After the Song court fled south following the Jin invasion, a positive reception of Chan Buddhist thought became even more pronounced among official elite than it had been in the Northern Song Dynasty. High officials at court, such as Li Gang (1083-1140), Zhang Jun (1096-1164), Qin Hui (1090-1155) and Lu Yihao (1060-1139), as well as other members of the official elite, such as Lu Benzhong (1084-1145), Zhang Jiucheng (1092-1146), Zhu Dunru (1081-1159), and Ye Mengde (1077-1148), all demonstrated an attitude of support for and faith in Buddhism. When compared with the elite of the Northern Song, the Buddhist worship and Chan practice of the early Southern Song elite especially among those who had relocated from the occupied North of China experienced an evolution, both in terms of its form and content. First, while Northern Song elite brought aspects of Buddhism into their study of Confucianism by both absorbing the essence of Buddhism and openly rejecting Buddhism and Daoism (Taoism), the early Southern Song elite not only brought Buddhist elements into their study of Confucianism, but also used Buddhism as their reference point from which to understand Confucianism. An atmosphere receptive to Chan Buddhist thought pervaded the ranks of the early Southern Song official elite. This, in part, influenced the policies of the Southern Song government toward Buddhism. Prior to the Shaoxing reign period of Emperor Gaozong (1131-1163), court policies helped to revive Buddhism. After this period, court policies continued to foster Buddhism's development. In another respect, this climate of interest in Chan thought and practice also influenced the literature and literary criticism of the early Southern Song elite. “Likening Chan to poetry” was a new way of explaining and annotating literature, as “bringing Chan into poetry” or “bringing Chan into lyrics” emerged as a defining characteristic of their own works. Beginning with the Northern Song, writers such as Su Shi (1037-1101), Huang Tingjian (1045-1105), and Chen Shidao (1053-1101) all betrayed the influence of Buddhism on their literary criticism, but truly combining the study of Chan and the composition of poetry and putting this forward as an important poetic concept and category really began with early Southern Song writers and thinkers. The pronounced interest in Chan Buddhism in the early Southern Song had historical, political, and economic causes. The most important factor in the faith of the elite of this period in Buddhism, with the exception of academic and personal circumstances, was the policy of the early Southern Song court to resettle the displaced elite who had fled South after the fall of the Northern Song in Buddhist temples, allowing increased opportunities for contact with Buddhist thought and ideas and further stimulating the understanding of Buddhism in these elite circles.