Conclusion

Section 2 has demonstrated that the political culture of the Jiankang Empire was sharply different from that of the Central Plains, which was the core region of all other large medieval East Asian empires. Jiankang’s political culture can be seen as a distinctive expression of the proto-ethnic identity of the people who dominated the empire, mostly Churen and Wuren. Elite Zhongren migrants from the Central Plains dominated the court only during a part of the fourth century, and their influence waned from then straight through to the end of the sixth century. Instead, the locally rooted garrison culture of the military and the merchant class was the primary driver and innovator in both politics and the economy....