Death of Emperor Zhezong; Prince of Duan enthroned
The Song shi basic annals record that in the first lunar month of Yuanfu 3 (AD 1100), on the jimao day, the emperor died; the empress dowager announced the testamentary decree and established his younger brother, the Prince of Duan (端王), who took the throne before the coffin, and the empress dowager provisionally shared in deciding military and state affairs.
What this does and does not establish
The Song shi is a Yuan-compiled (1343-45) official history drawing on Song court records; the English is an AI working translation. This is the closing entry of the Zhezong annals (juan 18); juan 19 (Huizong annals) gives a longer account of the same day, including a dispute over the succession, which is not part of this record.
- Read through an AI working translation.
- Region
- East Asia
- Theme
- Politics and institutions
- Kind of record
- Placed in a year. A source places this in one year. It is listed under that year; no day precision is invented.
How it is dated
- Date reference
- 元符 3 (元符三年 as numbered by the annals), lunar month 1
- How we use it
- Year assigned from the lunar month under which the annals enter the item; the sexagenary day was not converted to a Julian day.
The date reference is this project’s reading of the source’s date. It may give an era name, a reign or a calendar in a normalised form rather than in the source’s own words; the dating notes say what the source prints.
Dating notes from the research record
Lunar month 1 of 元符 3 = Julian 1100-02-12 to 1100-03-12, per Academia Sinica 兩千年中西曆轉換 year table(s) 元符3.html (sha256 b0bdf04c1798…); the whole month lies in AD 1100.
File names and line numbers in these notes, and in the limits above, refer to the project’s retained copies of the cited sources. Names such as calendar_headers are the project’s calendar look-ups, and “the investigator” is the research step that prepared the record.
Sources and quoted text
Line and character numbers under “Location” refer to the project’s retained copy of the source. For database rows, “Edition” names the batch of rows that was fetched together.
Source 1 · Supports the statement
Song shi (History of Song), basic annals
Toghto (脫脫) et al., Yuan court historiographers
The credit or link shown here was corrected after an audit of the retained source.
Quoted text (Classical Chinese)
己卯，帝崩。皇太后諭遺制，立弟端王即位於柩前，皇太后權同處分軍國事。AI working translation into English; not official or authoritative
Jimao: the emperor died. The empress dowager announced the testamentary decree, establishing his younger brother the Prince of Duan, who took the throne before the coffin; the empress dowager provisionally shared in deciding military and state affairs.
Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Source: Song shi, juan 18, zh.wikisource transcription (revision 7908324). English renderings are AI working translations, not published translations.
Exact source version
5a3f2560d58a13606bc4aff22ad71f59e8cefc9ce134afe8e1974aa0a1122644Checks and changes
Source checked 2026-11-04. An independent AI evidence review supports this bounded, attributed wording. That review does not guarantee historical truth. How records are checked
No correction has been made to this record’s statement or limits.
Revision s1p_1100_song_1
Exact revision fingerprint
047311056d11521f83c2e66511575820023bea82aced53b1c14ae94565a7c3d7