Song Emperor Shenzong Commits to Activist Government

1068

The young Emperor Shenzong, haunted by the military humiliations his dynasty had suffered at Khitan and Tangut hands, took the throne with a reformer's impatience. He immediately began searching for officials bold enough to remake Song governance - men who would overhaul taxation, restructure the military, and challenge the landed gentry's stranglehold on rural wealth. Within a year he would find his man: Wang Anshi.