He was the second son and the only surviving child of his predecessor Guangzong and like his father, Ningzong was weak-minded; easily dominated by women.

[2] He was a great patron of art, promoting artists such as Liang Kai and Ma Yuan to painter-in-waiting and writing poems about their paintings.

However, Emperor Ningzong was known for his aversion towards the spread of Neo-Confucianism in his imperial court due to the influence of his chancellor Han Tuozhou and on the political side, however, Emperor Ningzong saw his government being plagued by rising inflation that threatened the economy and the military advances by the Jurchens from the north during the wars between the Song dynasty and Jurchen-led Jin dynasty.

To make things worse, Ningzong was not interested in the war effort[9] and morale was low.

[13] The heads of Han and Su were severed from their exhumed corpses, exhibited to the public, then delivered to the Jin finally ending the war.

He was succeeded by another relative named Zhao Yun as all of Ningzong's children died young.

He was a good monarch but sickly at times and this allowed his wife the Empress Yang to exploit his inadequacies and become the de facto ruler of the Empire for nearly 30 years.

Ye Shi criticized the taxation system during the reign of Emperor Ningzong as a "ruthless extortion".

[19] He stated: Since the government crossed the Yangtze River, taxes have been double what they were in the Xuanhe period.