The Status Of Five Dynasties And The Strategy Of Reunification In Sung Dynasty

The Five Dynasties Period made a turbulent era of national disintegration in the history of ancient China. However, this period of the political division did have its unique features.On the one hand, with their military power, ten kingdoms that ruled South China, were independent from the central government, but they had no ambition to unify the divided world. Being lack of pioneering spirit, Former Shu, Later Shu and Southern Han were content with the status quo, and Southern T'ang claimed himself as the successor of T'ang, but which was an excuse to acquire political legitimacy rather than a reality policy, not to mention other weaker regimes like Ching Nan,Wu Yueh, Min, and etc. Among Ten Kingdoms, there were many emperor-claimed rulers, who all tried to seek a balance of power with the central government, however,their political connotations were totally different from what the emperors of the Five Dynasties claimed.On the other hand, since the successive Five Dynasties in the North and the Sung had reined North China --- " The Central Plain " --- which had always been declared to be the central region of the whole Chinese empire, only the rulers of North China competed for the unified empire. Although these Northern Dynasties had suffered from numerous wars, they still had vital influences on the whole situation. We call this influence "Shi(势)",which was the only power that could accomplish the task of reunification. We might well perceive of this period as an era of chaos. However, since the root of the turmoil was from the weakness of the central government, it was understandable that the rulers of ten Kingdoms would be in fear and submit to the emperors in the North as soon as the power of the Regimes in The Central Plain got risen.After the foundation of Sung Dynasty, T'ai-tsu captured the " Shi" and capitalized it exquisitely to pursue the integration of the empire. Meanwhile, his own personality, characterized by lenience, mercy, humanitarian, and etc, also played a role. Abundant strategies and constructive concepts of national reunification came into being during this process, some of which were fundamentally different from those of other unified dynasties in ancient Chinese history.