In observing a multitude of biographies and funerary inscriptions, Hymes states that officials in the Northern Song era displayed a primary preoccupation with national interests, as they did not intervene in local or central government affairs for the benefit of their local prefecture or county. This trend was reversed in the Southern Song. Since the majority of central government officials in the Southern Song came from the macroregion of Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian, Hartwell and Hymes state that there was a great amount of ad hoc local interests represented in central government policies.