On the Civil Transformation of the Southern Tang (937–976)

This article aims to elaborate on the efforts made by Xu Zhigao and his descendants to implement a new practice that recruited local literati to positions of power as well as the extent to which the practice helped facilitate civil transformation and civil administration for their regime. One important way to achieve civil transformation was to bureaucratize the local administration, which involved staffing the mechanism with civil officials. After succeeding in the civil service examinations, local literati of humble origin could take advantage of this possibility for prosperity and honor their families by means of becoming part of the bureaucracy. However, the life span of the Southern Tang was limited to only thirty-nine years. Except for the relatively low number of those who successfully passed the civil service examinations, most of the meritorious officials and official families still considered relying on the protection privilege to be the ideal way to launch the bureaucratic careers of their descendants. Therefore, although the civil service examinations may have exerted some positive impact on civil transformation and civil administration, the advantages did not last long enough to thoroughly change the administrative feature of the Southern Tang

Bureaucracy · Business · Civil service · Political science · Politics · Prosperity · Public service · Staffing · Chinese history and philosophy · Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond · Eurasian Exchange Networks · Law · Public Administration

• Military Revitalization of the Southern Tang

  NG Pak-sheung 伍伯常•Monumenta Serica•2025

  Incluir item

• The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy

  Linda Walton•Monumenta Serica•2015

  Incluir item

• The Sinitic Encounter in Southeast China through the First Millennium CE

  Hugh R Clark•Sinitic Encounter in Southeast…•2015

  Incluir item

• Community, Trade, and Networks

  Open Access•Hugh R Clark•Community, Trade, and Networks•1991

  Incluir item

• Why Does the Tang-Song Interregnum Matter

  Hugh R Clark•Journal of Sung-Yuan studies•2016

  Incluir item

• Why Does the Tang-Song Interregnum Matter? Part Two

  Hugh R Clark•Journal of Sung-Yuan studies•2017

  Incluir item

• The Civil Pursuits of a Military Man in Tenth-Century China

  Hongjie Wang•Journal of Sung-Yuan studies•2010

  Incluir item

• The Medieval Chinese Oligarchy

  Benjamin E Wallacker, Benjamin Ε Wallacker et al.•Journal of the American Oriental…•1980

  Incluir item