Abstract: Since the Yuan Dynasty when China became a united sovereignty, there appeared various new prosodic systems. Zhou Deqing (1277-1365) made great efforts to dismiss The Broad Rimes (guangyun, compiled from 1007 to 1008 under the auspices of Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty) and to construct a new prosodic system based on the musical verse from the northern part of China so as to promote it into the system of "the Central Land Elegant Prosody (zhongyun yayun)." He claimed that the orthodox prosody should be in the Music Bureau verse from the North while the verse from the South was merely a verse of conquered nations. This debate over the Southern and the Northern verse reflected various debates in literary thoughts, history studies and neo-Confucian philosophy and eventually influenced the making of the ritual music in the Ming Dynasty. As a result, the string-based official tonal scheme (xiansuo guanqiang), which was primarily based on the verse from the North with reference to the verse from the South, became dominant and prevailed in the Yongle-Xuande Reigns (1403-1435). However, Yang Weizhen (1296-1370) objected to taking the music bureau verse as the orthodox sound scheme and promoted his idea of natural disposition, while Liu Ji (1311-1375) and his circle began to use the verse from the South as a gesture of reprimanding the politics. Their efforts had already been an initiative in constructing a new prosodic system and an indication of the overall revival of the verse from the South.

Key words: the Yuan-Ming Dynasties, the revival of the literary past, Music Bureau, Central Land Prosody, string-based official tonal scheme, the verse from the North and the South