The era that followed the collapse of Tang authority in the South is known conventionally but inadequately as the Ten Kingdoms; I call it “the interregnum” to convey more accurately its temporal and political character. It was a time of political devolution, of local warlords existing autonomously within larger state frameworks, of turmoil. Yet at the same time it was an era of vitality, experimentation, and innovation. The Quannan that emerged from this century was vastly different from the one that entered it. I shall deal with this more fully in later chapters; here and in the chapter that follows I shall try to probe beyond the frustratingly limited materials of the interregnum to suggest just what processes were under way that were to propel Quannan from the obscurity of the ninth century toward the prominence and wealth of the eleventh.

Political history

Before examining the broader transformations of the interregnum, it is important to review the unique politics of the period, for they provide a framework which was distinct from that of any other era and which was vital to all developments. Those politics began in 878 when Huang Chao and his rebel army swept through the South. As happened elsewhere, Huang's depredations in the northern part of Fujian prompted a local landowner of Jianzhou, one Chen Yan, to form a private army to chase him out. Just how great a role Chen's army actually played is debatable. Sources claim that his band of enraged peasants did what the remnant imperial forces could not – they chased Huang out of Fujian.