The Tang Dynasty Origins of Song Technocracy

The influential Naito-Hartwell hypothesis of middle period Chinese history posits an economic and social transformation from the aristocratic-led early Tang (618-907 CE) period to the literati and gentry-led governance of Song (960-1279 CE). Fundamental to this thesis is the drastic economic expansion that unfolded during these centuries. However, scholars have devoted less attention to how these larger economic and demo-graphic trends relate to both continuity and change in the monarchies of this period. In the aftermath of the An Lushan (753-763 cE) rebellion, the Six Dynasties (220-589cE) and early Tang conception of emperorship as a ritual primus inter pares among aristocratic peers gave way to a new conception of the monarchy as the com-mand center of a technocratic corporation. This article describes the late Tang and Five Dynasties (907-979 cE) institutional and political structures that the Song founders, descendants of the independent and entrepreneurial Hebei military administrators of the ninth century, inherited and adapted to develop this new model of imperial gov-ernance. As the Song moved into the eleventh century, only this new entrepreneurial monarchy, an imperial technocracy, possessed the administrative capacity and techno-logical competencies necessary to capitalize and harness the period's transformative economic forces.