The Enlargement of the City-Walls in Central and South China in the Late Tang and Five Dynasties Period

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Other Title
  • 唐末五代期における城郭の大規模化 : 華中・華南の場合
  • トウマツ ゴダイキ ニ オケル ジョウカク ノ ダイキボカ カチュウ カナン ノ

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Abstract

This paper represents an attempt to explicate one aspect of the epoch- marking transition between late Tang and Song, by collecting evidence on the scales and structures of certain prefectures/districts city-walls. Nearly all the walled cities at prefectural level were on about the same scale, as were nearly all walled cities at the district level. That is, the prefecture city-walls generally had a girth of 10 li, and district ones 10 li and under. In the late Tang and Five Dynasties period, however, cities in Central and South China whose walls were enlarged and rebuilt to a circumference of 20 li or even larger and fitted with stubborn defense works appear successively in the historical record. Most of these cities had their walls repaired and enlarged by regional commanders who took them as their headquarters in the late Tang. As weaker commanders were gradually weeded out in the process of the rise of the Ten Kingdoms, they were rebuilt as strategic points within the kingdoms. That such examples are almost entirely absent for North China under the regimes of the Five Dynasties but occur solely in Central and South China, truly reflects the disunity of the times, and cannot be entirely explained without taking into consideration the geographic conditions of Jiangnan region. In the absorption of the Ten Kingdoms into Song dynasty, most of these enlarged city-walls were dismantled and rebuilt on a smaller and more 'appropriate' scale.

Journal

  • 東洋史研究

    東洋史研究 51 (1), 29-70, 1992-06-30

    東洋史研究會

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