Sung T'ai-tsu (927-976) was a Chinese emperor and the founder of the Sung dynasty, one of the great Chinese dynasties and a major period of transition in Chinese history.

In 755 the T'ang dynasty was dealt a stunning blow when An Lu-shan, a frontier general in command of a great army on the northeastern border of China, turned his forces against the dynasty. The rebel armies swept over the rich and heavily-populated North China Plain (modern Hopei, Honan, and Shantung provinces) and captured both T'ang capitals, Lo-yang and Ch'ang-an. The rebellion was finally quelled in 763, but its impact on the social and political fabric of China was felt long afterward. The old aristocracy of North China had fled before the rebel armies, abandoning their lands--the basis of their personal power.

A great part of the territory previously controlled by this regional aristocracy and by the T'ang central government came...