Book Reviews

Journal of Chinese Military History 1 (2012) 87-104 brill.nl/jcmh

Book Reviews

Power Structures and Cultural Identities in Imperial China: Civil and Military Power from Late Tang to Early Song Dynasties (A.D. 875-1063). Cheng-Hua Fang. Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2009. Pp. 228. $117 (cloth).

Cheng Hua Fang’s 2001 dissertation, “Power Structures and Cultural Identities in Imperial China: Civil and Military Power from Late Tang to Early Song Dynasties (A.D. 875-1063),” is one of the handful of studies I fĳind myself regularly rereading and returning to for analysis and reference material. It has now been published in a lightly edited version as Power Struc- tures and Cultural Identities in Imperial China: Civil and Military Power from Late Tang to Early Song Dynasties (A.D. 875-1063), and should, despite the price, take its place on the shelf of essential texts for Chinese historians in general and for those who study Chinese military history in particular. The crux of the study is a description of the history of the development of the civil elite identity in the Song dynasty. Where most historians wave their hands at the Tang-Song transition and take the resulting diffferences between Tang and Song culture on either end as givens, Professor Fang actually traces how the identities of the civil elite formed over the transition. Rather than an inevitable process whereby Chinese culture asserted itself to overcome the Türkic-influenced culture of the Tang and put educated Confucian offfĳicials back in charge during the Song, Professor Fang shows how politics, culture, and individual choices all shaped this development. Critically, he demonstrates the contingent nature of the rise of civil over military during the Tang-Song transition. The rise of the civil elite was part of the political and military struggle for power and might well have turned out diffferently. As the Tang descended into chaos with the Huang Chao Rebellion (874-884), the roles of civil offfĳicials shrank as political power became more and more dependent upon army size and direct territorial control. Educated men took up service with regional or local warlords, with whom their literacy and ritual knowledge had some utility. During the Five Dynasties period (907-960), civil offfĳicials were marginalized at the succession of imperial courts, left out of the political process, and seen as having nothing to contribute either to military policy or fĳinancial matters. Oddly enough, civil offfĳicials might retain high status in the eyes of the strongmen who ruled even though they were absolutely impotent. The best these men could do was to try to preserve what they saw as culture in a degraded and violent age. Feng Dao (882-954), who served a long series of emperors and dynasties, used his position to print the Confucian Classics beginning in 932. Later Confucian statesmen criticized Feng and the men of his time for serving diffferent dynasties without scruple, but they did the best they could under the circumstances.

Some of the warlords of the Five Dynasties had their sons educated by Confucian teach- ers, but in turbulent times it was still military acumen that decided the day. Learning was either irrelevant or, worse, fatal to the fortunes of a regime. Moral suasion and the charis- matic power of virtue were inefffective against ambitious and violent men. A leader focused on culture and learning would alienate his generals and soldiers or distract him from press- ing issues. What is perhaps most interesting about these educated sons, as Professor Fang so cogently points out, is how quickly their upbringing estranged them from their fathers’ culture. A Confucian education not only taught these young men to read, but also indoctri- nated them fully into an ideology that placed culture above force. This was a precursor to the shift in attitudes that would take place early in the Song dynasty when Confucian educated offfĳicials took control over the government. Attitudes toward civil offfĳicials changed during the Later Zhou dynasty (951-960), the fĳirst emperor of which saw fĳit to involve civil offfĳicials in political afffairs. This was a signifĳicant, if incremental, shift that initiated the upward trajectory of influence for civil offfĳicials. Profes- sor Fang argues that the wars of the preceding four dynasties had so shattered the power of the regional warlords that it became possible under the Zhou to reassert central government control over the smaller strongmen. The Zhou imperial army was actually stronger than any other force in north China (and indeed, south China as well, as several Zhou campaigns demonstrated), allowing for renewed central authority. Central authority had to be reconstructed carefully in order to balance the internal stability of the government against its external military strength. Civil offfĳicials could stafff an efffective bureaucracy without themselves posing a threat to the dynasty. The trend of stafffĳing the government with non-threatening civil offfĳicials continued in the Song dynasty. The second Song emperor, Taizong, dramatically increased the numbers of civil offfĳicials recruited through the exam system and quickly channeled these new men into the upper echelons of the government. Even before the period of Song empire building ended in 1005, civil offfĳicials were already intruding into military policy discussions and dis- paraging military men. Once the wars of conquest were over, not only were military men marginalized, but civil offfĳicials also developed a pronounced bias against the military. Civil offfĳicials, particularly those who had passed the exams, became more and more certain of their own superiority, even in military matters. Civil identity hardened in the fĳirst half of the eleventh century as virtually the only route to power in the upper echelons of the government was through the civil service examinations and a purely civil career path. In the eyes of these offfĳicials, military service disqualifĳied a man from upper-level discussions of military policy, let alone civil policy. Professor Fang’s book is an important study for Chinese history because the formation of civil offfĳicial identity he describes laid much of the foundation for literati identity for the remainder of imperial Chinese history. Identity politics and the struggle for political power in the early Song drove civil offfĳicials to vehemently oppose military campaigns regardless of their strategic merit. This aspect of civil offfĳicial identity did change in the future once civil offfĳicials efffectively dominated the government and fought with each other, rather than with the military, over power. The great merit of Professor Fang’s book is that he so clearly describes the identities and political struggles that underlay so many civil offfĳicial policy