Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
precincts required a dense imperial field presence relative to their size
and population and tended to be small (see figure 5.2). The impulses
were contradictory. Almost by definition, jurisdictions that required
a significant government presence were unable to raise the revenue to
support it based on local resources.
Compounding maters, Song iscal policy presumed that each pre-
fecture in the realm ought to be financially self-sufficient. The ideal
of the bureaucratic state contradicted the reality of local financial au-
tonomy. In many regions of the empire, prefectures were frequently in
deficit.17
17
W hen financial crisis became unsustainable, prefects had no
alternative but to petition the court to revise the spatial organization
of their districts, which could be expanded to create a larger tax base or
contracted to reduce defense and administrative costs.
18
A great many
territory-making decisions rested explicitly on revenue considerations.
However, prefectures were also the core unit for military organization,
and one of the main demands on prefecture revenue was for defense
funding and provisioning armies. Prefecture revenue paid the salaries
of the Prefectural Army troops stationed within their borders, and civil
prefects directed military affairs.19
19
In the year 1066, prominent states-
man Ouyang Xiu
歐陽修
(1007-1072) atributed Song defeat in the
war against the Tangut Xi Xia regime to the northwest to the fact that
Song armies were stationed in close to two hundred small and decen-
tralized forts and garrisons governed by twenty-four prefectures in five
provinces.
20
As the discussion above demonstrates, Song spatial change varied
regionally because fiscal and military priorities had such different geo-
graphical implications. It had a distinctive history of temporal change as
well. W hile HGIS is generally conceived as a methodology for revealing
spatial variation, a historical gazeteer like the DGSD that is designed
with spatial change event tracking in mind can be equally valuable for
exploring and explaining temporal variation in spatial transformation.
The following section is based upon SQL query, not analysis using GIS
software, but it is equally a part of HGIS research.
As the timeline in figure 5.3 depicts, most Song spatial change clus-
tered in three distinct eras. The mid-tenth-century Song founders capi-
talized on the successes of predecessor regimes that had developed pro-
