Power and Politics in Tenth-Century China: The Former Shu Regime ...

goal, each greatly valued pragmatism in its military and diplomatic interactions with others to maintain the balance of power around them. For example, the Wu Yue, which enjoyed the longest duration in the Five Dynasties period, designed an effective strategy for survival by giving up its independent imperial pursuit and accepting the sovereignty of a succession of northern dynasties, which it used to counterbalance the threat of its hostile neighbors.³⁷ The same strategy was employed by the smallest “state,” Jingnan, which survived autonomously before being incorporated by the Song in 963. Straddling the sensitive middle Yangzi area, Jingnan was usually seen as a buffer region by the neighboring southern powers, which preferred to spare it than risk direct confrontation with the northern dynasties.³⁸ Another good example is the Southern Tang under Li Bian (r. 937–943), who refused to take advantage of a disastrous fire that inflicted heavy losses on the Wu Yue, one of his enemies to the south of Yangzi.³⁹

Pragmatism shaped by the balance of power also informed the relations between regimes with imperial status. Obviously, no regime was confident enough to believe that it had a monopoly on the mandate to rule. Thus one observes a remarkable divergence between their imperial claims in rhetoric and pragmatic interstate policies. On the one hand, the rulers of those states made great efforts within their domains to pursue royal titles and legitimize their imperial claims, endeavoring to justify their position as the “orthodox successor” to the Tang.⁴⁰ But on the other hand, in dealing with other regimes they usually did not stick to the same imperial ideal but adopted more flexible policies and displayed a more conservative character. For example, the Later Tang under the reign of Mingzong (Li Siyuan , 867–933, r. 926–933), extended considerable respect to the Wu Yue, one of its nominally dependent states in the south, even allowing its “imperial” envoy to perform a court protocol in an audience with the Wu Yue’s ruler, Qian Liu (852–932).⁴¹ Such a pragmatic attitude can also be observed in the diplomatic exchanges between two powers that both claimed royal titles. When the Later Tang, under Zhuangzong, conquered the Liang and subsequently received congratulatory legates from southern states, those of the Former Shu, Wu,