The Inter Communication Among Regimes In Five Dynasties And Ten Nations

In recent years, the historical research achievements about the Five Dynasties and Ten States has been more and more, the research sections were deeper and more refined, but it still has blank space. Besides of the traditional research often place extra emphasis on historical changes, ancient laws and regulations, society and culture, more and more selections like explorations for the relationship among regimes in the Five Dynasties and Ten States, and how did the relationship contribute to the unitary trend between the Five Dynasties and Song Dynasty, have been entered to scholars vision.There are so many regimes in the Five Dynasties and Ten States, how did they interact to each other? What way did they depend on to build and keep their relationship? What did the way affect to the holding and perdition about those regimes? All the questions are up for further discuss.Between A.D.907-960,15regimes which divided from the Tang Dynasty have ever existed early or late or at the same time, and they were:Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, Later Zhou; Wu Yue, Chu, Wu, South Tang, Front Shu, Later Shu, Jing Nan, Min, South Han, North Han. Every one of them was not traditional "country" or "empire" or "military governor", if we want to name them, the most advisable definition maybe is "regime". In the54years, frequent inter association and contact happened, and they are called "communication"(but not "diplomacy"). Representative event and people in the process of communication lead to important influence for every regime, and the situation about the age.So many wars happened in the Five Dynasties, but was communication only appendage of the "military struggle"? Perhaps it is not the verdict conclusion; the Ten States all had their demand on social manage, but was communication effective "social control" measure? Obviously it is not exact. Therefore, the research about the communication need completely new location base on "eventful history", and the location is very intently to the deeper and newer point of view to observe the history on the Five Dynasties and Ten States. The basic purpose of communicate is "overcome differences and seek common ground". Mr. Chen Yinke said, in later Tang Dynasty while the embryonic form of the Five Dynasties and Ten States had shaped, the middle area and the south area had been entirely divided to two completely different district, neither the politics and military were couldn’t be unified, or the society and culture were became different groups. Because of that kinds of common ground and differences, the regimes in the Five Dynasties and Ten States had contact base, the common ground is, every one was military governor, the difference was, they had multiple cultures.No matter the Five Dynasties or Ten States, the primary meaning of communication was to aspire and maintain the "exist" of regimes, the second one was to push on the historical process objectively. So the condition they faced, and the conformity of the condition (communication itself was one power in the process) was also very important. Before this, there were just two typical case could help us to understand the background about the inter communication among regimes in the Five Dynasties or Ten States. One was the built and extinct about the Yan Nation in You Zhou state, from the year893to914; the other was the process about Wang Jian who get the control power to Shu area before he built the Front Shu, from the year885to907. Those two example fully show the feature of regimes how involved to power fight in later Tang and Five Dynasty, they could help us to understand the source of regimes communication well, so we could say, they were the "former history" of regimes communication in the Five Dynasties and Ten States.Through the fixing about this background, we could know, the regimes communication in the Five Dynasties and Ten States can be proposed as a independent academy issue. Then, the next question needed to think and discuss is: what contribution and affect did the regimes communication have about the historical tendency in Five Dynasties-Song Dynasty? Thus, the first assignment of this article is to fix the facts of regimes communication in the Five Dynasties and Ten States by time order, and it is to study and review the backgrounds, processes, results, influences about events comprehensively.The communications were happened not only among the "Five Dynasties", but also the "Ten States", and between the "Five Dynasties" and "Ten States". The Five Dynasties, should clearly explain the center of gravity or the principal contradiction of every regime, like the contention between Later Liang and Li Keyong, the Later Tong and Later Jin consolidated their regimes more than others, and the Later Zhou thought over further because of Guo Wei and Chai Rong; the Ten States, we need to sort out the periods of their communication tactics, like the South Han and South Tang; the Five Dynasties and Ten States, the important issues were the establishment and transform about regime’s roles and positions, and the radiation effects and specific influences, like the relationship among middle regimes with Wu/South Tang. These essential factors would be reflected to inter communications, and then threw changes of political and society. Hence, in the account about the course, this article tries to present and partly solve one question—what historical factors pushed the communications, and what function did the communications play in?For the Five Dynasties, they desired to excel over others, but they also wanted to manage and control south states. Moreover, in view of their psychology of "higher empire", they couldn’t close the door or be safely in a small area like some south states, instead, they usually connect others actively, just like told them the new emperor had been taken his place, and appointed some people official positions or nobilities continually, etc.. Meanwhile, the gradually stronger Khitan and the Wu/South Tang span the Huai River and Chang Jiang River brought big press to middle regimes, made them felt cramped on communication, there were few authorities could made good tactics and executed smoothly, these status impacted the whole aspect of communication in the Five Dynasties.For the Ten States, although they were looked upon prefer in this article, but there still had little differences particularly. It should be said, the value orientations of the Ten States were not only to get "independence" or "unify", it was not that simple(or vast), but more complicated. In the books which recorded the Ten States’ history, like Wu Yue Completed History, Shu Tao Wu, the Book of South Tang, pay tribute to middle regimes were not avoided to mention in them; and they almost record every time when they connect to other regimes, from that, their psychology about communication would been see. The hard work of them on communicate could be seen how they wanted to handle the "inter stable" and the "external stable" better. Of course, the two questions were closely related, either the Later Shu closed the door to solve problems, or the South Han traveled thousands of miles to reach "middle countries", they were all tactics to sable themselves, certainly, the tactics were dynamic and developmental. It is to say, we have to classify and analysis the communication among regimes base on their common things or differences, and discuss the concrete communicate exercises.Except for "event", the "people" in communications are also not to be sneezed, they are emissaries and talents.Emissaries (or envoys), were the distinctly involved people and holders in communication events, the group glamour and historical effects by their styles and features and activities is vital to understand the content and texture in regime communication. The talents were important factor who could strengthen or weaken the actual strength of a regime, they flowed very often in the Five Dynasties, if we can seek their tendency, we can actually grasp the thread of that age. The analysis about the two groups wants to display a important side of communication in the Five Dynasties and Ten States, that is, how the communication(history) influent people, and how people influent the communication(history)?There still were some scrappy but not unimportant corners in cultural sections on the communication, for examples, ceremonial and etiquette, the influences between external connection and inter political, communication and traffic, hostage, marriage, spy, and so on. They formed the concertos of communication in the Five Dynasties and Ten States, were also worth discussing.The Five Dynasties and Ten States is considered as one of "the most disorder times in Chinese history", how to cognize this age exactly? To "forward" eyes, I think it should be put on the "front Song Dynasty" more than "later Tang". The military separatist regimes rise from later Tang made deep historical influences. But when we are talking about the reciprocal relationship between the military governors and central government, the process of the regimes’exist was both the unify process, the Five Dynasties and Ten States all contributed to that, and left many beneficial experience which awakened the rulers of the North Song Dynasty.According to this, the writer also attempts to add a thought in the account:how comprehensive recount pursues beside individual historical event, and how to arrange the historical development context clearly in the54years.If we take communication as a clue on investigating this period, we will exploit the third quadrant besides the two time themes—"wars" and "regimes changes", that is the communication among regimes; extend from this, we will found that kinds of interactions are always there, ever-changing, and have abundant contents. Therefore, the communication knitted a big net of that time.As a result, the functions and effects of communication were:One, practical strengthened the connections among regimes, including politics, economy and culture; Two, promoted the independence and stability of every regime; Three, let the rulers produced disagreeable psychology about split and chaos, and let them try to avoid wars, and reached a consensus on it; Four, proceeded military governors’ integration based on firming each other’s rule; Five, accumulated historical unification power gradually.Consequently, the communication in the Five Dynasties and Ten States played an important part in the procedure of "the transition between Tang and Song Dynasties", and had positive meaning in the historical unification process of "front Song Dynasty".