Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
remarkably few prefectures. he new course, with beter prospects for
agriculture and close proximity to a tense international border, was a dif-
ferent mater. Within the equalized-area hinterland, the old course had
only three-quarters as many counties - the basic tax-bearing unit of Song
administration - as the new one and only half as many prefectures - the
higher-rank miniatures of the court that managed army garrisons. The
difference in the county to prefecture ratio was even more pronounced in
the core buffer around each river course. The county to prefecture ratio
around the new course was in line with empire-wide averages, while the
county to prefecture ratio around the old course was among the highest
in the realm.
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That is to say, not only were counties fewer in number
around the old course than the new course, but prefectures were even
more sparse. The state and particularly its military arm were less visible.
Counties were one-third larger - less densely distributed - around the
old course than the new one. From both a fiscal and a military point
of view, state investment and intervention around the old course was
relatively limited.
Second, spatial analysis reveals the chronology of spatial change.
Surprisingly, spatial renovation did not begin for twenty years after the
Yellow R iver course change. Rather than an immediate reaction to a cri-
sis, late Northern Song spatial history around the Yellow R iver adhered
to the patern introduced in the previous section of this essay: that spa-
tial renovation was associated with particular periods of state activism of
relatively short duration. As in the rest of north China, during the 1070s
reform decade, many counties were merged and demoted. During the
1080s, many were restored, and the restoration trend continued through
the early 1100s. Although the location of the river course correlates with
distinctive differences in the political landscape, the catastrophic flood
event does not. Court politics and policies dictated the renovation of
the political landscape even in the wake of environmental cataclysm. In
the Song context, structural and political affairs dictated spatial change
more than particular events, even highly impactful ones.
Nevertheless, once changes to the spatial landscape began to oc-
cur, the renovations were signiicant, and the patern of change difered
between the two regions. Prefecture geography remained stable in both
regions. However, in the new course region, a quarter of all counties were
