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Zhao Pu
Northern Song founding minister who helped put Zhao Kuangyin on the throne at Chenqiao and served three terms as chief councillor under the first two emperors
In a council hall, a long table holds an unrolled map scroll, a brass-cornered chest and a brush pot, with tall-backed chairs around it and a bronze lamp at the left; a figure stands with their back turned on the balcony at the right, with palace roofs beyond.
Also known as Zi Zeping · Zhaohan Wang · Shi Zhongxian
Zhao Pu, courtesy name Zeping, came from Ji in Youzhou; war under the Later Tang drove his family to Changshan and then Luoyang. He joined Zhao Kuangyin's staff under the Later Zhou, and when the army acclaimed Zhao emperor at Chenqiao in 960, he and Zhao Guangyi went into the tent to tell him. Under the new Song he became military affairs commissioner, and in 964, after Fan Zhi and the other two chief ministers were dismissed on the same day, he governed as sole chief councillor until he was sent out to a provincial post in 973. Emperor Taizong brought him back as chief councillor in 981 and again in 988. He died in 992 in his seventy-first year, was named Prince of Zhending with the posthumous name Zhongxian, later raised to Prince of Han, and was given a place in Taizu's temple. The saying that he ruled with half the Analects comes from Luo Dajing's Southern Song notebook Helin yulu, not from his official biography.
Life and times
Dates 922 CE–992 CE