dynasty from Liao Dynasty and they were called Qidan Guiming people. The appearance of the Qidan Guiming people had some relation with the background of confrontation between Liao Dynasty and Song Dynasty in which some were original central plain people coming back to Northern Song Dynasty, also some were Liao Dynasty people going to Northern Song Dynasty because they suffered setback in Liao Dynasty, and some were attracted to Northern Song Dynasty by its policy of settling those submitted. The Qidan Guiming people included several nationalities: Han nationality, Qidan nationality and other nationalities and tribes living in Liao Dynasty. The policy of Northern Song Dynasty to those Qidan Guiming people were always affected by the relationship fluctuation between Northern Song Dynasty and Liao Dynasty. Northern Song Dynasty actively admitted these Qidan Guiming people before Chanyuan Treaty, and changed to a limited admittance after the treaty of alliance and even put them in very important positions at the end of Northern Song Dynasty. Northern Song Dynasty settled and appointed Qidan Guiming people in various ways: granting land and house, authorizing official position, recruiting to army, giving special treatment to those monks and priests, and making preferential policies to Qidan Guiming people.