Military institutions as a defining feature of the song dynasty

Abstract

Although the standard narrative of the Song dynasty is one of civil dominance over the military within the government and society, the institutional development of the government bureaucracy argues for a more nuanced description. The martial side of the government achieved parity in size with the civil side during the Song, exclusive of the army and its bureaucracy. Literati with civil exam degrees filled most of the upper ranks of this martial bureaucracy and therefore occupied themselves with martial, rather than civil, concerns on a day to day basis. A significant number of important civil literati spent most of their time on military tasks and military policy. Functionally then, in contrast to their ideology, many civil literati were militarized by their roles in the bureaucracy while they were controlling it.