Why Does the Tang-Song Interregnum Matter? Part Two: The Social and Cultural Initiatives of the South

In Volume 46 of the Journal of Song Yuan-Studies, I published an initial essay on the importance of the southern kingdoms through the Tang-Song interregnum. This century-long period was bracketed by Huang Chao’s 黃 巢 rampage through the south that began in 878 and the 978 submission to Song authority of the last autonomous regions: the WuYue 吳越 kingdom of Liangzhe and the QuanZhang 泉漳 satrapy of southern Fujian. I argued that through the interregnum when the holistic empire had dissolved, the south experienced significant economic growth that set the stage for a transformation of its relationship to the broader empire of the reconsolidated Song.1 But the interregnum was important for more than the consolidation of the southern economies. This was also an era of social and cultural transformation across the south. Much as the economic transformation redefined the relationship between the south and the empire, so innovations in society and culture set the stage for the dramatic changes of the Song and the later imperial period. The goal of this essay, therefore, is to summarize those social and cultural innovations in order to demonstrate that premise. I first need to clarify the goals and parameters of my discussion. As I noted in my introduction to the previous essay, in a pattern that began with the History of the Five Dynasties (Wudai shi 五代史, later known as the “Old” History [Jiu Wudai shi 舊五代史]) by Xue Juzheng 薛居正 (912–981) and has continued through much of even the most recent scholarship on the Tang-Song transition,