The Wudai (Five Dynasties)

None of the Wudai regimes that dominated northern China ever forgot the ideal of the unified empire. Each sought, with gradually increasing success, to strengthen the power of the central authorities. Even Zhu Wen, who began the Wudai by deposing the last Tang emperor in 907, sought to extend his control in the north. While consolidating his strength on the strategic plains along the Huang He (Yellow River) and connecting them with the vital transportation system of the Grand Canal, he made the significant choice of locating his base at Bian (present-day Kaifeng, in Henan); it later became the Bei (Northern) Song capital. Bian’s lack of historical prestige was balanced by its proximity to the ancient capital, Luoyang, a short distance to the west, which was still China’s cultural center. Zhu Wen’s short-lived Hou (Later) Liang dynasty, founded in 907, was superseded by the Hou Tang in 923, by the Hou Jin in 936, by the Hou Han in 947, and by the Hou Zhou in 951. These rapid successions of dynasties came to an end only with the rise in 960 of the Song dynasty, which finally succeeded in establishing another lasting empire and in taking over much, though not all, of the former Tang empire.

Beneath the surface, however, were the continuous efforts to reintegrate the political process that heralded the coming of a new empire and helped to shape its political system. In this respect the successive rulers moved like a relay team along the tortuous road back to unification. These militarists expanded their personal power by recruiting peoples of relatively humble social origins to replace the aristocrats. Such recruits owed personal allegiance to their masters, on whose favors their political positions depended, thus presaging the rise of absolutism.

Rather than being discarded, the Tang administrative form underwent expedient alterations so that the new types of officials, promoted because of merit from regional posts to palace positions, could use the military administration to supervise the nearby provinces and gradually bring them under direct control. Priority went to securing fiscal resources from the salt monopoly, tribute transport, and in particular new tax revenues, without which military domination would have been hard to sustain and political expansion impossible. Eventually, a pattern of centralizing authority emerged. Fiscal and supply officials of the successive regimes went out to supervise provincial finances and the local administration. The minor militarists, heretofore the local governors in control of their own areas, were under double pressure to submit to reintegrating measures. They faced the inducement of political accommodation, which allowed them to keep their residual power, and the military threat of palace army units commanded by special commissioners, which were sent on patrol duty into their areas. The way was thus paved, in spite of occasional detours and temporary setbacks, for the ultimate unification.

The seemingly chaotic period was in fact less chaotic than other rebellious times—except from the standpoint of the aristocrats, who lost their preeminent status along with their large estates, which were usually taken over piecemeal by their former managers. The aristocratic era in Chinese history was gone forever; a new bureaucratic era was about to begin.

The Shiguo (Ten Kingdoms)

From the time of the Tang dynasty until the Qing dynasty, which arose in the 17th century, China consisted of two parts: the militarily strong north and the economically and culturally wealthy south. Between 907 and 960, 10 independent kingdoms emerged in China, mainly in the south: the Wu (902–937), the Nan (Southern) Tang (937–975/976), the Nan Ping (924–963), the Chu (927–951), the Qian (Former) Shu (907–925), the Hou (Later) Shu (934–965), the Min (909–945), the Bei (Northern) Han (951–979), the Nan Han (917–971), and the Wu-Yue (907–978), the last located in China’s most rapidly advancing area—in and near the lower Yangtze delta.

Some of these separate regimes achieved relative internal stability, although none attained enough strength to strive to unify China. Nonetheless, the regional developments in southern China, in the upper Yangtze region in southwestern China, and in the lower Yangtze region in southeastern China were of great interest. In southern China the Min kingdom in modern Fujian and the Nan Han in present-day Guangdong and Guangxi reflected sharp cultural differences. Along the coast, sea trade expanded, promoting both urban prosperity and cultural diversity. On land, wave after wave of refugees moved southward, settling along rivers and streams and in confining plains and mountain valleys and using a frontier agriculture but with highly developed irrigation and land reclamation. Usually they pushed aside the Indigenous minorities, earlier settlers, and previous immigrant groups. This process turned southern China into a cultural chessboard of great complexity, with various subcultural pieces sandwiched between one another. Many eventually evolved along different lines.

In southwestern China the valley of what is now Sichuan presented a notably different picture of continuous growth. Usually protected from outside disturbances and invasions by the surrounding mountains, it enjoyed peace and prosperity except for one decade of instability between the Qian Shu and Hou Shu. The beautiful landscape inspired poets, who infused a refreshing vitality into old-style poetry and essays. In this region, a stronghold of Daoist religion, the people inserted into Confucian scholarship an admixture of Daoist philosophy. Buddhism also flourished. These intellectual trends in Sichuan foreshadowed an eclectic synthesis of the three major teachings—Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism.

The Buddhist monasteries owned large estates and were usually among the first to introduce new and better technology. Growing commerce created a demand for money. The ensuing shortage of copper for coinage was met by an increasing output of iron through more-efficient methods and an elementary division of labor in production. When the limited number of copper coins could no longer meet the growing volume of trade, iron currency briefly went into circulation. With increasing commerce, various paper credit instruments were also developed, the best-known being drafts for transmitting funds called feiqian (“flying money”). Somewhat later the private assay shops in Sichuan began to issue certificates of deposit to merchants who had left valuables at the shops for safekeeping. These instruments, which began to circulate, were the direct ancestors of the paper money that emerged in the early 11th century.

During the Wudai, printing became common. The most famous and monumental cultural production of the period was the editing and printing of the Confucian Classics and the Buddhist Tipitaka, but a printing industry also emerged during the Wudai that produced works for private buyers. The best printing in the country during the Wudai and the Song dynasty came from the regions of Sichuan and Fujian.

From the Wudai onward, southeastern China, especially its core region of the Yangtze delta, began to lead the country in both economic prosperity and cultural refinement. In this region, fertile soil, irrigation networks, and highly selected crops combined to create the best model of intensive farming. Interlocking streams, rivers, and lakes fed an ever-increasing number of markets, market towns, cities, and metropolitan areas, where many farm products were processed into an ever-expanding variety of consumer goods. Such development enhanced regional trade, stimulated other regions to adopt specialization, and promoted overseas commerce.

The Song conquerors from the north recognized the high level of cultural development in this region. After the surrender of the last Nan Tang ruler, himself a renowned poet, the unexcelled royal library was moved to the north; along with it went many officials who were skilled in art, literature, and bibliography. The surrender of the Wu-Yue kingdom, slightly farther south, followed the same pattern. Moreover, refined culture developed away from the coast in such inland mountainous areas as present-day Jiangxi, which shortly thereafter produced internationally coveted porcelain and where many great artists and scholar-officials attained positions of cultural leadership. Thereafter, southeastern China retained its cultural excellence. At the end of the Bei Song period, the Nan Song based itself in the lower Yangtze delta and located its capital at Lin-an (present-day Hangzhou), the former capital of the Wu-Yue.

As traditional histories stress, this period of disunity definitely had its dark side: militarism, wars, disintegration of the old order, and an easing of moral standards. The dark side, however, stemmed largely from underlying changes that were transforming China into a new pattern that would last for nearly a millennium.