(a) As far as I am concerned, the Song dynasty is best understood as “early modern” rather than “late imperial”, which can be justified from four aspects. And the aforementioned four aspects are respectively the demographic changes, urbanization and commercialization, technological innovations and cultural changes. To put it more specifically, the demographic changes in the Song dynasty is that the shift from North to Southeast happens in this period. Apart from that, the educated, elite gentry class can be compared to Tang aristocracy and there are more and more people becoming a member in the educated, elite gentry class. And the most important to say is that the civil service examination pervades in Northern Song and the concrete condition is that 100,000 men competed for 500 degrees. Or maybe it can be put in another way that only 0.5%, or 1 in 200 of the candidates passed the civil service examination. Though the pass rate of the candidates in the civil service examination is low, the appearance of such examination is already a great breakthrough.

And when it comes to the urbanization and commercialization, economic specialization has to be pointed out. People work in different ways in order to guarantee their economic source and the general division of people is scholars, farmers, artisans and merchants. As a result, regional specialization motivated economic efficiency and increased productivity so that the Song dynasty realizes sustained growth over three centuries. Also, it is at this period that the paper money begins to circulate in the market so that people can be able to have the medium for goods exchange. In addition, city layout is determined by commerce in this dynasty. Accordingly, Kaifeng (Bianjing) becomes the capital of Northern Song (960-1127) and that of the Southern Song (1127-1279) is Hangzhou (Lin’an). Based on this, there is no doubt that the implementation of economic specialization, the circulation of the paper money as well as the conducting of the city layout’s being determined by commerce all play a part in making the Song dynasty “early modern”.

As for the technological innovations, gunpower, compass and printing appear to be the most typical three ones. Detailed speaking, the first known use of gunpower, the first discernment of true north using a compass and the world’s first paper money all become possible in this dynasty, which can well suggest that the Song dynasty is really “early modern”. Furthermore, the rationale why the Song dynasty is technologically advanced lies in its gunpowder, incendiary weapons and superior navy. Just take the Song dynasty printing as an example, it can be further divided into the below few aspects: woodblock printing, Buddhist Canon, Confucian classics, commercial publishing and paper money. In this sense, it is not hard to detect the diversity of printing in the Song dynasty. The Buddhist Canon in the Song dynasty primarily lasts from 972 to 983 and there are altogether 130,000 blocks. At the same time, the movable type printing as well appears in the 11th century, which contributes to the modernity of the Song dynasty to a large extent.

Last but not the least, cultural changes can also be used to support the modernity of the Song dynasty. The rise of Neo-Confucianism and the foreign and domestic policy of wen (civil/literary principle) over wu (military) can be regarded as two primary cultural changes. As a matter of fact, the Song dynasty is one that emphasizes on coexistence and it does not treat the non-Chinese neighbors in a different way. In the meantime, the Guwen movement is another effective aspect to justify for the Song dynasty as “early modern”.