To expand his territory, the early Chinese sovereign was obliged to neutralize or eliminate previous indigenous ritual formations, replacing or supplementing them with an imperial cult, installing a system of she, “altars of soil.” These altars were the territorializing marks of occupation. Aligned with these altars was the concurrent institution of the notion of de, the political charisma to which subservient areas owed allegiance. These two ritual structures – one concrete, the other conceptual – actively affected territorial administration. The limitations of the sovereign’s ritualized power, of the power of his “name” or reputation, were a clue to the limits of the central court’s formal administrative oversight. Distinctions between “internal” and “external” areas were in fact not so much militarily defined as administratively. But because of the frontier zones’ cultural heterogeneity (and physical distance), it was difficult for the sovereign to maintain unalloyed control over them. To extend or maintain his ritualized influence, the early Chinese sovereign exerted his prerogative to ritually change place names (gengming) and engaged in ritualized tours of inspection (xunshou). Through such activities, the monarch territorialized his realm, personally responding to any challenge to his sovereign authority.