The Confucian “way of knowing” was validated through classical texts that transmitted the wisdom of antiquity. Early Song rulers promoted Confucianism as the ideological foundation of the state, and the reformulation of Confucianism commonly known as “Neo-Confucianism” took place against the backdrop of the newly unified Song dynasty. Well before the Song, the establishment of government schools and the examination system institutionalized early ideals of learning, transforming them into knowledge useful for governing a bureaucratic state. During the Song, debates over the content of the examinations – and thus what kinds of knowledge were valued – were sparked by political disputes, but disagreements were also based on deeply held beliefs about the meaning of learning and the purpose of knowledge. The cosmological underpinnings of Confucianism were articulated and transmitted through new interpretations of the Classics in the Northern Song, synthesized and systematized by the Neo-Confucian thinker Zhu Xi (1130–1200). History was a way of knowing distinct from the Classics as a source of political and philosophical principles. The Jurchen Jin incorporated and adapted these ways of knowing with their own in their rule of the north. The introduction of print technology altered people’s relationship to texts and to the transmission of knowledge.

Chapter 3 studies the life and works of Li Tao (1115–1184), compiler of the Long Draft Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror That Aids Administration (Xu zizhi tongjian changbian), the definitive chronological history of the Northern Song period, which lasted from 960 through 1127. He and his fellow Sichuanese, Li Xinchuan, the subject of Chapter 4, are the two most influential historians who worked during the Song period on the history of their own dynasty. An extensive investigation of Li Tao’s biography underscores the close connection between his long service as a Sichuan provincial official, his political convictions and associations, and the narrative of Northern Song history that he presented in the Long Draft. I conclude that Li Tao intended his work as a handbook of historical and political precedents for use by the same coalition of literati officials to which Zhu Xi and Zhao Ruyu belonged. Although not himself an advocate of daoxue learning, Li Tao was sympathetic to its political goals. The second part of the chapter studies the methodology of the Long Draft, in particular its integration of main text and interlinear commentary to generate for the reader an interactive experience of participating in the historiographical process of source selection and evaluation. The chapter also analyzes the complex dynamic between Li Tao’s work as a private historian and his appointment to the official court office of historiography.