Session:<\/strong> Biographies and Careers in China<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keywords:<\/strong> Chinese history; pre-modern histor; political elite; kinship networks; modularity analysis; core-periphery analysis; regional clustering<\/p>\n\n\n\n Background<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Song dynasty (960\u20131279) marked a moment of profound transformation from the first and\u00a0 second millennium in the history of imperial China. By the early Song, north China\u2014the traditional\u00a0 heartland of the Chinese civilization\u2014was finally overtaken by south China in its agricultural\u00a0 output, commercial development, and its share of the total population. The accumulation of new\u00a0 wealth, coupled with the spread of the printing technology, made educational resources more\u00a0 widely accessible. In response to these developments, the Song court from the early eleventh\u00a0 century implemented a series of reforms on its civil service examination system and built an\u00a0 empire-wide network of government-sponsored schools. These developments effectively\u00a0 undermined the capital elite\u2019s monopoly over political power. From the mid-eleventh century, an\u00a0 increasing number of men entered government service from outside the capital and especially\u00a0 from south China.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the officials hailed from a wide area of the Song empire, what impact did this have on their\u00a0 relationship with each other? Did they form a closely-knit endogamous network? How did the\u00a0 structure of their networks change?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Methods and Data<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This article explores the above questions by analyzing the kinship networks of prefectural\u00a0 governors who formed the backbone of the Song territorial administration. These prefects,\u00a0 numbering two to three hundred in any year of the period, were responsible for local order and\u00a0 taxation and had direct reporting relationship to the court. Since those who held office between\u00a0 1040 and 1049 and between 1210 and 1219 are best documented in historical sources, this article\u00a0 compares the kinship networks of these two cohorts of prefects. The 1040s marked the beginning\u00a0 of the expansion of the civil service examination system, and the 1210s was towards the end of\u00a0 the Song dynasty before the Mongols launched their attacks in 1235. A comparison between these\u00a0 two decades, therefore, allows us to understand how the networks of Song officials evolved after\u00a0 the examination system expanded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The primary data source for this study is the China Biographical Database (CBDB), a freely\u00a0 accessible relational database with biographical information about approximately 427,000\u00a0 individuals as of April 2019, primarily from the 7th through 19th centuries. The CBDB has recently\u00a0 digitalized the dated rosters of Song-dynasty prefects compiled by historian Li Zhiliang and added\u00a0 data on kinship relations, among others, from other sources. This supplemented by my own\u00a0database built from a nearly exhaustive collection of funerary biographies on men and women\u00a0 from the Sichuan region during the Song period to compensate for the notable data lacuna on the\u00a0 Sichuan region in Li Zhiliang\u2019s compilations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This study defines a kinship relation as a reasonably close one if it involves no more than two\u00a0 marriages and no more than two units of collateral distance. It also defines \u201cmarriage\u201d broadly as\u00a0 any kinship relation across patrilineal descent groups. Since this study looks only at kinship\u00a0 relations within each cohort of prefects, most of the kinship relations used in the analysis are by\u00a0 nature between persons who were either of the same generation or removed by only one\u00a0 generation. Only a small number of relations are between men who were two generations. Kinship\u00a0 relations that meet the above criteria are found for 211 prefects (out of a total of 511) in the\u00a0 1040s cohort and 118 prefects (out of a total of 534) in the 1210s cohort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have published an earlier study of these two cohorts of prefects as a book chapter in State Power\u00a0 in China, 900\u20131325. In that study, I looked at the geographic origins of these prefects and the\u00a0 geographic pattern of their appointments. I also conducted a preliminary study of their kinship\u00a0 networks using the metrics of E-I Index and k-core analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This article looks at the kinship networks of both cohorts of prefects in great depths. Three\u00a0 methods are employed to reveal the structural properties of the two networks. First, I have\u00a0 conducted modularity analysis to examine whether each network may be divided into clusters\u00a0 that formed along regional lines. Second, I have conducted core-periphery analysis to detect\u00a0 whether each network exhibits a clear core-periphery structure and who constituted the core of a\u00a0 network. Third, each person-to-person network is transformed into a place-to-place network to\u00a0 reveal the spatial pattern of the network structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Findings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n My earlier study, based on E-I Index and k-core analysis and published in 2016, reveals that the\u00a0 1040s prefects are much more cohesive than their 1210s counterparts. Nearly 40% of the prefects\u00a0 in the 1040s (i.e., nearly all of those for whom we have kinship data) ended up in one big\u00a0 component, whereas only less than a quarter of all known prefects from the 1210s, had agnatic or\u00a0 affinal ties with one another. I have also shown, with E-I Index calculations, a notable tendency\u00a0 toward regional clustering in the 1210s compared to the 1040s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My present study, using modularity and core-periphery analysis, provides more analytical support\u00a0 for these findings. I show that core-periphery analysis is more revealing about the 1040s kinship\u00a0 network, whereas modularity analysis is more effective for the 1210s network. This betokens a\u00a0 structural shift between these networks: whereas the kinship network of prefects in the 1040s\u00a0 exhibits a clear core-periphery structure, with the capital elite dominating the core, that in the\u00a0 1210s do not have a clear core but instead fragments into two big regional clusters centered on Sichuan and the Southeast Coast respectively. My study also shows that for the 1210s cohort, the\u00a0 Southeast Coast cluster also exhibits a tendency to cluster along prefectural lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Network Graphs from the Present Study:
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