The Wu Region as Locality and as Empire

Abstract This essay uses the history of the Wu region in the first millennium ce to explore the relationship between locality and empire. Many major East Asian empires are considered to be “Chinese” and to have essentially similar characteristics which are largely independent of their local base. Recent work on the Jiankang Empire (third to sixth centuries ce , also known as the “southern dynasties”) has shown that it had an imperial culture which was quite different from Central Plains-based empires, and which is in part attributable to the distinctive culture of the local Wu region. The relationship can be further illustrated by linking those developments to evidence from the tenth century, when the Wu region again served as the core of a political regime with imperial pretentions.