A Failed Peripheral Hegemonic State with a Limited Mandate of Heaven: Politico-Historical Reflections of a Survivor of the Southern Tang

This article focuses on the concepts the Diaoji litan 釣磯立談 author, a survivor of the Southern Tang, developed to understand the history of the kingdom. It discusses his historical discourse and shows that one of its purposes was to secure a legitimate place in history for the Southern Tang. The author developed a crucial concept, the “peripheral hegemonic state”偏霸, to comprehend its history. This concept contains an idea of a limited mandate of heaven, a geopolitical analysis of the Southern Tang situation, and a plan for the kingdom to compete with its rivals for the supreme political authority over all under heaven. With this concept, the Diaoji author implicitly disputes official historiography's demeaning characterization of the Southern Tang as “pseudo”偽, and founded upon “usurpation”僭 and “thievery”竊. He condemns the second ruler, Li Jing 李璟 (r. 943-961) and several ministers for abandoning the first ruler Li Bian's 李 (r. 937-943) plan, thereby leading the kingdom astray. The work also stresses the need to recruit authentic Confucians to administer the government. As such, this article argues that the Diaoji should be understood as a politico-historical book of the late tenth century.