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This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of July 31, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:
While in most other articles I would place a hold period, the expansion and cleanup (an entire re-write of some sections) required of this one will take much more than a week. I suggest once that is finished, the article be re-submitted for GA. Feel free to contact me personally and I would be happy to approve it providing these corrections are taken to heart.
When these issues are addressed, the article can be resubmitted for consideration. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a GA review. Thank you for your work so far. — VanTucky (talk) 20:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I have concluded my review and made some basic copyedits including spelling and grammar corrections. This is a well-referenced and decently-structured article. Here are the areas that I see as needing work:
Well-written?:
Broad in Coverage?:
From the time of the previous review, there have been some improvements. I wonder if there could be a more fullsome discussion of commerce/mercantilism and politics?
I will check back in 7 days and hope that you will have made progress. Please feel free to leave any comments/discussion on these suggestions on my talk page. Argos' Dad 16:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Hi Argos'Dad, I am glad that you've chosen to review the article, one that I've put a lot of work into. Addressing some of your concerns so far, I have expanded the lead considerably to incorporate all of the recently added material and new sections, while I have also edited every sentence that you designated as needing rewording. I have not yet addressed your suggestions for expanding info on Song politics and commerce, but I have so far addressed many of your concerns. Thanks once again for reviewing the article.-- PericlesofAthens 18:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
I am glad to report that this article nominee for good article status has been promoted. This is how the article, as of August 12, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:
If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a GA review. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status, and congratulations. — Argos' Dad 19:44, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to reviewing this. It's clear you've put in a lot of work, and it appears very thorough and well-sourced. Hopefully I can make some helpful suggestions.
More to come! – Scartol · Talk 02:58, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
More to come! – Scartol · Talk 15:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
More to come! (I really shouldn't edit when I only have a few minutes.) Also, you don't have to respond every time, unless you really want to or there's something specific you'd like to reply about. – Scartol · Talk 16:51, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
More to come! – Scartol · Talk 17:44, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
More to come! – Scartol · Talk 15:51, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
More to come! – Scartol · Talk 17:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
More to come. – Scartol · Talk 02:56, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, I suppose that's it. Thanks for putting in so much work on this – I enjoyed reading it, and I learned a lot. Cheers! – Scartol · Talk 20:13, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi, thanks for getting to the article. I like your suggestions, and so I have taken the liberty of editing the article to delete some words here and there and reword some sentences for better clarity.
Is the military structure and strength really a matter for an article about Song-era society?
Yes. Soldiers and officers are nonetheless part of society, they are not removed from it. There is a bunch of additional background information so that the reader can be well informed on the topic, but notice statements such as:
During the Song Dynasty, if one did not have the advantage of gaining a formal education, then the quickest way to power and joining the upper echelons of society was to first join the military. If a man had a successful career in the military and had victorious battles to boast of, then he had a sure path to success in politics. Exam-drafted scholar-officials came mostly from prominent families and could rely on their clan status to advance their careers and place in society. Yet many Song military officers did not have this advantage of higher clan affiliation and owed their status in society solely to the status that military power granted them. Many court eunuchs such as Tong Guan (1054–1126) were eager to enlist as military officers in the central army since this was a means to elevate their position at court. Hence the military became a prospect for many in Song society.
This was a crucial blow to the Song military elites, as they had been closely tied to the political structure until 1127; afterwards the military leadership became alienated from the emperor and the Song court.
Emperor Gaozong of Song (r. 1127–1162), desperate to refill the diminished ranks of the central army, drafted men from all over the country.
This had been done in previous times but not on the same scale. Only the most skilled became imperial guardsmen, while under Gaozong entire central army units were composed of soldiers from every region and background.
Unlike many other Chinese dynasties throughout history, the Song Dynasty did not model its military infrastructure and organization on the precedent of northern nomadic armies, such as the earlier Xianbei and later Mongols.
These statements speak volumes about the lives of soldiers and their place in society.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 18:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
The material from people joining the military to gain power from the Wu and wen, violence and culture sub-heading is very interesting. The section reads:
During the Song Dynasty, for those without formal education, the quickest way to power and the upper echelons of society was to join the military.[141] If a man had a successful career in the military and could boast of victorious battles, he had a sure path to success in politics.[141] Exam-drafted scholar-officials came mostly from prominent families and could rely on their clan status to advance their careers and place in society. Many Song military officers did not have this advantage, and owed their status in society to the advantage that military power granted them.[141] Many court eunuchs such as Tong Guan (1054–1126) were eager to enlist as officers in the central army since this was a means to elevate their position at court.[69]
The family memoir of Yue Fei describes events in the General's life that closely matches that described above. Yue Fei idolized certain historical heroes like Guan Yu and even patterned his life after them (which one historian claims led to his execution). Despite being literate, giving him a chance to become a scholar, Yue chose the military path because his family was poor and because there had never been any tradition of full-fledged Confucian civil service in his family history. So there was no need for him to study the classics in order to live up to or surpass the accomplishments of his ancestors to help elevate his family's social rank. His great-great-great grandfather had been a low-level government functionary, but was never apart of the Confucian class. One historian claims Yue was nowhere near as educated as some make him out to be. So, in essence, Yue's only option was the military. And since he gained much military and civil power later in life, I think Yue's tale (peasant to Generalissimo to civil official) would serve as a nice example used to illustrate the info from above. If anyone would like citations and quotes that you can paraphrase (and you know who you are) please contact me and I will provide them to you. Please keep in mind that I just recently moved and some of the sources might be buried under a mountain of boxes. So it might take me some time to track them down. Or I can just give you the citations and you can track the info down yourself. -- Ghostexorcist 07:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
MOS prefers unspaced, because spaced ones are rather lumpy visually. The very acceptable alternative, if you like the spaces, is to turn them into en dashes. Tony (talk) 01:01, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Woohoo! Thanks to everyone who contributed to the article. It looks great.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 00:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Um, there are a lot of problems with this article, I just took a brief glance and will make some further suggestions after I review a few things, but first off:
1) The whole section on Foreign minorities is a mess.
Kuwabara: this was not the Maritime Trade Supervisor for Quanzhou, Jitsuzo Kuwabara was a Japanese researcher who wrote an article on P'u Shou-Keng (蒲壽庚) who was the Arab Maritime Trade Supervisor and whose perfidy aided the Mongols in their conquest of Song China. Kuwabara's article appears in the Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko.
It sounds like this was also confused with Zhao Rukua, whose lived about a century earlier and who wrote the Zhu Fanzhi.
One significant distinction between the Song and previous dynasties was the emergence of ethnographic literature, such as the Zhu Fanzhi and Lingwai daida, perhaps this should be included as well.
Additionally, if you're going to discuss foreigners, you also might want to include some information on those Chinese who lived in the Jin empire, as this gives a fuller picture of the complicated interaction between Chinese and foreigners during the period.
2) Perhaps more attention should be given to the demographic shift from Northern to Southeastern China, it is only obliquely mentioned. Hartwell's "Demographic Shift" is a good place to start.
3) Social class: a distinction should be made for the evolution of the shi, noting the difference between Northern Song shi who sought to maintain and achieve status by through holding offices at court , and the shi of the Southern Song, who adopted locally based methods of obtaining and perpetuating elite status. Additionally, some discussion of the how the first Song emperors sought to use the emerging shi class as their core constituency is necessary to understand how this relationship developed.
4) "Meritocracy and a greater sense of social mobility were also prevalent in the civil service examination system, as the government held a list of all examination graduates, showing that only roughly half of those who passed had a father, or grandfather, or great-grandfather who served as a government official."
This claim, first put forward by Kracke, has been proven to be patently untrue, especially if we are talking about the entire 300 year history of the Song. It was more true for the Northern Song, but even then only up to a point, there should be a mention of yin privilege. See Hymes' "Statesmen and Gentlemen," Hartwell "Demographic Change," and others.
5) )Factions: the whole section ignores the intellectual background of faction formation.
There are many other issues,
I look forward to helping make this a better article,
cheers. Aas217 ( talk) 07:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I'll try to make some edits when I have some time next week, some articles that are available on JSTOR are Robert Hartwell's "Demographic, Political and Social Transformations of China, 750-1550," Peter Bol's "The Rise of Local History: History, Geography, and Culture in Southern Song and Yuan Wuzhou," and Paul Jakov Smith's "EURASIAN TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE TENTH TO THIRTEENTH CENTURIES: THE VIEW FROM SONG CHINA, 960-1279"
I would say that the biggest overall deficiency in this article is that it doesn't describe the dramatic changes that occurred in Song society over the course of its 300 years of existence. Society was not static from the founding of the Song to the Mongol invasion, many substantial changes occurred which had an extraordinary impact on the history of Early Modern China, these inceptive developments should at least be outlined in order to give the reader a better perspective and how Song society related to what preceded it and what followed.
Also, I'm pretty sure you're still conflating Pu Shougeng with Zhao Rukua, the only monograph of major significance that is still extant regarding trade was the 諸蕃志, I'm not aware that Pu Shougeng wrote any monograph on the topic, but I'll double check. Aas217 ( talk) 16:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I've made recent improvements to the article, noting demographic changes in the "urban growth and management" sub-section as well as the evolution of career paths for officials in the new "Government and politics" section.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 15:37, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Hey,
I removed this quote -
The population of South China reached its height around 1080 and fell at an annual rate of 0.26% from 1080 to 1200. [1]
because it was inaccurate, Hartwell stated that the rate of growth fell to .26%, not that the population decreased at an annual rate. See p. 394.
I really admire the time and effort you've put into this, I feel that this article, if thoroughly revised, would be pretty good. As it is now, there are still many problems, but these can all be worked out.
Thanks,
Aas217 ( talk) 22:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I removed this quote
Oops! Thanks for fact-checking, Aas217. Also, thanks for the comment Ghostexorcist. That is such a cool name! Pericles of Athens is fine, since he was such a renowned statesman and reformer, but the user name just doesn't have the bad-ass quality to it as your name does. Lol.
Also, I am just now sitting down and reading Hymes' book. It's going to take longer than usual, as I've got mountains of schoolwork to do simultaneously. I'll try to strip down to the essentials and basic arguments of his book and summarize much of his nuanced material here. It is simply going to consume a large amount of time, so don't go holding your breath in wait for changes. Cheers.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 00:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
References
I just recently expanded the "Justice and Law" section with information on Wang Anshi's writing and his opinions about vigilante justice.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 18:49, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
"In ancient China, criminals were guilty until proven innocent, the reverse of modern jurisprudence." Ancient Chinese Law and modern jurisprudence are not so different. Although 'innocent until proven guilty' is often shouted about, and exist in theory, and is regarded as a pillar of the legal system, in practice it does not stop the authorities in Western countries from holding suspects in prison on remand for months and even years without trial or until the final trial. Criminals by definition are guilty and not innocent, and so were correctly treated by the ancient Chinese legal system, as they are also guilty by definition in modern jurisprudence. Suspects were/ are however not criminals by definition. 81.132.63.38 ( talk) 00:44, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
'Criminal' has now been changed to 'accused'. However, were there not different degrees of 'accusation'? Given the reference to Judge Bao (Pao)- The Fair Judge, if no prima facie evidence was established, would the good Judge Bao or any fair judge still throw the accused in prison? I think not. This puts a slant on the Western justice system: The accused may very well be innocent and judged innocent after the final trial, but it does not stop the western system from holding the accused in custody on remand in a prison. Thus, in the west, a person may very well be innocent until proven guilty, but it does not stop him from being thrown in prison before the trial. The passage about in ancient China the accused is guilty until proven innocent is rather suspicious, as in both east and west, ancient and modern, the accused (though innocent) could very well end up in prison for some time. I suggest that the phrase is to be removed unless proof is given. 86.157.234.106 ( talk) 01:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
I believe someone, not I, added the "reverse of modern jurisprudence" a long time ago without me noticing the change until recently. I believe the sentence originally simply read "In ancient China, criminals were guilty until proven innocent." Here is the section from page 107 of Jacques Gernet's book where I gathered this information:
An accused person was immediately thrown into prison: even an innocent person wrongfully accused was guilty of having disturbed the peace of the locality and the tranquility of the judge. Besides, since the idea of accusing him had arisen, his innocence was not complete. As for the accuser, he too was regarded with the greatest suspicion. Furthermore, it was expensive to have recourse to public justice, since an accusation could not be laid without making the usual offerings to the judge: it was a matter of decorum.
So there you have it. The recent change to "accused" is justified by the source, and the statement "reverse of modern jurisprudence" should be scrapped since it does not reflect what the source entails, and we all know that in the modern West or anywhere else for that matter, when someone is accused and a potential suspect of a crime, they get their ass thrown into jail just in case! Lol. Case settled.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 04:46, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
In light of all this, I have rewritten the last half of that paragraph as thus:
In ancient China, the accused in court were not viewed as fully innocent until proven guilty, while even the accuser was viewed with suspicion by the judge.[179] The accused were immediately put in filthy jails and nourished only by the efforts of friends and relatives.[179] Yet the accuser also had to pay a price: in order to have their case heard, Gernet states that they had to provide an offering to the judge as "a matter of decorum."[179]
Sound good to you, gentlemen?-- Pericles of Athens Talk 04:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
What did you mean by 'not viewed as fully innocent until proven guilty'? Does Gernet's phrase of 'offering to the judge' really mean 'offering to the Court' which is really the Court fees in today's terminoloigy? If the person in prison had no friends or relatives, did he simply starve? Therefore is Gernet actually a reliable source? 81.159.86.5 ( talk) 00:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
It is just that the phrase 'not viewed as fully innocent until proven guilty' does not make sense. Do you mean 'not viewed as fully innocent until proven innocent', or 'not viewed as fully guilty until proven guilty'? Since Gernet is so unclear, it is hardly a reliable source, and does Stanford University Press a disservice as a reputable publisher demanding high standards. 81.157.99.169 ( talk) 23:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that is now perfectly acceptable. I did not mean that the whole of Gernet is unreliable, only the part discussed above. However any thorough person such as you should expect an author in non-fiction to be correct and consistent through out their work. Having an item that is not correct casts doubts on the rest of the work. Why should there be tons of available literature about pre-modern Chinese justice? Can you find another source independent from Gernet which agreed entirely with Gernet? If there are tons of literature as you say, then there must be others in total agreement with Gernet. As you are an American, you should know that studying history does not make money, and generally people simply quote/ misquote what they can find, which ends up as people quoting/ misquoting from other people who quote/ misquote from other people. Indeed there are a lot of people who quote from Wiki. 81.157.99.169 ( talk) 01:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
This Gernet may be a historian, but he is clearly not a lawyer. 81.159.81.190 ( talk) 00:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
This article is already part of a "Song Dynasty" series; is the person who tagged this article suggesting that an article that is part of a series be broken up into yet another series? That sounds a bit futile and excessive. Plus, as the article stands, it has about 112 KB overall, but according to WP:SIZE, the only KB that matter are prose content, not additional fluff such as picture captions, external links, see also, introduction paragraphs, references, etc.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 21:52, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I wish to congratulate the writers of this article for a job well-done. As of 23 May 2008 the article is excellent. Though long the article is very well-structured, extremely informative and (as far as I could see) reads well. Bravo for the article writers. You deserve a plaudit. :) 124.155.206.12 ( talk) 02:04, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
A job well done indeed; this is really an impressive article, certainly worthy of the Main Page. Shame I missed the FAC on this one. Fvasconcellos ( t· c) 22:50, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the previous comments. Thank you and the other editors for your hard work and persistence. Wikipedia at its finest. — AjaxSmack 00:07, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
I too want to applaud this article's editors for the comprehensiveness and quality of their work. I'm often embarrassed by the quality of articles that pass FAC and are chosen to appear on the main page (to say nothing of the systematic bias in topics... maybe every time an article on video games, TV, wrestling, or other trivial topic goes up for FAC, the nominating editors should demonstrate that they've done some work on vital articles as well), but your work here has serves as an example to those critics who would caricature Wikipedia as a collection of POV warriors and fanboys. Thank you for your effort and expertise. Madcoverboy ( talk) 22:32, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Fine by me, I never added that statement to begin with. The first paragraph of Equity (law) pretty much sums up your point.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 09:24, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Some of the wikiprojects covering this article seem really odd 86.137.57.37 ( talk) 14:54, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
This article should be called "Song Dynasty Society". The present title, to my ear, is not plain English, and has the ambiguity of possibly referring to a organization of that name. Brilliant article though.
Jlittlenz ( talk) 11:03, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Jlittlenz. It would be fine to change the title (in fact, it was actually Song Dynasty society at first). However, it would also mean changing the other articles' titles, considering that the others are:
What about these? I would like to be consistent with the format of article titles.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 17:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
IMO all these read better in English with "Song Dynasty" first, except perhaps the history article. There could perhaps be some guidance in wp:style#Article titles or a related page, because in English there's usually the option to reword phrases with two concepts to put either first. For example, "New Zealand Birds" or "Birds of New Zealand".
Jlittlenz ( talk) 10:32, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I changed the lead by including an internal link to Song Dynasty. -- 68.9.116.76 ( talk) 23:48, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
This article passed FAC at a decent 10,000 words; it is now at 13,700 words and substantially larger than most featured articles. What is going on here, and why can't summary style be better employed? User:Dr pda/Featured article statistics. With a 30% increase in text since passing FAC, it might be worth having another look at the article via WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 04:06, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I see the same has occurred at Tang Dynasty and Ming Dynasty; for featured articles to grow post-FAC by a factor of a third is problematic; were they not comprehensive when they passed FAC, or has text been added that doesn't conform to WP:SS? And why was new text needed? At any rate, that is a lot of unvetted, unreviewed text (the equivalent of a regular size article) to be added post-FAC. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 04:38, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I deleted banners for law, sociology, anthropology, and education, as this article is not about these concepts at all, but rather a general article about the history of a period of time in one geographical region. The wikiprojects in these social science categories are about improving coverage on the general concepts of the categories themselves, not specific histories. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 111.235.200.127 ( talk) 12:04, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
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Society of the Song dynasty is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Society of the Song dynasty is part of the Song Dynasty series, a featured topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on May 23, 2008. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's
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This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of July 31, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:
While in most other articles I would place a hold period, the expansion and cleanup (an entire re-write of some sections) required of this one will take much more than a week. I suggest once that is finished, the article be re-submitted for GA. Feel free to contact me personally and I would be happy to approve it providing these corrections are taken to heart.
When these issues are addressed, the article can be resubmitted for consideration. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a GA review. Thank you for your work so far. — VanTucky (talk) 20:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I have concluded my review and made some basic copyedits including spelling and grammar corrections. This is a well-referenced and decently-structured article. Here are the areas that I see as needing work:
Well-written?:
Broad in Coverage?:
From the time of the previous review, there have been some improvements. I wonder if there could be a more fullsome discussion of commerce/mercantilism and politics?
I will check back in 7 days and hope that you will have made progress. Please feel free to leave any comments/discussion on these suggestions on my talk page. Argos' Dad 16:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Hi Argos'Dad, I am glad that you've chosen to review the article, one that I've put a lot of work into. Addressing some of your concerns so far, I have expanded the lead considerably to incorporate all of the recently added material and new sections, while I have also edited every sentence that you designated as needing rewording. I have not yet addressed your suggestions for expanding info on Song politics and commerce, but I have so far addressed many of your concerns. Thanks once again for reviewing the article.-- PericlesofAthens 18:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
I am glad to report that this article nominee for good article status has been promoted. This is how the article, as of August 12, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:
If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a GA review. Thank you to all of the editors who worked hard to bring it to this status, and congratulations. — Argos' Dad 19:44, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to reviewing this. It's clear you've put in a lot of work, and it appears very thorough and well-sourced. Hopefully I can make some helpful suggestions.
More to come! – Scartol · Talk 02:58, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
More to come! – Scartol · Talk 15:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
More to come! (I really shouldn't edit when I only have a few minutes.) Also, you don't have to respond every time, unless you really want to or there's something specific you'd like to reply about. – Scartol · Talk 16:51, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
More to come! – Scartol · Talk 17:44, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
More to come! – Scartol · Talk 15:51, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
More to come! – Scartol · Talk 17:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
More to come. – Scartol · Talk 02:56, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, I suppose that's it. Thanks for putting in so much work on this – I enjoyed reading it, and I learned a lot. Cheers! – Scartol · Talk 20:13, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi, thanks for getting to the article. I like your suggestions, and so I have taken the liberty of editing the article to delete some words here and there and reword some sentences for better clarity.
Is the military structure and strength really a matter for an article about Song-era society?
Yes. Soldiers and officers are nonetheless part of society, they are not removed from it. There is a bunch of additional background information so that the reader can be well informed on the topic, but notice statements such as:
During the Song Dynasty, if one did not have the advantage of gaining a formal education, then the quickest way to power and joining the upper echelons of society was to first join the military. If a man had a successful career in the military and had victorious battles to boast of, then he had a sure path to success in politics. Exam-drafted scholar-officials came mostly from prominent families and could rely on their clan status to advance their careers and place in society. Yet many Song military officers did not have this advantage of higher clan affiliation and owed their status in society solely to the status that military power granted them. Many court eunuchs such as Tong Guan (1054–1126) were eager to enlist as military officers in the central army since this was a means to elevate their position at court. Hence the military became a prospect for many in Song society.
This was a crucial blow to the Song military elites, as they had been closely tied to the political structure until 1127; afterwards the military leadership became alienated from the emperor and the Song court.
Emperor Gaozong of Song (r. 1127–1162), desperate to refill the diminished ranks of the central army, drafted men from all over the country.
This had been done in previous times but not on the same scale. Only the most skilled became imperial guardsmen, while under Gaozong entire central army units were composed of soldiers from every region and background.
Unlike many other Chinese dynasties throughout history, the Song Dynasty did not model its military infrastructure and organization on the precedent of northern nomadic armies, such as the earlier Xianbei and later Mongols.
These statements speak volumes about the lives of soldiers and their place in society.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 18:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
The material from people joining the military to gain power from the Wu and wen, violence and culture sub-heading is very interesting. The section reads:
During the Song Dynasty, for those without formal education, the quickest way to power and the upper echelons of society was to join the military.[141] If a man had a successful career in the military and could boast of victorious battles, he had a sure path to success in politics.[141] Exam-drafted scholar-officials came mostly from prominent families and could rely on their clan status to advance their careers and place in society. Many Song military officers did not have this advantage, and owed their status in society to the advantage that military power granted them.[141] Many court eunuchs such as Tong Guan (1054–1126) were eager to enlist as officers in the central army since this was a means to elevate their position at court.[69]
The family memoir of Yue Fei describes events in the General's life that closely matches that described above. Yue Fei idolized certain historical heroes like Guan Yu and even patterned his life after them (which one historian claims led to his execution). Despite being literate, giving him a chance to become a scholar, Yue chose the military path because his family was poor and because there had never been any tradition of full-fledged Confucian civil service in his family history. So there was no need for him to study the classics in order to live up to or surpass the accomplishments of his ancestors to help elevate his family's social rank. His great-great-great grandfather had been a low-level government functionary, but was never apart of the Confucian class. One historian claims Yue was nowhere near as educated as some make him out to be. So, in essence, Yue's only option was the military. And since he gained much military and civil power later in life, I think Yue's tale (peasant to Generalissimo to civil official) would serve as a nice example used to illustrate the info from above. If anyone would like citations and quotes that you can paraphrase (and you know who you are) please contact me and I will provide them to you. Please keep in mind that I just recently moved and some of the sources might be buried under a mountain of boxes. So it might take me some time to track them down. Or I can just give you the citations and you can track the info down yourself. -- Ghostexorcist 07:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
MOS prefers unspaced, because spaced ones are rather lumpy visually. The very acceptable alternative, if you like the spaces, is to turn them into en dashes. Tony (talk) 01:01, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Woohoo! Thanks to everyone who contributed to the article. It looks great.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 00:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Um, there are a lot of problems with this article, I just took a brief glance and will make some further suggestions after I review a few things, but first off:
1) The whole section on Foreign minorities is a mess.
Kuwabara: this was not the Maritime Trade Supervisor for Quanzhou, Jitsuzo Kuwabara was a Japanese researcher who wrote an article on P'u Shou-Keng (蒲壽庚) who was the Arab Maritime Trade Supervisor and whose perfidy aided the Mongols in their conquest of Song China. Kuwabara's article appears in the Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko.
It sounds like this was also confused with Zhao Rukua, whose lived about a century earlier and who wrote the Zhu Fanzhi.
One significant distinction between the Song and previous dynasties was the emergence of ethnographic literature, such as the Zhu Fanzhi and Lingwai daida, perhaps this should be included as well.
Additionally, if you're going to discuss foreigners, you also might want to include some information on those Chinese who lived in the Jin empire, as this gives a fuller picture of the complicated interaction between Chinese and foreigners during the period.
2) Perhaps more attention should be given to the demographic shift from Northern to Southeastern China, it is only obliquely mentioned. Hartwell's "Demographic Shift" is a good place to start.
3) Social class: a distinction should be made for the evolution of the shi, noting the difference between Northern Song shi who sought to maintain and achieve status by through holding offices at court , and the shi of the Southern Song, who adopted locally based methods of obtaining and perpetuating elite status. Additionally, some discussion of the how the first Song emperors sought to use the emerging shi class as their core constituency is necessary to understand how this relationship developed.
4) "Meritocracy and a greater sense of social mobility were also prevalent in the civil service examination system, as the government held a list of all examination graduates, showing that only roughly half of those who passed had a father, or grandfather, or great-grandfather who served as a government official."
This claim, first put forward by Kracke, has been proven to be patently untrue, especially if we are talking about the entire 300 year history of the Song. It was more true for the Northern Song, but even then only up to a point, there should be a mention of yin privilege. See Hymes' "Statesmen and Gentlemen," Hartwell "Demographic Change," and others.
5) )Factions: the whole section ignores the intellectual background of faction formation.
There are many other issues,
I look forward to helping make this a better article,
cheers. Aas217 ( talk) 07:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I'll try to make some edits when I have some time next week, some articles that are available on JSTOR are Robert Hartwell's "Demographic, Political and Social Transformations of China, 750-1550," Peter Bol's "The Rise of Local History: History, Geography, and Culture in Southern Song and Yuan Wuzhou," and Paul Jakov Smith's "EURASIAN TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE TENTH TO THIRTEENTH CENTURIES: THE VIEW FROM SONG CHINA, 960-1279"
I would say that the biggest overall deficiency in this article is that it doesn't describe the dramatic changes that occurred in Song society over the course of its 300 years of existence. Society was not static from the founding of the Song to the Mongol invasion, many substantial changes occurred which had an extraordinary impact on the history of Early Modern China, these inceptive developments should at least be outlined in order to give the reader a better perspective and how Song society related to what preceded it and what followed.
Also, I'm pretty sure you're still conflating Pu Shougeng with Zhao Rukua, the only monograph of major significance that is still extant regarding trade was the 諸蕃志, I'm not aware that Pu Shougeng wrote any monograph on the topic, but I'll double check. Aas217 ( talk) 16:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I've made recent improvements to the article, noting demographic changes in the "urban growth and management" sub-section as well as the evolution of career paths for officials in the new "Government and politics" section.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 15:37, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Hey,
I removed this quote -
The population of South China reached its height around 1080 and fell at an annual rate of 0.26% from 1080 to 1200. [1]
because it was inaccurate, Hartwell stated that the rate of growth fell to .26%, not that the population decreased at an annual rate. See p. 394.
I really admire the time and effort you've put into this, I feel that this article, if thoroughly revised, would be pretty good. As it is now, there are still many problems, but these can all be worked out.
Thanks,
Aas217 ( talk) 22:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I removed this quote
Oops! Thanks for fact-checking, Aas217. Also, thanks for the comment Ghostexorcist. That is such a cool name! Pericles of Athens is fine, since he was such a renowned statesman and reformer, but the user name just doesn't have the bad-ass quality to it as your name does. Lol.
Also, I am just now sitting down and reading Hymes' book. It's going to take longer than usual, as I've got mountains of schoolwork to do simultaneously. I'll try to strip down to the essentials and basic arguments of his book and summarize much of his nuanced material here. It is simply going to consume a large amount of time, so don't go holding your breath in wait for changes. Cheers.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 00:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
References
I just recently expanded the "Justice and Law" section with information on Wang Anshi's writing and his opinions about vigilante justice.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 18:49, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
"In ancient China, criminals were guilty until proven innocent, the reverse of modern jurisprudence." Ancient Chinese Law and modern jurisprudence are not so different. Although 'innocent until proven guilty' is often shouted about, and exist in theory, and is regarded as a pillar of the legal system, in practice it does not stop the authorities in Western countries from holding suspects in prison on remand for months and even years without trial or until the final trial. Criminals by definition are guilty and not innocent, and so were correctly treated by the ancient Chinese legal system, as they are also guilty by definition in modern jurisprudence. Suspects were/ are however not criminals by definition. 81.132.63.38 ( talk) 00:44, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
'Criminal' has now been changed to 'accused'. However, were there not different degrees of 'accusation'? Given the reference to Judge Bao (Pao)- The Fair Judge, if no prima facie evidence was established, would the good Judge Bao or any fair judge still throw the accused in prison? I think not. This puts a slant on the Western justice system: The accused may very well be innocent and judged innocent after the final trial, but it does not stop the western system from holding the accused in custody on remand in a prison. Thus, in the west, a person may very well be innocent until proven guilty, but it does not stop him from being thrown in prison before the trial. The passage about in ancient China the accused is guilty until proven innocent is rather suspicious, as in both east and west, ancient and modern, the accused (though innocent) could very well end up in prison for some time. I suggest that the phrase is to be removed unless proof is given. 86.157.234.106 ( talk) 01:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
I believe someone, not I, added the "reverse of modern jurisprudence" a long time ago without me noticing the change until recently. I believe the sentence originally simply read "In ancient China, criminals were guilty until proven innocent." Here is the section from page 107 of Jacques Gernet's book where I gathered this information:
An accused person was immediately thrown into prison: even an innocent person wrongfully accused was guilty of having disturbed the peace of the locality and the tranquility of the judge. Besides, since the idea of accusing him had arisen, his innocence was not complete. As for the accuser, he too was regarded with the greatest suspicion. Furthermore, it was expensive to have recourse to public justice, since an accusation could not be laid without making the usual offerings to the judge: it was a matter of decorum.
So there you have it. The recent change to "accused" is justified by the source, and the statement "reverse of modern jurisprudence" should be scrapped since it does not reflect what the source entails, and we all know that in the modern West or anywhere else for that matter, when someone is accused and a potential suspect of a crime, they get their ass thrown into jail just in case! Lol. Case settled.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 04:46, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
In light of all this, I have rewritten the last half of that paragraph as thus:
In ancient China, the accused in court were not viewed as fully innocent until proven guilty, while even the accuser was viewed with suspicion by the judge.[179] The accused were immediately put in filthy jails and nourished only by the efforts of friends and relatives.[179] Yet the accuser also had to pay a price: in order to have their case heard, Gernet states that they had to provide an offering to the judge as "a matter of decorum."[179]
Sound good to you, gentlemen?-- Pericles of Athens Talk 04:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
What did you mean by 'not viewed as fully innocent until proven guilty'? Does Gernet's phrase of 'offering to the judge' really mean 'offering to the Court' which is really the Court fees in today's terminoloigy? If the person in prison had no friends or relatives, did he simply starve? Therefore is Gernet actually a reliable source? 81.159.86.5 ( talk) 00:03, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
It is just that the phrase 'not viewed as fully innocent until proven guilty' does not make sense. Do you mean 'not viewed as fully innocent until proven innocent', or 'not viewed as fully guilty until proven guilty'? Since Gernet is so unclear, it is hardly a reliable source, and does Stanford University Press a disservice as a reputable publisher demanding high standards. 81.157.99.169 ( talk) 23:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that is now perfectly acceptable. I did not mean that the whole of Gernet is unreliable, only the part discussed above. However any thorough person such as you should expect an author in non-fiction to be correct and consistent through out their work. Having an item that is not correct casts doubts on the rest of the work. Why should there be tons of available literature about pre-modern Chinese justice? Can you find another source independent from Gernet which agreed entirely with Gernet? If there are tons of literature as you say, then there must be others in total agreement with Gernet. As you are an American, you should know that studying history does not make money, and generally people simply quote/ misquote what they can find, which ends up as people quoting/ misquoting from other people who quote/ misquote from other people. Indeed there are a lot of people who quote from Wiki. 81.157.99.169 ( talk) 01:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
This Gernet may be a historian, but he is clearly not a lawyer. 81.159.81.190 ( talk) 00:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
This article is already part of a "Song Dynasty" series; is the person who tagged this article suggesting that an article that is part of a series be broken up into yet another series? That sounds a bit futile and excessive. Plus, as the article stands, it has about 112 KB overall, but according to WP:SIZE, the only KB that matter are prose content, not additional fluff such as picture captions, external links, see also, introduction paragraphs, references, etc.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 21:52, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I wish to congratulate the writers of this article for a job well-done. As of 23 May 2008 the article is excellent. Though long the article is very well-structured, extremely informative and (as far as I could see) reads well. Bravo for the article writers. You deserve a plaudit. :) 124.155.206.12 ( talk) 02:04, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
A job well done indeed; this is really an impressive article, certainly worthy of the Main Page. Shame I missed the FAC on this one. Fvasconcellos ( t· c) 22:50, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the previous comments. Thank you and the other editors for your hard work and persistence. Wikipedia at its finest. — AjaxSmack 00:07, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
I too want to applaud this article's editors for the comprehensiveness and quality of their work. I'm often embarrassed by the quality of articles that pass FAC and are chosen to appear on the main page (to say nothing of the systematic bias in topics... maybe every time an article on video games, TV, wrestling, or other trivial topic goes up for FAC, the nominating editors should demonstrate that they've done some work on vital articles as well), but your work here has serves as an example to those critics who would caricature Wikipedia as a collection of POV warriors and fanboys. Thank you for your effort and expertise. Madcoverboy ( talk) 22:32, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Fine by me, I never added that statement to begin with. The first paragraph of Equity (law) pretty much sums up your point.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 09:24, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Some of the wikiprojects covering this article seem really odd 86.137.57.37 ( talk) 14:54, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
This article should be called "Song Dynasty Society". The present title, to my ear, is not plain English, and has the ambiguity of possibly referring to a organization of that name. Brilliant article though.
Jlittlenz ( talk) 11:03, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Jlittlenz. It would be fine to change the title (in fact, it was actually Song Dynasty society at first). However, it would also mean changing the other articles' titles, considering that the others are:
What about these? I would like to be consistent with the format of article titles.-- Pericles of Athens Talk 17:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
IMO all these read better in English with "Song Dynasty" first, except perhaps the history article. There could perhaps be some guidance in wp:style#Article titles or a related page, because in English there's usually the option to reword phrases with two concepts to put either first. For example, "New Zealand Birds" or "Birds of New Zealand".
Jlittlenz ( talk) 10:32, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I changed the lead by including an internal link to Song Dynasty. -- 68.9.116.76 ( talk) 23:48, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
This article passed FAC at a decent 10,000 words; it is now at 13,700 words and substantially larger than most featured articles. What is going on here, and why can't summary style be better employed? User:Dr pda/Featured article statistics. With a 30% increase in text since passing FAC, it might be worth having another look at the article via WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 04:06, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I see the same has occurred at Tang Dynasty and Ming Dynasty; for featured articles to grow post-FAC by a factor of a third is problematic; were they not comprehensive when they passed FAC, or has text been added that doesn't conform to WP:SS? And why was new text needed? At any rate, that is a lot of unvetted, unreviewed text (the equivalent of a regular size article) to be added post-FAC. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 04:38, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I deleted banners for law, sociology, anthropology, and education, as this article is not about these concepts at all, but rather a general article about the history of a period of time in one geographical region. The wikiprojects in these social science categories are about improving coverage on the general concepts of the categories themselves, not specific histories. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 111.235.200.127 ( talk) 12:04, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
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