Civil service examination records and political independence in the autonomous northeastern region during the second half of the Tang dynasty (755–907 C.E.)

After the devastating An Lushan Rebellion (755–763 C.E.), many substantial changes took place in the Tang empire (618–907 C.E.). One of the most significant was the establishment of autonomous military provinces in northeastern China. This article analyzes the geographical distribution of degree holders in the civil service examinations in the second half of the Tang dynasty (755–907 C.E.), to ask how it was affected by the political independence of these military provinces. We assemble a list of “hometowns” of each degree holder in the civil service examinations across this 153-year-period, and track the geographical distribution of degree holders’ hometowns. The results show that, the center of examination success moved away from the autonomous northeastern region in the second half of the Tang dynasty, and fewer degree holders had a northeastern hometown when the region was more politically independent. Based on these results, we suggest that political independence of the northeastern military provinces in this region may have loosened its social ties to the central government, as the autonomous provincial governments offered officeholding opportunities to distract elites from non-prominent clans from the civil service examination, and the growing political independence of the region prompted elites from great clans to leave the region, which accelerated the decline of the great clans with choronyms in the northeastern region during the second half of the Tang dynasty. These changes contributed to the cultivation of a distinctive meritocratic culture in the autonomous northeastern region.