"Favoring Their Own": Grain Embargoes in Southern Song China

Abstract

In 1215, a severe drought struck Southern China and threatened the food security of the circuits of Zhexi, Jiangdong, and Hubei in particular. The Fiscal Commissioner of Hubei circuit, Wu Rousheng 吳柔勝 (1154–1224), was commemorated in the Song shi for “begging to purchase [grain] in Hunan and actively implementing policies of famine relief, which saved the lives of countless people in the fifteen prefectures that suffered from the disaster” 乞糴於湖南, 大講荒政, 十五州被災之民, 全活者不可勝計. This narrative from Wu’s official biography depicts the cross-regional coordination of resources that allowed a competent administrator to handle food crises smoothly. However, the narrative glosses over Wu’s participation in intense inter-regional and intra-regional competitions over grain. In fact, one of Wu’s contemporaries lamented the “jurisdiction-centrism”2 of various administrators who safeguarded their own local resources in 1215: