Why Does the Tang-Song Interregnum Matter?: A Focus on the Economies of the South

Abstract

By the late ninth century, after more than two-and-a-half centuries of power, the Tang dynasty was losing its Mandate. As early as the 850s, local unrest had begun to evolve into real rebellion. This growing pattern culminated in the cataclysmic uprising led by Wang Xianzhi 王仙芝 (d. 878) and Huang Chao 黃巢 (835–884) that uprooted the court and upset regional hierarchies throughout the imperial core between 874 and 884. Although the court, following the vanquishing of Huang Chao, returned to Chang’an, its power in the now-desolate capital city was effectively broken. The dynasty endured as a hollow shell until formally deposed by the bandit rebel Zhu Wen 朱溫 (852–912) in 907, but its effective end had long been accomplished. With the collapse of the political center, the empire broke apart. Through the last two-plus decades of nominal Tang authority the landscape was overrun by autonomous warlord armies.1 Some aspired to replacing the Tang, while others had much more limited aims, perhaps best defined as simple predation. This disorder marked the beginning of a century-long interregnum that divides Tang from Song. In the north this era is marked by the so-called Five Dynasties that began with Zhu Wen, first “emperor” of the Later Liang 後梁 “dynasty” (r. 907–912) For the next several decades, until the holistic empire was more-or-less restored by the Song in the latter half of the tenth century,