A study on the locations of capitals and the planning of administrative districts in the Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties = Tang, Song, Yuan san zhao guo du xuan zhi yu zheng qu gui hua yan jiu

Abstract

In the discipline of Historical Geography, capital location and planning of administrative districts are crucial issues. Since they have often been considered as two separate topics, attention, if any, has scarcely been paid to the relationship between them. The capital of China was transferred eastwards from Chang’an in the Tang dynasty to Kaifeng in the Song dynasty and then to Dadou in the Yuan dynasty, a critical transitional period in Chinese history which spanned three dynasties and seven hundred plus years. The way how administrative districts were planned changed with these transfers. This research investigates the relationship between the location of capitals and the planning of administrative districts with reference to these three dynasties. This thesis is comprised of eight chapters. The first one is an introduction, which briefly discusses how Confucianism sees the relationship between the location of capitals and the planning of administrative districts. This chapter also includes a literature review, research methodologies and the significance of this research. What follows is an elucidation of the Centre Theory (Juzhonglun居中論), which is concerned with the location of the capital. The chapter will probe into how the theory came into being, its significance, where the centre of ‘the world’ (tianxia天下) was, and look into how this theory was influential as a factor in determining the location of the capital before the Tang dynasty. The third chapter explains the locations of the capitals in the three dynasties with reference to the Centre Theory. It was found that the location of the capitals in the three dynasties accorded with the principles of the Centre Theory, despite the fact that the territory, the river system that transported grain to the capital, and the idea of ‘the world’ in the eyes of the ruler were all different in the three dynasties. The fourth chapter explores the relationship between the capital and the jingji (the capital city and its environs京畿), including the area of the jingjiin the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties, the evolution of the jingji system, and the significance of setting up the jingji. Chapter five is a study on the relationship between the location of the capital city and the sub-capital. The sub-capital, which was complementary in nature, was usually not far away from the capital city and would move with the transfer of the capital. Whilst the sixth chapter examines the relationship between the location of the capital and the establishment of higher administrative districts, chapter seven analyses the relationship between the location of the capital and the distribution of prefectures and counties. With the relocation of the capital from Chang’an to Dadou, these seven hundred plus years witnessed a gradual clustering of prefectures and counties in the east. The last chapter is a generalisation of how the planning of administrative districts transformed with the transfer of capital cities from the Tang to Yuan dynasties.