The failure of Wang Anshi's change of law and the defeat in the Western Xia War made Song Shenzong depressed, and his health was worse than a day, in 1085 AD, Song Shenzong's condition deteriorated, Zhao Xu was only 9 years old at the time, the lord was suspicious of the country, Song Shenzong's illness gave his two younger brothers Zhao Hao and Zhao Hao a great chance to inherit the throne, regardless of seniority or age, both of them were the best candidates to take the throne, when the ministers Cai Qing and Xing Shu also had the intention of establishing Zhao Hao and Zhao Hao as emperors, they originally united with Empress Gao's nephew to achieve the goal. The result was rejected.
Cai Qing and Xing Shu saw the wind and made the rudder, and promptly supported Zhao Xu as emperor, and took the opportunity to eliminate dissidents, while Zhao Hao and Zhao Hao also wanted to take advantage of the chaos to seize the throne, they even made a request to Empress Gao, wanting to guard song Shenzong, who was already ill day and night, Empress Gao saw that the two people had ill intentions, so they tried to ensure the safety of Song Shenzong, and strictly forbade the second king to enter Song Shenzong's palace, Song Shenzong heard that his two younger brothers had ambitions to seize the throne, and they could not speak, they could only look at them angrily, and Empress Gao wanted to cut off the ambition of the second king to seize the throne. Speeding up the pace of establishing Zhao Xu as emperor, he sent people in advance to make a dragon robe according to Zhao Xu's figure, and prepared that once Emperor Shenzong of Song died, he would immediately help Zhao Xu to ascend to the throne.
At the same time, Empress Gao actively created a momentum for Zhao Xu, and when the chancellor went on a pilgrimage, Empress Gao strongly praised Zhao Xu for her filial piety, and claimed that Zhao Xu had a stable personality, was clever and clever, and everyone with a discerning eye understood that Empress Gao wanted to choose Zhao Xu as emperor, so she praised it in unison. Empress Gao took the opportunity to order someone to take out Zhao Xu and make Zhao Xu crown prince, but because Empress Gao handled it properly, this enabled the inner court to avoid a bloody dispute.
In March 1085, Emperor Shenzong of Song died, and Zhao Xu, who was only nine years old, ascended the throne as emperor, known in history as Emperor Zhezong of Song, after Song Zhezong ascended the throne, due to his youth and ignorance, all the power was in the hands of Empress Gao, and Empress Gao bowed to the government, and all military affairs had to be carried out with the consent of Empress Gao, and Zhao Xu was only a puppet, and the ministers of culture and martial arts were also quite contemptuous of him because of Zhao Xu's young age, because Zhao Xu and the throne of Empress Gao were opposed, and the ministers turned their backs on Zhao Xu. Young Zhao Xu saw the most of the ministers' backs and buttocks, which was very sad.
When Zhao Xu was seventeen years old, Empress Gao should have returned power to Zhao Xu, but Empress Gao was not willing to give up power at all, and the ministers were forced by Empress Gao's power and did not dare to propose to let the empress dowager return to power, at this time Zhao Xu already had a sense of imperial power, and he was very dissatisfied with the actions of Empress Gao and the ministers, which also led to a result that was enough to change the national fortunes of the Northern Song Dynasty: After holding real power, Zhao Xu vigorously rejected the conservative faction close to Empress Gao and used the old ministers of the reform faction.
Although Empress Gao refused to delegate power, she did not relax her education for a moment, she invited famous teachers all over the place, and tried her best to instill Song Renzong's political thinking on Zhao Xu of Song Zhezong, and Empress Gao was not sure of Song Shenzong's determination to forge ahead, so Song Shenzong's political achievements were almost zero in the mind of young Zhao Xu. Although Empress Gao was concerned about Zhao Xu's growth, she invisibly caused great psychological pressure to Zhao Xu, and even restricted Zhao Xu's freedom in some aspects, and the seventeen-year-old Zhao Xu was no longer a child, he had his own ideas and ambitions, and he felt suffocated by Empress Gao's coercion and oppression.
What made him even more unbearable was that his mother Zhu Shi had a virtuous and gentle personality, but in the eyes of Empress Gao, she was snubbed and insulted because of her low status, in 1085 AD, Zhu Shi had escorted the coffin of Shenzong to the mausoleum, and the prefect of Henan, Han Dai, knelt down to greet Zhu Shi and ShenZong coffin, but Empress Gao was very angry when she heard the news, and rebuked Zhu Shi: Han Dai is an old courtier, how do you deserve to kneel, Zhu Shi is speechless, can only secretly weep, Zhao Xu is even more angry after learning about this, The contradiction between Empress Gao and Zhao Xu became more and more intense, which was also an important reason why Zhao Xu rejected the conservative faction later.
Whenever a minister came to play, Zhao Xu was silent, and Empress Gao would occasionally ask Zhao Xu's opinion, and she felt strange about Zhao Xu's lack of words, so she asked the reason, but she did not expect the young Zhao Xu to open her mouth and scold Empress Gao: You have already disposed of it, what else do I say? The sound is that he was treated as a puppet by Empress Gao, in some small things in normal times, Zhao Xu also confronted Empress Gao in order to vent his inner anger, Zhao Xu used the old table for more than ten years to be replaced by Empress Gao's order, but Zhao Xu was furious, ordered people to change back, Empress Gao was puzzled, Zhao Xu said with dissatisfaction: This is the table used by Emperor Xian, how can it be easily replaced? Empress Gao knew in her heart that Zhao Xu had grown up and was no longer the little emperor who let herself fiddle, so she did not dare to give up her power, afraid of the sad end of her old age.
After Empress Gao's death, Zhao Xu finally seized power, and the first order issued by Zhao Xu, who held real power, was to belittle Sima Guang and other old parties, and Zhao Xu vented all his dissatisfaction with Empress Gao on the old party, and Zhang Xu and others took advantage of Zhao Xu's dissatisfaction with Empress Gao to provoke Zhao Xu to abolish the honorific title of empress dowager, pointing directly at Empress Gao as "old traitor and good country", and then he reused the reformers such as Zhang Huan and Zeng Bu to restore the armor protection law, the exemption law, and the Green Seedling law in Wang Anshi's transformation law, so as to reduce the peasants' burdens and make the country's situation improve. In the following year, he changed the Yuan "Shaosheng" and stopped negotiations with the Western Xia, and repeatedly sent troops to attack the Western Xia, forcing the Western Xia to beg for peace with the Song Dynasty. This was the greatest success achieved in the course of Zhao Xu's reign, and in one fell swoop washed away Song Shenzong's humiliation of the crushing defeat in the Western Xia War, presumably Song Shenzong had a spirit in heaven, and when he learned that his successors could continue to implement their own policies and guidelines, continue to use the new law and achieve such impressive results, I am afraid that he would be able to smile at jiuquan.
Although Song Zhezong had made achievements, he died at the age of twenty-four, and he reigned for fifteen years, although he was young, but he was full of political achievements, which can be called a generation of Ming Emperors.
However, it is lamentable that during the Southern Song Dynasty Shaoxing (1131-1162), Fang Tingshuo, the shaoqing of Taichang, was ordered to send an envoy to the Jin Dynasty, on the way to visit the tombs of the emperors of the Northern Song Dynasty. The tombs of the Song Emperor were destroyed. Zhao Xu's Yongtai Tomb was particularly badly damaged, his bones were exposed in broad daylight, and Fang Tingshuo could only take off his clothes to wrap the bones. A generation of Ming Jun finally fell to such a point, it really made people hate and cry, which is why the people of the Central Plains hated the Jurchens to the bone, it is precisely because the shame of Jing Kang caused great psychological pain to the Han people, which led to the continuous anti-Jin forces in the Central Plains, and they were never able to truly pocket the Central Plains.