Song records say the founder's mother made him leave the throne to his brother, and on the night he died the messenger fetched the brother instead of the son

Zhao Kuangyin took the throne in 960 as Emperor Taizu of Song. The History of Song says that in 961 his dying mother, Empress Dowager Du, told him he had won the empire only because the previous dynasty had a child ruler, and that he must leave the throne to his younger brother. The minister Zhao Pu wrote the oath at her bedside, signed it "Your servant Pu", and it was locked in a golden casket. Taizu died at night in 976. Li Tao's Long Draft records that Empress Song sent the eunuch Wang Ji'en to summon Taizu's son Defang. Wang went instead to the Prince of Jin, Taizu's brother, and walked him through the snow to the palace. The empress asked, "Has Defang come?" Wang answered, "The Prince of Jin has come." She addressed the prince as emperor and said, "The lives of mother and son are in your hands." Li Tao also preserved a monk's story of candle shadows and an axe struck on the floor that night, noting that the official histories do not have it. Taizu's son Dezhao cut his own throat in 979 after his uncle rebuked him. Defang died in 981. Zhao Pu produced the casket in 981, and the brother Tingmei was exiled and died in 984. The throne stayed in the brother's line until 1162, when Emperor Xiaozong, a seventh-generation descendant of Taizu through Defang, took it.