Abstract: Emperor Renzong of the Song Dynasty was enthroned at underage age. In the name of his mother, Empress Liu had been in power for eleven years. During her reign, she had done something beyond the rules of etiquette. With the development of imperial examination system, the independence consciousness of the scholar-officials community gradually increased, and wanted Empress Liu to hand over power to Renzong as soon as possible. As for the two fires of 1029 and 1032, Empress Liu and scholar-officials had opposite explanations, which was essentially a game of power between the two parties.

Key words: Northern Song Dynasty, fire, Zaiyi, Empress Liu