History of the Southern Tang

Professor Ren Shuang's History of Southern Tang is a major dynastic history published by Zhonghua Book Company. With rigorous scholarship and clear narrative structure, it offers a deep focus on the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, a historical stage often oversimplified. Rather than simply recounting the rise and fall of Southern Tang, the book situates it within the great transformations from the late Tang to the early Song, thoroughly analyzing its political institutions, economic structure, cultural achievements, and diplomatic dilemmas. Drawing fully on transmitted texts and archaeological findings, the author offers a layered, progressive interpretation of Li Bian's founding strategy, Emperor Yuanzong Li Jing's expansion and retrenchment, and the tragic fate of the Last Ruler Li Yu, with particularly incisive discussion of the tension between Southern Tang's high cultural flourishing and its political and military weakness. The book's assessments of key figures such as Han Xizai and Feng Yansi are also refreshingly original, breaking free from the constraints of traditional moralistic historiography. Reading this book not only provides solid knowledge about Southern Tang but also illuminates how, in a period of division, a regional regime attempted to construct its legitimacy, and how culture became a core force sustaining identity amid chaos. For readers who wish to move beyond the stereotype of a 'kingdom of poets' and understand Southern Tang through institutions, economy, and society, this is an indispensable professional work.