重归一统：宋初的战与和

by Peter Lorge, 龙沛, 康海源 (Translator)

本书讨论了战争和政治在宋朝建立过程中发挥的作用，批驳了“宋朝开国是一个非军事化过程，宋朝自建立之初就重文轻武”的刻板印象。作者提出，宋朝的建立是一系列军事胜利的结果，11世纪初出现的文官主导型政府，是经由半个世纪的战争与个人政治而产生的，并非源于某种旨在强调文化价值超过军事价值的主观规划。

Genres: History

376 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 2015

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Liao Dynasty has been one of my favorite historical states, but despite this I needed some brushing up on my early Song history. Lorge's study of the Zhou-to-Song transition and the importance of leadership under Song Taizu (and the lack thereof under his immediate successors) more than fits the bill for explaining the hows and whys of Song rise and its later geopolitical position. Also included is the analysis of historiographic approaches to this time period and some major myth busting towards some of those past studies.

Of course, Liao partisan that I am I do have to disagree with a point in the conclusion-that the Song armies were as strong in the field as the Liao and that the two powers were effectively militarily stalemated. Considering that (and by the author's own admission) the Liao were mostly interested in a diplomatic settlement and retaining what they already held (the disputed 16 prefectures) I would say they waged a limited war successfully against concerted Song attempts to take their territory and thus came out mostly, if not decisively, successful-especially considering that they held all disputed territories and gained yearly tribute.

[Erik Champenois · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Reunifying of China" is a very focused book, covering the territorial and military dynamics behind the formation of the Song Dynasty. The first three emperors are covered - Taizu, Taizong, and Zhenzong. The initial beginnings of the reunification under the Zhou are covered, the takeover of the southern kingdoms are covered, but most of the book focuses on the military conflicts with the Liao (Khitans) and the eventual signing of the Chanyuan covenant.

In the process of covering these events, Lorge argues against the standard Song narrative of itself - which was maintained by future Chinese historians and even somewhat reflected in the Harvard "History of Imperial China" volume on the Song. That narrative is that the Song was founded through an emphasis on the civil over the military and a growing disdain of the military. Not quite: the reunification of much of China under the early Song was a direct result of military aggression, and even where Taizong and Zhenzong started to put strictures in place on the military they did so above all to maintain their own power. The later Song disdained the military, and saw the founding of the dynasty as a civilian reform act emphasizing civil governance and the promotion of qualified officers through examination. In the process, both the military victories and the military failures of the early Song dynasty were de-emphasized: the latter understandably so, given the inability of the founding Emperors to recover all of the territory previously held by the Tang.

[Alex Helling · Rating 3 out of 5]

China’s history has been one of cycles of fragmentation and reunification. A powerful unifying dynasty is followed by a period of fragmentation and then another dynasty reunifies all under heaven. The Tang dynasty fell in 907 creating a period of fragmentation or the ‘five dynasties and ten kingdoms’ until the Song successfully reunited the majority of China towards the end of the century. Peter Lorge’s The Reunification of China Peace through War under the Song Dynasty is a history of the reunification under the Song. But perhaps the larger aim of the book is less about the reunification but about the rise of Civil over Military in China. China is known as a bureaucratic state in which the key bureaucrats (and sometimes eunuchs) hold the power through advising the emperor and the military is might more constrained - very different from the norm in the rest of the world pretty much until modern times. Clearly the military was vital at the start of the dynasty to reunify China, but over the next few decades the bureaucrats gained power, which was to remain the case from then on. This book explores how this change came about due to the political calculus, and constraints on the first few emperors of the Song dynasty.

The Reunification of China is therefore about the bureaucratisation of China. The narrative explores the interaction between politics and war within the Zhou state that becomes the Song state as it conquers the rest of China. And then as it runs up against its limits against the Liao of Manchuria. The political power bases of the emperors are important in this; the second and third Emperors are not as military able as Song Taizong the dynasty founder and find themselves relying on other power bases. This is an interesting exploration of that change.

But this does mean that despite being about the wars that reunified China the book has its eye on the internal rather than the external. This narrow focus meant I found that I had questions about how the Song Dynasty reunited China that did not get answered. We get very little on the thinking of the other states, or what their power base was like. In particular a question that is not looked at is why ‘balancing’ failed. The multi state system had for the half century prevented any unification through alliances when one state was too powerful. Why did that not happen here? Lorge several times mentioned that states did not see one united China as inevitable, but they did not seem to do anything to stop it, even when it was in their self interest. Was it too difficult to communicate between them? The only state that fights for another is the Liao, and they really leave it too late to save their Northern Han allies.

Similarly because it is looking internally it is not really a military history. There are lots of campaigns described in quite a lot of detail without much provided on what looks like has to have been rather complicated logistics, an immense effort to build armies, how they fought each other etc which are neglected. If this were a work on military campaigns in middle ages Europe of the same time period there would be considerable discussion of the numbers in armies. China is of course a much more populous country than anywhere in Europe at the time. But each of the minor states in this field armies of hundreds of thousands (so each greater than the whole Roman army). To take Southern Tang for example in the narrative the Song defeat no less than three armies over one hundred thousand men, one of 20,000 and two of 10,000 and multiple ‘major’ and ‘minor’ other armies all on a population base of 655,065 households - even if these are very large households this is a very high percentage of the population in what is supposed to be a standing (not a wartime levy) army. Which makes me suspect the mentions of armies of one hundred thousand simply mean ‘very large’.

So this is an interesting study in the beginnings of the ascendancy of the bureaucracy in China but it is much less effective as a study of the wars that shaped the dynasty, which you might expect from the title. Ultimately this is probably fine for most readers as why China was this outlier compared to other pre-modern states, and how this became so entrenched are ultimately far more important questions - as this is this system that would dominate China right through to the end of the 19th century.

[James Woo · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[郑睿森Ruisen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally good book, for the western audience it would be a great start to get into early Song war politics, but for more advanced reader this book is a just a start for a more scholarships ahead….

[Chyi · Rating 2 out of 5]

该书基本是五代末至澶渊之盟期间宋朝军事政治活动的流水账，作者识见平平，该书读来味同嚼蜡。作者汉文水平非常之差，用的全是基本史料，居然还出现大段大段的误读，以致译者都不能完全纠正。唯一有价值的，可能就是绪论提出的宋朝并非自建立起即“重文轻武”的观点。

[Pere · Rating 2 out of 5]

这个系列是不是没有校对和责任编辑啊？ 流水賬，對史料的錯誤理解太多，且不瞭解中國人的性格。很難想象國外的寒雪專家水平止於此，組裏找個中國人互助這麽難嗎？只能説確實提供了另一種視角，另一種史觀（漸進的、集團化的）的產物，但卻失之重點。