The Imperial Network in Ancient China

This book examines the emergence of imperial state in East Asia during the period ca. 400 BCE - 200 CE as a network-based process, showing how the geography of early interregional contacts south of the Yangzi River informed the directions of Sinitic state expansion.

Maxim Korolkov is Assistant Professor of premodern Chinese history at Heidelberg University and Research Associate at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. His work focuses on the economic and institutional change associated with the imperial state formation in ancient and early medieval East Asia.

1. Introduction 2. Before the Empire: the Middle Yangzi interaction space 3. Qin's southward expansion 4. The Qin Empire in the South: territoriality, organization, challenges 5. Local administration in the South 6. Resources and resource exploitation 7. Southern Borderlands after the Qin