Jia Sidao was born in 1213, to Jia She and Lady Hu; Hu was a renounced concubine of Jia She. Jia She died when Jia Sidao was 11. By the time he earned his jinshi at the age of 25 in 1238 CE, his elder sister was already a concubine of the Emperor Lizong with the rank of guifei.
Career
Jia Sidao was a chancellor from 1260 - 1273 during the late Song dynasty of China. According to History of Song, he is reported to have risen to the rank of chancellor because his sister, Lady Jia, was a favored concubine of the Emperor Lizong. Jia is best known for his intervention in the Battle of Xiangyang, where he hid the true situation from the Song court and so is suggested by some to be responsible for its demise. Jia is also referred to by some as corrupt and impotent. Jia enjoyed the special favor of the Emperor Duzong. Being Jia's junior by 27 years, the Emperor used to stand up upon his entrance, called him "teacher", and is said to have knelt in tears on one occasion, begging Sidao to remain in office. Jia pioneered a policy of land nationalization highly unpopular among the Confucians, who favored low taxes and a small role for the state. The land survey, endorsed by several other officials, was undertaken ca. 1262. It was driven by pressing military needs, and by rampant concentration of land in the hands of powerful landlords, who were often high-ranking court officials. In 1263, the gongtian system was re-introduced, whereby the amount of land held by individuals was restricted, and the excess land being classified as gongtian. The income from gongtian was then used to supplement military expenditure; this system functioned for the next 12 years. Jia's land reformactivities went even further than those undertaken by Wang Mang, as under Wang Mang, the state monopolized only 1/3 of the excess land holdings, and at least provided some minimal compensation. In contrast, Jia's reforms offered no compensation; another of Jia's aims was to abolish the hedi policy, and reduce the amount of paper money in circulation, as under the hedi policy, with the government purchasing more grain, they had to issue more paper money, resulting in rising inflation. Later, at the Battle of Yihu, Jia Sidao, while leading an army of 130,000, panicked and escaped the battlefield in a small boat. The troops, seeing that their commander had abandoned them, retreated hastily; the result was a defeat whereby the remnants of the Song army were routed, allowing the Mongols to advance on the capital, Lin'an. As a result of this defeat, Sidao was demoted from the post of chancellor.
Death
The possibility of executing Jia Sidao for his court failures was hotly debated in Lin'an on the verge of its fall. Dowager Empress Xie objected to this as a cruelty, but issued progressively severe decrees of banishment and property confiscation that included Sidao and his family under the pressure of the public. Ultimately, in 1275, Sidao was assassinated by a court-designated sheriff, Zheng Huchen, who had been charged with his custody. Whether the execution was court-sanctioned remains unclear.
In the 2014 NetflixTV seriesMarco Polo, Jia Sidao is portrayed by Chin Han, while the sister to whom he owes his position is played by Olivia Cheng. In the series he was assassinated by the invading Mongols, some time after he assassinated Dowager Empress Xie.
