 Let us start with some context. From late-classical times down into the early Song, the term “faction” (pengdang) was invariably derogatory, referring to associations of “petty people” who aimed to use their roles in government to further their own, selfish ends. There is a certain degree of support for this understanding of “faction” in even earlier texts, but it is significant for our purposes that some passages in early texts like Confucius’s Analects also suggest that superior people (junzi) can form associations, so long as they do not act in partisan ways (Levine 2008: 25–6 and 34–5; LY 12:24). A key question that emerges in the midst of the political and intellectual wrangling of the Northern Song is whether horizontal affiliations among equals are in any way appropriate, or whether the only axis of loyalty is the vertical one, from individuals upward to the ruler (and beyond, to the Way or to cosmic Pattern tianli]).