ABSTRACT
THE imperial Chinese political order of the second millennium was based on an information order that differed substantially from that of the first Chinese empires. Under the Song dynasty, social groups such as merchants, soldiers, traveling scholar-officials, and monks exchanged information across long distances. The state tapped into these networks of travelers and surveyed the population through the mediation of the subbureaucracy at the lowest levels of its administration. M ost striking in historical and comparative per spective is the expansion of a literati network disseminating, recy cling, and manufacturing official news and archival materials for literate elites regardless of their ranking or membership in the bureaucracy.
