As we all know, Emperor Huizong of Song is portrayed as a very faint emperor in the Water Margin, and historically, he is indeed the same. He reused Cai Jing, Gao Qi, and other traitors, had no ability to govern the country, coveted pleasures, and in order to protect himself, blindly asked for peace from the Jin State, which eventually led directly to the military defeat of the Northern Song Dynasty.
In general, this series of actions of Emperor Huizong of Song directly led to the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty, and in the face of the aggressive offensive of the Jin State, Emperor Huizong of Song actually ceded the throne to his son in a hurry. In 1127, the Jin soldiers attacked the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, Fenjing, and burned and plundered, known in history as the shame of Jingkang, and after Song Huizong and Song Qinzong were captured, they were escorted all the way to the north by the Jin people and suffered humiliation. During this period, Song Huizong created a large number of poetic works, and it has to be said that although Song Huizong's ability to govern the country was not very good, his achievements in art were very strong.
In the Jin Dynasty, Song Huizong's experience was also very tragic, and after arriving at the capital of the Jin Dynasty, Song Huizong and Song Qinzong were forced to go to the temple of Jin Taizu to complete Yan Akuta and perform the "sheep leading ceremony". The sheep-leading ceremony is to be naked on the upper body, covered in sheep's clothing, tied with a rope around the neck, and led like a sheep, which is absolutely the greatest humiliation for an emperor. We often say that the life of Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, was a tragedy because he could not even control the trajectory of his own life. However, the author believes that the most humiliating emperor is still Emperor Huizong of Song.
Subsequently, he was taken to the City of five kingdoms (present-day Yilan County, Heilongjiang Province), which was then a bitter cold place in the far north, where he wrote that "the westerly wind broke through the night, and the depression was faint." Jiashan looked back three thousand miles, and there were no geese flying in the south. In such a sad verse, in 1135, Emperor Huizong of Song died of illness in the double torture of spirit and body, and Zhao Huan held his father's corpse and wept bitterly, but the Jin people actually boiled Song Qinzong's body into lamp oil, which showed his insult to Emperor Huizong of Song.
Emperor Huizong of Song spent the second half of his life imprisoned by the Jin Dynasty, and his death was not taken back to the Southern Song Dynasty. Although Zhao Zhao, emperor Gaozong of the Southern Song Dynasty, shouted to rescue The father and son of Emperor Huizong of Song, everyone with clear eyes knew that he did not want Emperor Huizong of Song and Emperor Qinzong of Song to come back and compete with them for the throne. After the death of Emperor Huizong of Song, Emperor Gaozong of Song falsely asked for the bones of the Jin people, but Emperor Huizong of Song had long been refined into lamp oil, and in the end they simply prepared a coffin, and a few pieces of wood were placed in the coffin, and Emperor Gaozong of Song did not look closely, he hastily buried it, and now there is only one crown tomb in the Yongyou Mausoleum in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, and Song Huizong can definitely be regarded as the most tragic emperor in history.