The Study On Generals Of Imperial Guards In The Early Two Generations Of Song Dynasty

As an important political and military power in the early two generations of SongDynasty, Generals of imperial guards had played an important role. Having rose in theFive-Generation period and served as superior roles in Song, they had played a veryimportant position during dynasty changing.From terms of geographic, impacted by geographic-political of the Five-Generationperiod, most of the generals of imperial guards came from Hebei, proving Hebei geographicaladvantage. They were mostly from the military, and must rely on the military exploit duringpromotion process. They played a huge role helping founding the Northern Song Dynasty.During the tremendous social changes, some of them could form a relationship network frommarrige to the superior class, which would lead to their continued prosperity. Others couldnot adapt to the social changes and quickly withered. Meanwhile, comparing to Taizu period,ratio of wife's family members as imperial generals became smaller. Taizong used whofollowed him before as imperial generals more than Taizu, which indicated the difference.With imperial power rising and "value civil officials and restrain military generals" carryingout, generals of imperial guards were suspected and suppressed by the emperors. They had tochanged themselves in psychology and life performance to make a positive gesture, but theirplight is inevitably declined. Most of them served stably, and could afford high-praisedpresent positions after dead. Late in Taizong period, generals of imperial guards fostered bySong itself began to play a ruling position. In Zhenzong period, they were replaced by thenew generation and withdrew from the stage of history basically.