Chinese Medieval Political History (TOP Series)

Author: Mao Hanguang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-12-01
Features: The author of this book is a well-known alternative scholar from Taiwan. Drawing on Chen Yinque's theory of the "Guanlong Group," the author extracts the concepts of core regions and core groups, intertwining these two themes throughout the roughly 600 years from the Northern Wei Dynasty to the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty, exploring the formation and shifting trajectories of core regions and core groups in the medieval period. Through meticulous examination of historical sources, combined with sociological and political theories, and fully utilizing quantitative statistics and analytical comparative methods, the book provides a comprehensive and detailed explanation of the complex historical phenomena in the medieval period, including how the core regions and core groups transformed from the Tuoba clan establishing a regional core and a national core group, to the Western Wei Yuwen clan taking Guanzhong as its base and reconstituting the Hu-Han Guanlong Group, and further evolving to the An-Shi Rebellion of the Tang Dynasty up to the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty, when the area around Wei and Bian became the core region, while the professional military officers in Hebei, Hedong, and Henan became the ruling groups of regional warlords across Northern China, ultimately unifying to form the core groups of successive dynasties.