AFTER the final disintegration of the Tang Empire in 906, China
was plunged into more than a half century of political confusion
during which five extremely short-lived dynasties claimed imperial
paramountcy in rapid succession and ten separate kingdoms exerted
their autonomy in outlying areas by way of challenge. During the
sixty-seven years between .907 and 974 hardly a year passed without
warfare being waged in considerable portions of the country. Among
these so-called Five Dynasties the Post-Liang, the first and most
long-lived, only enjoyed a span of fifteen years ( 907-922), whereas
the Post-Han had only two emperors occupying the throne for a
mere four years. In addition to disturbances within the confines of
China, the confusion of the scene was further enhanced by con-
tinual encroachments of non-Chinese races upon the Middle Empire.
Occasionally the so-called emperors theoretically claiming sover-
eignty over China had to be so humble in their dealings with the
Khitans that in their official communications with that regime they
bestowed upon themselves the titles of sons and grandsons. None-
theless from the standpoint of cultural and literary advancement,
the picture was not one of unremitting gloom.

A major cultural accomplishment of the period was the rapid
progress in the art of printing. Beginnings of block printing in the
reproduction of books had already made their debut in the eighth
and ninth centuries and had accelerated the spread of both religious
and secular literature. Although the exact date of the acceleration
of Buddhist block printing cannot be accurately determined, huge
collected and comprehensive serial publications of Buddhist sūtras
had awakened in the minds of Confucian scholars the resolution to
compete keenly. This competition reached a culmination in 955
when all the Confucian classics were published under the auspices
of the state with Fêng Tao, a writer of some repute, in charge of
the supervision. In the last years of the T'ang Empire the slowness
of the process of making individual blocks must have been keenly
felt but it was not until the eleventh century that movable type was

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