党争是中国古代政治的突出现象，有着政治制度和文化等诸多方面的深刻原因，一个王朝的政局稳定和兴衰与党争的存在和演变有着直接的关系。北宋是我国古代历史上政治、经济、文化发展的重要时期，也是政治变动、党争迭起的时期。 宋仁宗景祐和庆历年间，士大夫们因政见不同引发党争。后人对庆历党争有一种笼统性认识，即“范党为是，吕党为非”，而且庆历新政派成员是研究的重点，如范仲淹、富弼、韩琦等。保守派成员夏竦在庆历党争中发挥重要作用，但关于他的政治研究较少。 夏竦以文学起家，才华出众，又颇有政绩。庆历三年（1043），夏竦被召为枢密使，但因新政派的反对和阻碍，枢密使一职被杜衍取代。石介作《庆历圣德诗》诋毁夏竦是“大奸”，两人结怨。夏竦为了打击报复新政派，制造了“飞语中伤石介、富弼一案”“石介诈死案”，间接导致了“庆历新政”的失败，因此夏竦被后人评价为“奸邪”。

Party struggle is a prominent phenomenon in the ancient Chinese politics, whose appearance has many profound reasons such as political system and culture. The stability and prosperity of a dynasty have a direct relationship with the existence and evolution of party struggle. The Northern Sung Dynasty is not only an important period in the process of ancient China’s politics, economy and culture, but it is a period of political change and party struggle. During Jingyou and Qingli of Renzong period, the scholar-bureaucrats arose political conflicts because of different political views. The scholars came later have a general understanding of the party struggle during the Qingli period, which is “the Fan Party is right and the Lv Party is not.” Moreover, the studies focused on the the members of the new political party in Qingli period, such as Fan Zhongyan, Fu Bi and Han Qi. However, Xia Song, as a conservative party member, played an important role in the party struggle of Qingli period, but there are few political studies on him. Xia Song started his career with literature. He was talented and had great achievements in his post. In the third year of Qingli period (1043), Xia Song was appointed as the military affairs commissioner. However, because of the opposition and resistance of reformists, he was replaced by Du Yan. Shi Jie composed “Qingli Shengde Poem”, in which Shi Jie defamed Xia Song as a “Big Evil”. This contracted enmity between them. In order to retaliate upon those reformists, Xia Song schemed to slander Shi Jie and Fu Bi with flying rumors and performed Shi Jie’s fake death, which indirectly led to the failure of the “Qingli New Deal”. This made Xia Song a “Evil” in the comment of those came later.